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Mr. Scotts natural voice

Not only was his "scots" accent not that great, pretty much every voice he did in TAs sounds like Doohan "doing a voice" rather than a distinct character.
I thought his voice characters in TOS were excellent. I never knew he was the voice of Sargon until I read it on this board.
I thought his Scottish accent was OK. Good enough for what they were trying to get across.
 
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Doohan’s “Irish-ness” is arguably irrelevant (esp. to those who like to argue),but not wrong. I bet he could have pulled off a more credible Irish accent than Scots based on his upbringing, had that been the decided background of the character. By the way, I looked into it and based on his birthday and when his parents emigrated, James Doohan must have been conceived in Ireland. :)

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Doohan-10#_note-1
 
Doohan's Scotty voice is hardly as accurate as, say, Simon Pegg's ( English, but it's at least closer geographically and his wife is Scottish so he had access to a good trainer ;) ), but for a 1960s American TV series it's not too bad. I've heard worse.

I'm just waiting for a real Scot to get the panties in a wad over Doohan's "cultural appropriation." :guffaw:

:lol:
 
I never said it was perfect.

No reason to. It was a very good accent and I have to wonder about which sort of Scottish people some vocal critics (pun not intended) of it have allegedly been listening to. Next someone will claim that Fitz on S.H.I.E.L.D. or David Tennant (in roles where he doesn't go with the English accent) doesn't sound authentic. For a language spoken by relatively few people, the accents of the area vary extremely widely. But, you know, no true Scotsman and all that . . . :shrug::biggrin:
 
To be fair, if the Picard family is representative of future French accents, then it seems like homogeneity in culture is the norm :guffaw:

Oh, the Picards who fought at Trafalgar? Still wondering what they were thinking with that line . . . .
 
How does anyone know what a Scottish accent will sound like in the future? Don't accents change over time? What does an American accent sound like now? Boston, New York, Alabama, California, Montana all sound different. I think the same must be true for all languages. The sound changes over space and time.

The thing I like about both Scotty and Chekov is that, even if their accents are not accurate for our time, their accents are unique and constant.
 
Genuine Scotsman Craig Ferguson once said that Scotty sounded like a mentally-challenged Pakistani man to real Scots. :lol:
 
What is the problem with the line?

No idea. :confused:

Trafalgar was fought by the British Royal Navy against the combined French & Spanish navies. I'm sure Picard had ancestors in all three of those groups.

(We know his family has an extensive French background, and he has at least one Spanish ancestor as well. So it's not exactly a stretch.)

Genuine Scotsman Craig Ferguson once said that Scotty sounded like a mentally-challenged Pakistani man to real Scots. :lol:

I wonder what he thinks of Simon Pegg's version.

And now that I think about it, Craig Ferguson himself would make a pretty good Scotty...
 
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What is the problem with the line?

For me it's a bit of a hot mess on many levels. First, I can assure you from personal knowledge that no French military officer romanticizes the Battle of Trafalgar. I think the writers were thinking that Picard's ancestor fought on the side of the British (see also dialogue with Guinan admiring Nelson in some TNG ep - - BOBW maybe), but the painting shows otherwise and Picard, despite a robust English accent and zero French cultural affectations or influences, was indeed born in France IIRC. It also highlights the fact that they gave Patrick Stewart a French name, which has always been a bit puzzling. I'm just pretty sure it was a goof.
 
Given his wife is Scottish and he lives in Scotland, I bet USS Intrepid here would be a pretty good judge of Doohan's accuracy or lack of.
 
Character wise Scotty was a Scottish man who had spent a lot of his life living in space so may have had his accent dulled a bit due to contamination with other brogues from different people, countries and alien races!
JB
 
It’s a far better accent than Simon Pegg’s....... The number of times Pegg said “Lassie” in the last film was horrendous.

When I was growing up, I was very disappointed to find out Doohan was Canadian. I’m Scottish!
 
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