HALIFAX, NS—When Leonard McLeod picked his daughter up from the airport, he expected her to be tanned and jet lagged. He did not expect her to be speaking with a British accent.

"It was a bit alarming at first," McLeod explains. "She gets off the plane and says, 'Father, are we going to the car park?' And I think, 'Who is this clearly British person and where is my daughter?'"

Paige McLeod, who grew up in downtown Dartmouth, left Canada for the first time last month on a trip to Spain. On her way home, she had a three-hour layover at London's Heathrow airport. While waiting in line at a Starbucks, a man complimented her backpack.

"Without even thinking, I said 'cheers' instead of 'thanks,'" she said. "I was like, 'Cheers you very much, sir'... It just... it just slipped out."

Since then, McLeod has spoken with an accent some have described as "a punch-drunk Mary Poppins." McLeod insists this isn't a conscious decision.

"I've always felt a primal connection to traditionally English things," McLeod said, inexplicably pronouncing 'things' as 'fings'. "I can't really explain it. I love the Spice Girls, driving on the wrong side of the road, all that."

Lara Corrigan, McLeod's coworker and actual British person, said the transformation was shocking. At first, she thought McLeod was cruelly mocking her own accent, until she realized something much more serious was going on.

"The other day it was cloudy, and Paige said, 'Tut-tut, looks like rain,'" Corrigan said, rolling her eyes. "That's not even really a British saying as much as it's a Winnie the Pooh quote."

Corrigan expressed frustration with her colleague's need to take more frequent 'tea breaks' at work and showing up late for shifts due to being 'on London time.'

Despite having been back in Canada for a number of weeks, Corrigan swears McLeod's accent is growing increasingly thicker.

"She sounds like if Jason Statham inhaled a helium balloon," Corrigan said.

When asked whether she had plans to drop the accent, McLeod was incredulous.

"Accent? I'm not sure what you're on about," she giggled, adjusting her sparkling Union Jack ball cap. "Oh, silly me, I forget where I am sometimes. I'm not sure what you're talking about."

Leonard McLeod, however, could not be more delighted by his daughter's new identity, stating that he's relieved she's abandoned North American slang like 'on fleek' and 'turnt' for classier sounding terms like 'knackered' and 'taking the piss.'

"Her accent has great way of telling people, 'yes, I am a well-traveled and interesting person' without ever having to show us a single vacation slide," he said. "She sounds smart, like a young Dame Edna."