Patrick Stewart is apparently an expert on cow accents

Sir Patrick Stewart is an exemplary member of the human race, and it's moments like this that make it so.

The British actor (and amateur lobster and late-in-life pizza lover) got on the phone with NPR podcast How To Do Everything to answer a listener's questions about cow regional accents.

"In England, we're dominated by class, by social status and by location," Stewart explains, matter-of-factly. "So, for example, a cow that is in the field next to my house in West Oxfordshire would moo in one kind of way, and a cow in a field in the semi-industrial town I grew up in in the North of England would moo in another kind of way."

While Stewart's explanations (and his amazing impressions of various cow dialects) border on the ridiculous, he's not making this stuff up: Cows really do have regional accents.

"In small populations such as herds you would encounter identifiable dialectical variations which are most affected by the immediate peer group," explained John Wells, a professor of phonetics at the University of London. "This phenomenon is well attested in birds. You find distinct chirping accents in the same species around the country. This could also be true of cows."

Take a listen to hear Stewart give his take on well-bred cows, American cows, and even Cockney cows.

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