Not that I ever watched it of course. It was in the [cough] historical archives. Actually we werent' allowed to watch ITV as kids. My parents thought it was degenerate.
Why don't Americans have a British Accent?
- Thread starter Brent
- Start date
Not that I ever watched it of course. It was in the [cough] historical archives. Actually we werent' allowed to watch ITV as kids. My parents thought it was degenerate.
I misheard them, yeah. I now distinctly remember them mentioning West-country. But Wurzel Gummidge? Really?
Anyway, I do believe it was designed to be intentionally vague.
All right. First, there's not "a" British accent. Britain has several very different accents. Dozens, in fact.
Second...no. The US southern drawl doesn't sound at all like NRP (non-regional received pronunciation)... to me at least.
But then again I don't know anything about American accents, so I might be wrong about that.
Firstly, there is no "Southern" accent, as the variation between a West Texas accent and an Augustan accent are pretty extreme. There's also Mississippi Delta, Blue and Smokey Mountain, Carolinian and, of course, Cajun, to name but a few. Some are only subtly different, while others are different enough to count as dialects.
Secondly, Hollywood's version of 'Southern' accent is terrible and usually completely lacking in the subtleties found within the real ones. They have gotten better at this over the years, but Tinseltown still has to get over its bias against real Southern accents.
Southern accents on the whole are softer on the R's, which is why some words seem to be pronounced similarly to English accents. It makes it easier for some British actors to pull it off. However, it's also quite divergent in pronunciation, cadence and tonality. The flat A's, soft consonant stops and heavy drawl, make it sound quite unlike any English accent.
It might be better to say that Southern accents are the least divergent, owing to the lack of fusion with immigrant accents that define the Northeast, but not that they're anything like any modern English accent.
The most English-like accents in North America tend to be concentrated in coastal New England and around Newfoundland, as well as some parts of Virginia.
Secondly, Hollywood's version of 'Southern' accent is terrible and usually completely lacking in the subtleties found within the real ones. They have gotten better at this over the years, but Tinseltown still has to get over its bias against real Southern accents.
Southern accents on the whole are softer on the R's, which is why some words seem to be pronounced similarly to English accents. It makes it easier for some British actors to pull it off. However, it's also quite divergent in pronunciation, cadence and tonality. The flat A's, soft consonant stops and heavy drawl, make it sound quite unlike any English accent.
It might be better to say that Southern accents are the least divergent, owing to the lack of fusion with immigrant accents that define the Northeast, but not that they're anything like any modern English accent.
The most English-like accents in North America tend to be concentrated in coastal New England and around Newfoundland, as well as some parts of Virginia.
Texans are not Southerners. Texas is considered Southwest, as is Oklahoma. Texans and Oklahomans speak with a drawl, and in many cases have a twang in their speech pattern. Get to Missouri and Arkansas, and that drawl softens more toward something akin to a true Southerner. For example, I work with someone from Arkansas (I'm from the Great Lakes area) and couldn't understand for the life of me why he was asking me if I had to "Call the fahr tahr" when I burned a pile of brush one weekend. After repeating himself several times, he said, "You know, where the Park Rangers look out."
Me: "Oh...The Fire Tower?"
Him: "That's wut ah sed. Fahr Tahr."
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I'm not sure I hear Bristolian in it. I think it's likely supposed to be a generic 'West Country'/'farmer' accent, to infer that Sam's a simple farmer (who has a wildly different accent to his neighbour who lives 30 feet away all his life but never mind!). It's not particularly tied to a real location though, it doesn't have any of the quirks that define Bristolian and he doesn't have the clipped consonants and drawn out vowels of Devon. He speaks a bit fast for Somerset (
) but that's probably closest.
Pardon me; Smoky Mountain, no "e." Common mistake I make myself sometimes, and my families are from there.
Wrong again, I guess. I'll just shut up now. Except to say I always loved the way many southerners say "fire".
I suppose that the person who compared "the" British accent (that doesn't exist) to "the" Southern accent (that doesn't exist) is American...?
Like I said, I have no idea, because I can hardly tell a Texan from someone from Michigan.
It's just as annoying when people talk about "the" British accent. It's not that simple.
Like I said, I have no idea, because I can hardly tell a Texan from someone from Michigan.
It's just as annoying when people talk about "the" British accent. It's not that simple.
You have GOT to be kidding
A native Texan compared to a native Michigander are about as different as peas are to carrots.
Truth is, there are way too many frickin' accents in America. I'm from Illinois, and we have 3 distinct accents in this one state alone. People from Chicago have a completely different accent than people from the suburbs, who have a drastically different accent than people in the southern part of the state. And that's just in ONE of FIFTY states!
You have GOT to be kidding
I don't know anybody from Michigan, but my Dad was from Texas so I can agree with this.
I am kidding... or at least exaggerating. I used to live in Michigan.
I don't know much about American accents, but it's not that bad.
I don't know much about American accents, but it's not that bad.
Illinois is 7 times the size of Wales, and you have only 3 distinct accents?
There's more than that between three adjacent valleys in some parts of Britain.
Well, a lot of Illinois is big open fields where nobody lives.
And there are only 3 accents that I know of. I would not be surprised if there were more. I'm just saying that it's impossible to try and qualify things like "southern accent" or "northeast accent" because chances are these regions have dozens of their own sub-accents.
Sometimes British actors doing American accents sound funny because - as in the case of John Barrowman - they so clearly come from nowhere. Every American has a local accent of some kind, but British actors often don't. Which is especially interesting in Barrowman's case, as he grew up here.
My ancestors (all of them) came from Ireland. My family has a Boston accent. We are Catholics. To us a British accent reminds us of oppression. When Wm. F. Buckley, a New Yorker, affected a British accent, it sounded very wrong, especially as his father was Irish. Semiotics are weird. To some a rabbit means fast, to others it means soup. Similarly, to some a British accent sounds intelligent, but to others it sounds like the oppressor.
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