Why don't Americans have a British Accent?

[CommanderRaytas]

I doubt you could feel this way listening to a real, natural accent from the Isles, something that isn't NRP....and btw, nobody actually talks like that. At least hardly anybody.

And oh, about Brits imitating the American accent and then sounding like they're from nowhere...the same thing works the other way around.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

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!

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.

I was thinking that. There's probably at least 3 accents in this city. They're all Yorkshire accents, but the most common is a nasally flat one, then there's a broader more Yorkshire sounding one, then there's a softer one.

 

[scotpens]

. . . 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."

PARTIAL TEXAN DICTIONARY:

awl -- That black liquid stuff that comes up from the ground
bidness -- Trade, profession, e.g., "Mah family's in the awl bidness."
farscape -- The outside emergency stairs on older buildings
hail -- Place of punishment in the afterlife
harket -- What the barber gives you
hep -- To aid or assist
mere -- Reflecting surface
prior -- Speaking to the Deity
tarred -- Fatigued, exhausted

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.

William F. Buckley NEVER sounded British. And, for that matter, neither does Madonna.

And to the Australians, a rabbit means only one thing: a PEST!

. . . As for American accents, I can identify the "newscast" accent (I guess that's Midwest), a Southern drawl, and a Noo Yawk-ish accent.

Most American broadcasters speak with a neutral, non-regional accent -- the equivalent of British Standard Received pronunciation.

It took me a long time to differentiate between Australian and New Zealand accents, but I can pretty much tell them apart now. Kiwis cramp their vowels even more than Aussies do!

 

[TorontoTrekker]

When I was in university, I spent three terms in Ottawa working for Radarsat. I'd have to take a cab across town a few times every week, and inevitably, the driver would hear me ask to be taken to our Nepean office, and he would say, "Are you British?"

Funny thing was, I had a roommate who actually was British (he was born in Norwich). He said, "You don't sound at all British. Mind you, you don't sound Ontarian, either. I can't tell what your accent is."

OTOH, when I was in Chicago for the 2000 Worldcon, there was a young lady who latched onto me because of my Canadian accent. Every time she saw me she'd run up to me and say, "Say 'out'! Say 'out'!" And when I said "out", she'd start jumping up and down giggling.

So I guess my accent is in the ear of the beholder. (Or maybe it changes, depending on where I am and whom I'm talking to - I did once manage to keep up a conversation with an Aussie I'd just met, using an Australian accent for about 15 minutes. He finally said, "So, mate, where ya from Down Under?" I changed back to my normal voice and said, "Actually, I'm from Toronto." He got a kick out of it.)

Michael Hogan (of BSG fame) probably has one of the strongest Canadian accents you'll ever hear.

I saw him on stage a few times last year, and he told a story about how every so often, a director on BSG would say to him, "You're getting a little regional there, Hogan!" He was actually trying to tone it down.

There are, of course, regional distinctions even there and I find the Newfoundland accent particularly perplexing (I'm guessing it's more of a dialect than accent).

Little bit of column A, little bit of column B. They have phrases heard nowhere else in Canada, but they also have a very strong accent. "Lard t'underin' Jaysus, b'y!"

 

[Deckerd]

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.

Give me an example of a British accent that oppresses you please. Then tell me how you were personally oppressed by anyone from the UK.

 

[Q2UnME]

. . . As for American accents, I can identify the "newscast" accent (I guess that's Midwest), a Southern drawl, and a Noo Yawk-ish accent.

Most American broadcasters speak with a neutral, non-regional accent -- the equivalent of British Standard Received pronunciation.

Actually, the "newcast" accent is very prevalent in the Great Lakes area of the US. I'm in Buffalo, NY and the same accent can be found from here, through Cleveland, OH, over into Michigian and into Chicago. I've traveled A LOT in the Great Lakes region and most folks I run into automatically assume I'm a "local"; no discernable difference in accent. And yes, we all sound like we should be reading the news...

Q2UnME

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Yeah, it was an original accent that people thought would work well for the news because it was easy to understand. Since then, it's caught on more through the power of television.

Apparently, 20 or 30 years ago in Philly, you could turn on the news and hear traffic delays on the "Wall Women Bridge". Now you only hear about the Walt Whitman Bridge because they either hired non-locals or locals adapted their pronunciation so the t in Whitman is clearly pronounced.

I'm tempted to talk about how this wasn't the first time in the English language. Henry V attempted to standardize English by adapting a dialect around London, but modifying some of their more confusing things or how modern Italian is based on the Florentine dialect, but dropping some of their more retarded things (no offense to Florentines, but the first person singular form of vedere shouldn't be veggio), but I'm not an expert on this (reading Petrarch or a wikipedia article on Middle English doesn't make me an expert in Italian or English language history).

BTW, the language diversity in the United States is certainly less than Britain. Slow communication and sometimes complete isolation contributed to a Europe that is horribly linguistically fragmented. It's only been since the 19th Century that places like Germany and Italy had an opportunity to impose any kind of standardization on dialects. Britain and France seems to have done so earlier with a unified state, but there are still many notable accents. In the United States, population density and diversity on the east coast seems to have created lots of accents, but, as one moves west, the diversity declines (less time to develop differences, not a high population density, and a more modern education system are three reasons I can think of off the top of my head). But I'm sure someone from the midwest could tell the differences a lot more clearly than I can.

 

[bluedana]

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.

I was thinking the same thing about Boston accents this week, while watching Thirteen Days. (Really, Kevin Costner?) I know they were doing the Kennedy Boston Accent, but it felt like being hit repeatedly with a bat. (Note to H'wood: we do have an "R" in our alphabet, and we do use it sometimes, and not only in words like "area.") I'm born and raised in the Boston area(r) and I had to put on the subtitles when watching The Departed on DVD.

 

[Deckerd]

BTW, the language diversity in the United States is certainly less than Britain. Slow communication and sometimes complete isolation contributed to a Europe that is horribly linguistically fragmented.

Inbreeding too. When a whole Kentish village is related to each other, the language is going to be 'special' too.

 

[KimMH]

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 grew up in Mich and always felt badly that we didn't seem to have an interesting accent - to us we sounded like newscasters. My daddy's family is from Kentucky and our visits there were always a linguistic adventure! If you can believe it the way they spoke seemed exotic!

 

[iguana_tonante]

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.

We have about 35 different languages in Italy, some as different from Standard Italian as Spanish or French. And all of them come with at least a dozen dialects and inflections.

how modern Italian is based on the Florentine dialect, but dropping some of their more retarded things (no offense to Florentines, but the first person singular form of vedere shouldn't be veggio), but I'm not an expert on this (reading Petrarch or a wikipedia article on Middle English doesn't make me an expert in Italian or English language history).

Ah, veggio che codesto bischero dileggia la parlata mia natia!

(No, not really. You are totally right about Florentines. They are quite crazy. )

 

[TorontoTrekker]

Actually, the "newcast" accent is very prevalent in the Great Lakes area of the US. I'm in Buffalo, NY and the same accent can be found from here, through Cleveland, OH, over into Michigian and into Chicago.

I don't know about that... I was born and raised here in Toronto, and my mother always insisted on watching Eyewitness News on channel 7 in Buffalo, with Irv Weinstein. I could hear a difference in accent between him and, say, Knowlton Nash on CBC.

One night, I got fed up and asked my mother why we were watching the news about the six-alarm blaze in North Tonawanda when we didn't live there. She said, "Fine, change the channel," so I changed it to a Toronto station. After about a minute, she said, sarcastically, "Don't Canadians have such wonderful, interesting accents?"

(Since she was born and raised here too, I'm not sure what her problem with Canadian accents is.)

As for Southern accents, my ex-bf was born in Germantown, TN, raised in Memphis, and lives in Atlanta, GA, and has no real discernible Southern accent. OTOH, I have friends in Atlanta who have a very strong one. I'm not sure why my ex doesn't.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Was he military, maybe? Or did he do a lot of traveling? That causes some people to lose accents (and others, like me, as a military brat, to pick up accents like a collector).

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

As much time as I spend in New York City, I'm surprised I haven't picked up that accent. I wish I could, 'cuz I like it! I wish I could talk like that. I wish there was like a Berlitz course for a NY accent.

 

[thestrangequark]

^Which NY accent -- there are more than one! I've stumbled into a few Brooklyn pronunciations, much to the delight of my mother, who loves to tease me about it. I still sound like a Seattlite, though, even after nine years here.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I know there's a lot of NY accents (probably depending on borough), but I don't know which is which. I mean, I've probably heard lots of Bronx accents, Brooklyn accents, Manhattan accents, etc., but if you asked me something like "what does somebody from the South Bronx sound like", for example, I couldn't answer that.

For instance, the waitress at Katz's, the one who always calls me 'cheesesteak man' (seriously. She does. Go ahead and ask her! ), has a pronounced NY accent, but I don't know what kind.

 

[TorontoTrekker]

Was he military, maybe? Or did he do a lot of traveling? That causes some people to lose accents (and others, like me, as a military brat, to pick up accents like a collector).

No, his parents were both civil servants (FDIC, I think?). He's certainly never been in the military (if he had been, he probably still would be - he's 24). And the only travelling he's done has been short vacations.

He does have family up north, though, so that may be part of it.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

That's probably it. Your early influences in life can really have a major effect on you, regardless of what you encounter later on.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

how modern Italian is based on the Florentine dialect, but dropping some of their more retarded things (no offense to Florentines, but the first person singular form of vedere shouldn't be veggio), but I'm not an expert on this (reading Petrarch or a wikipedia article on Middle English doesn't make me an expert in Italian or English language history).

Ah, veggio che codesto bischero dileggia la parlata mia natia!

(No, not really. You are totally right about Florentines. They are quite crazy. )

Non si preoccupe. Non sono serio. I just had to read too much Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio last semester, that's all

 

[Yoda]

]

PARTIAL TEXAN DICTIONARY:

awl -- That black liquid stuff that comes up from the ground
bidness -- Trade, profession, e.g., "Mah family's in the awl bidness."
farscape -- The outside emergency stairs on older buildings
hail -- Place of punishment in the afterlife
harket -- What the barber gives you
hep -- To aid or assist
mere -- Reflecting surface
prior -- Speaking to the Deity
tarred -- Fatigued, exhausted

There's a Texan I work with who one day was asking if any of us had ever watched that TV show called "Fire Escape"... nobody had... then he starts talking about it in a bit more detail and I realized he was talking about Farscape! What threw me off I think is how long that first a sound drags on. But yeah, he basically says Farscape how you would expect them to say Fire Escape, which indeed sounds like Farscape... if that makes any sense

I like the Texan accent just fine, Boston and Canada are probably the most grating for me. As for England only having one accent to our ears over here... it's not exactly true. There are two... you got the one that we can understand, and then the one that's completely incomprehensible . Oh wait, there's also the Chimney Sweep accent, so I guess you get three.