How a Fake British Accent Took Old Hollywood by Storm(atlasobscura.com)
atlasobscura.com
How a Fake British Accent Took Old Hollywood by Storm
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-a-fake-british-accent-took-old-hollywood-by-storm
15 comments
" . . . sometimes called the Mid-Atlantic Accent, which is deeply offensive to those, like me, from the actual Mid-Atlantic . . . "
" . . . elocution class is wildly offensive to most of the modern linguists . . . "
What is it with this childish writing, being "deeply, wildly" offended at, instead of disagreeing with? Its the wrinting caliber of a young teen, and it seems to be popular.
" . . . elocution class is wildly offensive to most of the modern linguists . . . "
What is it with this childish writing, being "deeply, wildly" offended at, instead of disagreeing with? Its the wrinting caliber of a young teen, and it seems to be popular.
Mermaid infiltration style? Colour me also more than slightly intrigued by this idea of being from the "actual Mid-Atlantic"- which was an ocean last time anybody checked.
> Colour me also more than slightly intrigued by this idea of being from the "actual Mid-Atlantic"- which was an ocean last time anybody checked.
That is exactly why "mid-atlantic accent" is called that[0]. It's halfway between American and British, and it's the native accent of somewhere indistinct where nobody is actually from.
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[0] Also, since apparently this needs to be explicitly stated in this ridiculous, Gell-Mann-Effect-in-full-force HN thread: "mid-atlantic accent" and "trans-atlantic accent" are synonyms. They are different words for the same thing. BOTH ARE RIGHT.
That is exactly why "mid-atlantic accent" is called that[0]. It's halfway between American and British, and it's the native accent of somewhere indistinct where nobody is actually from.
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[0] Also, since apparently this needs to be explicitly stated in this ridiculous, Gell-Mann-Effect-in-full-force HN thread: "mid-atlantic accent" and "trans-atlantic accent" are synonyms. They are different words for the same thing. BOTH ARE RIGHT.
I was under the same impression. I thought they called it the "mid-atlantic" accent because it was halfway between the US and British accent. Boy do I feel stupid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_states
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_states
It is called a "mid-Atlantic" accent because it's halfway between American and British; it has nothing to do with mid-Atlantic states. The author even acknowledges this in the sentence immediately following the one where she claims to be deeply offended: "What that name means in this case is that the accent can be placed somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, halfway between New England and England".
This is simply poor writing.
This is simply poor writing.
[deleted]
> " . . . sometimes called the Mid-Atlantic Accent, which is deeply offensive to those, like me, from the actual Mid-Atlantic . . . "
Speak to any acting coach: it's more frequently called a Trans-Atlantic accent.
Edit: be less absolute.
Speak to any acting coach: it's more frequently called a Trans-Atlantic accent.
Edit: be less absolute.
> This is incorrect anyway
Even the Wikipedia article is titled "Mid-atlantic accent": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent
What is it about this article that seems to so efficiently be bringing the armchair prescriptivists out of the woodwork?
Even the Wikipedia article is titled "Mid-atlantic accent": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent
What is it about this article that seems to so efficiently be bringing the armchair prescriptivists out of the woodwork?
As wikipedia mentions, don't cite wikipedia itself. The first reference on the site prefers 'Transatlantic' too: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/08/oh-old-timey-m...
Key word: prefers.
The grandparent comment is framing this as "that word is wrong, because in the context I've encountered it in, we used this other, right, word".
When, assuredly meeting whatever measure you might use to qualify this besides the GP poster's personal experience (... though they do seem to recognize its meaning well enough), "mid-atlantic accent" and "trans-atlantic accent" are synonyms.
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Like, here's how this conversation looks in a different domain:
Article: ... so I found this horrific spaghetti code for traversing the tree ...
GGP comment: What is with this childish writing, being "horrific spaghetti" code, instead of not-yet-organized? It's the writing calibre of a young teen, and it seems to be popular. [actual quote. this is the thread we are participating in.]
GP comment: This is incorrect anyway. Speak to any network administrator: it's called iterating
me: Even the wikipedia article says "Traversing a tree involves iterating over all nodes in some manner"
you: As wikipedia mentions, don't cite wikipedia itself. The first reference on that article prefers "iterating".
The grandparent comment is framing this as "that word is wrong, because in the context I've encountered it in, we used this other, right, word".
When, assuredly meeting whatever measure you might use to qualify this besides the GP poster's personal experience (... though they do seem to recognize its meaning well enough), "mid-atlantic accent" and "trans-atlantic accent" are synonyms.
----
Like, here's how this conversation looks in a different domain:
Article: ... so I found this horrific spaghetti code for traversing the tree ...
GGP comment: What is with this childish writing, being "horrific spaghetti" code, instead of not-yet-organized? It's the writing calibre of a young teen, and it seems to be popular. [actual quote. this is the thread we are participating in.]
GP comment: This is incorrect anyway. Speak to any network administrator: it's called iterating
me: Even the wikipedia article says "Traversing a tree involves iterating over all nodes in some manner"
you: As wikipedia mentions, don't cite wikipedia itself. The first reference on that article prefers "iterating".
You're right, I was way too absolutist there. Edited.
You still shouldn't cite wikipedia!
You still shouldn't cite wikipedia!
Why on Earth not?!?
Wikipedia is where lots of good cites are collected; quote any single one of them and you get only that single one. Quote the Wikipedia page and you get all of them. What's wrong with people, unable to click through to those further cites? (Mouse broken exactly as the WP page opened, or what?) Judging from the "Even the first WP cite prefers..." comment above you seem to have managed it, so I really can't see what the problem with citing Wikipedia is supposed to be.
Is it OK to quote the Britannica? If not, why not? If yes, then why not Wikipedia too?
Wikipedia is where lots of good cites are collected; quote any single one of them and you get only that single one. Quote the Wikipedia page and you get all of them. What's wrong with people, unable to click through to those further cites? (Mouse broken exactly as the WP page opened, or what?) Judging from the "Even the first WP cite prefers..." comment above you seem to have managed it, so I really can't see what the problem with citing Wikipedia is supposed to be.
Is it OK to quote the Britannica? If not, why not? If yes, then why not Wikipedia too?
It's a little awkward because there is no authority on the meaning of a word beyond that some other people understand it in a particular way.
In that role, wikipedia is as good as any other source.
No explicit comment on the wider applicability of your rule in other circumstances. But when was the last time you critically reexamined it?
In that role, wikipedia is as good as any other source.
No explicit comment on the wider applicability of your rule in other circumstances. But when was the last time you critically reexamined it?
I didn't find the author credible because of their statements going back 'centuries' ("Skinner created one of the most non-neutral accents in the past few centuries" repeated somewhere else in the article which I didn't find just now), but despite this I found it interesting. I looked for youtube clips from several films mentioned, to come to my own conclusion. They matched what the author reports.
So I enjoyed the article but (for myself) didn't necessarily judge the historical account to be accurate. Just read it with a grain of salt.
So I enjoyed the article but (for myself) didn't necessarily judge the historical account to be accurate. Just read it with a grain of salt.
What's with this trend of calling an author's writing "childish" instead of saying you don't care for his style?
The first thing is obviously playful hyperbole, but I don't know about "childish".
But, regarding your second quote... if you bring up the idea of a way of speaking being "better" or "worse" to a modern linguist, trust, me: you will understand why the author uses "wildly offended" instead of just "offended".
If the author had just kept it at "The entire concept of an elocution class is offensive to most of the modern linguists I know", that would not at all be sufficiently conveying the degree to which the idea of a prescribed elocution class is violently at odds with everything most modern linguists believe in.
But, regarding your second quote... if you bring up the idea of a way of speaking being "better" or "worse" to a modern linguist, trust, me: you will understand why the author uses "wildly offended" instead of just "offended".
If the author had just kept it at "The entire concept of an elocution class is offensive to most of the modern linguists I know", that would not at all be sufficiently conveying the degree to which the idea of a prescribed elocution class is violently at odds with everything most modern linguists believe in.
> if you bring up the idea of a way of speaking being "better" or "worse" to a modern linguist, trust, me: you will understand why the author uses "wildly offended" instead of just "offended".
Not all modern linguists are descriptivists; some are in fact prescriptivists. It is a pretty fundamental personality divide: some people take the world as it is, others as it could be (or ought to be).
Not all modern linguists are descriptivists; some are in fact prescriptivists. It is a pretty fundamental personality divide: some people take the world as it is, others as it could be (or ought to be).
Point me towards a single modern academic prescriptive linguist with publicly-available writing in english, and I will be grateful and fascinated.
Even just a single modern prescriptive linguist, without any of those other qualifiers. I would genuinely love to see it.
Even just a single modern prescriptive linguist, without any of those other qualifiers. I would genuinely love to see it.
Geoff Nunberg certainly sounds like he's prescriptive in at least some ways: http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Fall_2016/ling001/Nunberg....
Granted, it's from 1983, but Dr. Nunberg is still alive & writing.
My own thought is that the question, 'is linguistics descriptive or prescriptive?' is as wrong as the question, 'is salvation through faith or through works?' Linguistics can both describe language as she is spoke and prescribe the best ways to speak. There's nothing inherent in describing current practise that obligates one to applaud that practise; nor is there anything inherent in prescribing better use that prevents one from recognising that other uses exist.
The logical end of stating that all that matters is describing language as it's used, and not bothering to prescribe the best ways to use it, as to both not end up meaning-stand @talk.
Granted, it's from 1983, but Dr. Nunberg is still alive & writing.
My own thought is that the question, 'is linguistics descriptive or prescriptive?' is as wrong as the question, 'is salvation through faith or through works?' Linguistics can both describe language as she is spoke and prescribe the best ways to speak. There's nothing inherent in describing current practise that obligates one to applaud that practise; nor is there anything inherent in prescribing better use that prevents one from recognising that other uses exist.
The logical end of stating that all that matters is describing language as it's used, and not bothering to prescribe the best ways to use it, as to both not end up meaning-stand @talk.
Offensive can also mean something inducing disgust, as in "an offensive odor." That's actually the older usage for it. I've been reading some older novels lately and saw "offensive" used in that way a lot.
Hmm. That's the meaning I usually hear it used for. What other meaning are you talking about?
The other meaning is referring to something that is racist/sexist/etc. I suppose technically that's still "inducing disgust" but it's different enough to be considered a separate definition. For instance, I'm offended by the state of some of the code at work, but I'm not filing an HR complaint about it :)
I always took that usage to come from the idea of offending one's sensibilities.
That's also how I took the author's use of offensive i.e. it offended his sensibility that mid-Atlantic has two meanings (or whatever it was that he was offended by).
That's also how I took the author's use of offensive i.e. it offended his sensibility that mid-Atlantic has two meanings (or whatever it was that he was offended by).
I read it as he doesn't like the accent, and doesn't like that it's associated with him. It's a joke, a pun on the two meanings of "mid-Atlantic"
Shall I fetch your smoking jacket and a brandy so you may tell us how real adults write?
I'll also not point out the elementary writing mistakes in your own comment.
I'll also not point out the elementary writing mistakes in your own comment.
It's just straight up bad writing. At least we weren't told to be horrified by anything.
I have worked with several people who were born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, which is about as mid-Atlantic as it gets. One had very earnestly replaced her accent with that of her adopted Austin, Texas. The other two tried to outdo each other in snobbishness whenever there was a conflict. I don't find it to be a very pleasant accent, but then again, I'm not from there.
I was trying to find some sort of self-deprecating humour to explain this kind of obvious hyperbole, but it's not there. If the author was a linguist worth their salt, then they should know the perils of normalising such statements against trivial concepts.
How did that many words get used with out once calling it the "Trans-Atlantic Accent"?
fwiw i've heard it called both "Trans-Atlantic" & "Mid-Atlantic"
[deleted]
Yes, I've mostly known it as being referred to as the TransAtlantic accent rather than mid-atlantic.
Decades ago, I remember it being called the "Mid-Atlantic accent". It was a joke, because it was an artificial accent. The name suggested both a blend of US and England, but also suggested, tongue in cheek, that it was the way people who lived in the middle of the Atlantic (in other words, nobody) actually spoke.
Edith Skinner is still taught in conservatory drama programs. I used Skinner at NYU 2004-2008. It's not a rare book at all (or maybe it's just not in a big city with lots of drama schools and training programs). Regardless of how outdated the Good Speech sound is in most contexts (you hear it in a lot of Shakespeare still that isn't RP), the book is an excellent source for learning the International Phonetic Alphabet and techniques for analyzing speech.
I have a lot of southern and mid western speech habits, and learning a rigorous framework for analyzing speech helped me get control over them.
I have a lot of southern and mid western speech habits, and learning a rigorous framework for analyzing speech helped me get control over them.
> “Each vowel sound is called a PURE SOUND, and the slightest movement or change in any of the organs of speech during the formation of a vowel will mar its purity, resulting in DIPHTHONGIZATION.”
I find this funny, as the monophthongal /e/ and /o/ sound utterly alien to American ears. So much so that switching from diphthong to monophthong pronunciations for those sounds is a quick-and-dirty way to fake a Scottish accent (yes, very quick and very dirty; nobody will believe your accent is real though they'll think you're trying to sound Scottish).
Edit: Forgot to include gemination marks here. Should be /e:/ and /o:/ above.
I find this funny, as the monophthongal /e/ and /o/ sound utterly alien to American ears. So much so that switching from diphthong to monophthong pronunciations for those sounds is a quick-and-dirty way to fake a Scottish accent (yes, very quick and very dirty; nobody will believe your accent is real though they'll think you're trying to sound Scottish).
Edit: Forgot to include gemination marks here. Should be /e:/ and /o:/ above.
American English definitely has a monophthongal /e/ sound in words such as BED, which is conventionally transcribed as /e/ although it really is an open/mid "E" rather than a close one and thus /ɛ/ would probably be more accurate. You're probably confusing that sound with the diphthong in FACE /eɪ/, which in Scottish English usually is a long close front vowel /eː/.
Sorry, I forgot to include the gemination marks (and I've since edited it into GP). I was specifically talking about /e:/ and /o:/, which are monophthongs in Scottish English but diphthongs /eɪ/ and /oʊ/ in American and English English.
Funnily enough, while the mid-Atlantic screen accent was dying out post WW2, its English equivalent, RP, was being kept well and truly alive in the UK by the BBC.
Actors like Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins were instructed to drop their Welsh accents if they wanted to progress in their acting careers, as RP was the "right" way for an actor to speak.
Even in other professions, regional accents were replaced by RP. My father was told to drop his Welsh accent if he wanted to become a lawyer.
RP was only really dropped in the 1980s.
On a side note, is Clara Bow's story the basis for "Singing in the Rain"?
Actors like Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins were instructed to drop their Welsh accents if they wanted to progress in their acting careers, as RP was the "right" way for an actor to speak.
Even in other professions, regional accents were replaced by RP. My father was told to drop his Welsh accent if he wanted to become a lawyer.
RP was only really dropped in the 1980s.
On a side note, is Clara Bow's story the basis for "Singing in the Rain"?
I have a strong suspicion that the accent was adopted, by a newly-talkified Hollywood, in large part because the exTREMEly disTINCT eNUNciation would convey and carry better over the poor audio tracks and reproduction equipment of early theaters (not to mention the audio recording equipment of the time).
With further advances in audio capture, recording, processing, and playback equipment, vernacular accents were possible without risking nonintelligibility to the audience. James Dean's drunken ramble at the conclusion of Giant being a notable exception.
With further advances in audio capture, recording, processing, and playback equipment, vernacular accents were possible without risking nonintelligibility to the audience. James Dean's drunken ramble at the conclusion of Giant being a notable exception.
My understanding was that in the early days of motion pictures, they simply borrowed most of the conventions of stage acting (for example, scenes would commonly show an actor walking into a room, and continue all the way through the action or dialogue, until they had exited the set, rather than cutting out the unnecessary parts).
So it would make sense for trained actors accustomed to projecting to a large audience (no wireless mics in those days), to continue projecting and enunciating in the same manner.
That's predating the talkie era.
Yes, early films were shot square-on into the set, as one would film a stage production. That changed with The Great Train Robbery, which introduced a very large number of the set of camera techniques used in film since: long shots, close-ups, tracking, panning, dolly, cross-cutting, and other methods. All in 1903, by Edwin S. Porter.
All that was well established by the time talkies started becoming widespread, particularly with sound-on-film in the 1930s.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Train_Robbery_(190...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_film
Yes, early films were shot square-on into the set, as one would film a stage production. That changed with The Great Train Robbery, which introduced a very large number of the set of camera techniques used in film since: long shots, close-ups, tracking, panning, dolly, cross-cutting, and other methods. All in 1903, by Edwin S. Porter.
All that was well established by the time talkies started becoming widespread, particularly with sound-on-film in the 1930s.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Train_Robbery_(190...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_film
As a younger creature I had a minor speech complex which at some early point I became conscious of, excessively so. Tormented by the inconsistencies of vowels and consonants in english, I began experimenting with enunciation in grievous violation of convention. In what according to many linguists might be my own stubborn idiocy, I picked a fight with the intervocalic "t", which most Americans pronounce as a "d", e.g. water, little, or i.e. compu(d)er. Some force far less lenient than OCD thereafter compelled me to pronounce the intervocalic "t" as an actual "t", rather than "d". Such enunciation happens to be common in British english. The effects of this compulsion range from public curiosity regarding my origins, to accusations of petty affectation and artificiality. My meager sum of friends might imply a multitude of things, but none of them would dare say I was groveling for more. As for linguists, I adore Mr Pinker and a few others, but can muster no admiration for the notion that prodigious use of discourse-particles indicates conscientiousness[1], particularly the use of "like", which I observe ubiquitously used as punctuation, elocutionary wildcards, and thoughtless substitutions for thoughtfulness and basic articulation. I lack the bravery to willfully incur the wrath of linguistic titans such as Pinker, but I'll have self-definition however fake I seem. If a person's early years are spent in a ghetto where words are spoken one way, but circumstance transports that person to another ghetto where words are spoken differently, must they choose between either/or lest they be deemed "fake" for speaking in accordance with their own ideal? I suggest more scrutiny be placed upon the audience and less on the speaker. This procedure might influence critical-thinking while decreasing the volatility inherent in a system where listeners are trained to reject the unfamiliar and embrace the familiar, i.e cognitive bias, etc.
I have yet to find a dictionary that advises the intervocalic "t" be pronounced as a "d", despite the hordes of individuals who wax tumescently indignant when one doesn't. All I really want is consistency, but I do not insist. And I am aware that the Gods of linguistics profess that language is living and ever mutating and therefore never harmonious or consistent. I doubt, however, that this is an eternal intrinsic attribute. I'm sure I push too far, but such a view seems to me an appeal to authority, while the authority-figures are us unbeknownst.
1. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/12/saying-like-study-f...
I have yet to find a dictionary that advises the intervocalic "t" be pronounced as a "d", despite the hordes of individuals who wax tumescently indignant when one doesn't. All I really want is consistency, but I do not insist. And I am aware that the Gods of linguistics profess that language is living and ever mutating and therefore never harmonious or consistent. I doubt, however, that this is an eternal intrinsic attribute. I'm sure I push too far, but such a view seems to me an appeal to authority, while the authority-figures are us unbeknownst.
1. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/12/saying-like-study-f...
I did the same thing when I was younger. There's still some of it left over, but the embarrassment of being a teenager definitely normalized it. I learned to read when I was pretty young, before I was exposed to a lot of words in speech. I also watched a lot of TV, and people spoke with different accents. Since there wasn't any authoritative way to say things, I preferred to say them how they looked on paper.
I was in college before I learned how hyperbole is supposed to be pronounced. I'd never actually heard a person say that (it's a little beyond typical small-town Maine vocabulary), so I worked for years under the assumption that it was hyper-bowl, rather than hi-per-boll-ee. I knew hyper, and I knew what the bole of a tree was...
My version of the same was the word "rendezvous" which appears in many detective stories for kids (eg Hardy Boys) but doesnt often come up in daily conversation. So, in my head (to this day), it is still pronounced as it is written...
I found out how to pronounce sal volatile just the other day, perhaps thirty years after first reading it (crops up quite a lot in Victorian novels). Fortunately, I never once had occasion to say it out loud in the intervening time.
I remember pondering the hyper-bowl. Not insurmountable though, unlike "colonel", which I suspect a certain primate[1] would still refuse to comply with long after completing the works of Shakespeare. I also refuse, either imposing the image of a penguin or cob of corn upon the head of anyone titled thus.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem
This is commonly known as a 'calliope', pronounced kal'ee-oap
My family of heavy readers enjoys finding them, and the memories of arguing with teachers about the 'proper' pronunciations.
And sometimes realizing that teachers had their own regional pronunciations they wanted to impose (days of the week as Sundee Mondee...)
My family of heavy readers enjoys finding them, and the memories of arguing with teachers about the 'proper' pronunciations.
And sometimes realizing that teachers had their own regional pronunciations they wanted to impose (days of the week as Sundee Mondee...)
Don't get me started on homogenous!
I think you would be a fan of these two guys [1] [2] who championed phonemic spelling. And in fact, Vuk is credited with getting Yugoslav writing to be phonemic.
A common phrase used in Croatia to describe how to write something is to write it "by the Wolf" (since vuk = wolf), indicating that it is supposed to be read as written. This leads to transliterating foreign words in a phonetic manner where one doesn't need to know a particular foreign language to pronounce the word correctly. From your example, to write water "by the Wolf" we would write "votr." :-)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Christoph_Adelung
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vuk_Karad%C5%BEi%C4%87
A common phrase used in Croatia to describe how to write something is to write it "by the Wolf" (since vuk = wolf), indicating that it is supposed to be read as written. This leads to transliterating foreign words in a phonetic manner where one doesn't need to know a particular foreign language to pronounce the word correctly. From your example, to write water "by the Wolf" we would write "votr." :-)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Christoph_Adelung
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vuk_Karad%C5%BEi%C4%87
> I doubt, however, that this is an eternal intrinsic attribute.
I'm not sure why something has to be intrinsic and eternal in order to be true, or at least useful.
I'm not sure why something has to be intrinsic and eternal in order to be true, or at least useful.
> The entire concept of an elocution class is wildly offensive to most of the modern linguists I know; following the rise of super-linguist Bill Labov in the 1960s, the concept that one way of speaking is “better” or “worse” than another is basically anathema. But that wasn’t at all the case for the rich kids of Westchester County, Beacon Hill, or the Main Line (those would be the home of the elites of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, respectively).
Oh, nonsense. Sociolinguistic prejudices are still with us and it's only those of us speaking the prestige varieties of English who have the luxury of pretending we all speak naturally now. If you don't think so, ask some people their opinions of AAVE or "Ebonics." Or even a Southern drawl.
Oh, nonsense. Sociolinguistic prejudices are still with us and it's only those of us speaking the prestige varieties of English who have the luxury of pretending we all speak naturally now. If you don't think so, ask some people their opinions of AAVE or "Ebonics." Or even a Southern drawl.
I think you're misinterpreting the quote. The author isn't saying that linguists reject the existence of prejudice; they rather reject the bases for that prejudice.
But modern linguists are generally not the kind of people who'd want to take an elocution class today. Mostly people who would want to take such a class are people whose accents clearly mark them as being in a disfavored group. So if "modern linguists" really oppose the very concept of such a class I'd say they're being rather solipsistic.
And in fact I don't think they do, since linguists are among the specialists who contribute to "accent reduction" courses, which seems like a modern name for the same thing.
And in fact I don't think they do, since linguists are among the specialists who contribute to "accent reduction" courses, which seems like a modern name for the same thing.
> modern linguists
You'd have to ask a modern linguist, not just anybody. Class signifiers in speech still exist, but modern linguists are not likely to endorse one way of speaking as better than others.
I guess I agree with your objection though, this statement is pointless. Its comparing modern linguists to '60s rich folks from the east coast. They don't agree, what a surprise. I think you are right, in that a better comparison would be '60s rich folks from the east coast to 2010s rich folks from the east coast. And I agree that you would find things have not changed as much.
I think the whole statement was a way to introduce that the author has been talking to linguists, and start with a really crude overview of their opinion of the whole thing before we get to the details.
You'd have to ask a modern linguist, not just anybody. Class signifiers in speech still exist, but modern linguists are not likely to endorse one way of speaking as better than others.
I guess I agree with your objection though, this statement is pointless. Its comparing modern linguists to '60s rich folks from the east coast. They don't agree, what a surprise. I think you are right, in that a better comparison would be '60s rich folks from the east coast to 2010s rich folks from the east coast. And I agree that you would find things have not changed as much.
I think the whole statement was a way to introduce that the author has been talking to linguists, and start with a really crude overview of their opinion of the whole thing before we get to the details.
> The entire concept of an elocution class is wildly offensive to most of the modern linguists I know
Emphasis mine.
Are you a linguist?
Emphasis mine.
Are you a linguist?
Why does all Star Wars movies use aristocratic British accent?
The original Star Wars movies were largely shot in Britain, and used British actors for many of the roles, especially the Imperial officers and officials. Carrie Fisher's family had worked in Hollywood during the "golden age" of the mid-Atlantic accent and she had been sent to an elocution school in the U.K. just before being cast for Star Wars - although she admits that her accent changed a lot in the first Star Wars movie.
This is true, but there was also a significant amount of ADR/Overdubbing work with american actors, especially for the minor roles.
One of the most notable exceptions, of course, being Red Leader, a British actor doing a fantastic rendition of a midwestern american cowboy
One of the most notable exceptions, of course, being Red Leader, a British actor doing a fantastic rendition of a midwestern american cowboy
The latest one too.
It's not just Star Wars, the Evil Brit is a fairly common trope:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilBrit
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilBrit
Maybe thanks to Sir Alec Guinness? (Who supposedly disliked the Star Wars experience so much that he gave Lucas the idea that Obi-Wan should die, just so that he would be rid of the role... This could be a myth.)
[deleted]
Star Wars villains in the first series use such accents.
A) The Imperial Navy is a euphimism for the British Navy / Empire.
B) It was filmed in the UK with almost all UK actors.
The new Star Wars - none of the accents are posh really.
Just English accents, again actors, filming etc. - although - I think there was some attempt by JJ to keep it UK-ish in that manner, though I'm not sure.
A) The Imperial Navy is a euphimism for the British Navy / Empire.
B) It was filmed in the UK with almost all UK actors.
The new Star Wars - none of the accents are posh really.
Just English accents, again actors, filming etc. - although - I think there was some attempt by JJ to keep it UK-ish in that manner, though I'm not sure.
Ah, yes, the notable villain Obi Wan Kenobi.
It makes a bit more sense when you realize that the Empire saw themselves as the continuation of the Republic (the Senate wasn't abolished until partway through A New Hope, for example), and Obi-Wan was very much a part of the Republic's leadership, being a sitting member of the Jedi Council and all.
So it's not so much a "villain accent" as it is a "Republic leadership accent", where the Empire is just a corrupted Republic.
So it's not so much a "villain accent" as it is a "Republic leadership accent", where the Empire is just a corrupted Republic.
Played by Guinness who was half Scottish and educated in Edinburgh and Mcregor who seems completely Scottish.
Do we Scots get an exemption from the "evil Brit" trope - (OK apart from Begby or Fred the Shred, but there aren't really people like that in Scotland, honest).
;-)
Do we Scots get an exemption from the "evil Brit" trope - (OK apart from Begby or Fred the Shred, but there aren't really people like that in Scotland, honest).
;-)
It doesn't matter where Alec Guinness was born, he sounded about as Scottish as the Queen. Ewan McGregor's English accent OTOH sounds fake.
I was probably thinking of Guinness as Charles I in Cromwell.
Odd that they call out Cary Grant, he was in fact British.
His accent, however, was not.
I'm British which I think qualifies me to say it very much was. He had a few inflections of the period, but there's no mistaking it.
I won't tell you what you hear, but his manner of speaking is often held out as an example of Mid-Atlantic diction, albeit an idiosyncratic one—Cary Grant spoke like Cary Grant.
His accent was his native Bristol at base, with Americanisms heaped on top, a Mid-Atlantic destination arrived at from the opposite direction of contemporary American actors. But with his short American a's and clipped cadence, to my ear his delivery often seems closer to that of his American co-stars than to that of his English ones. For example, take a listen to the trailer of The Grass is Greener (1961) [0], in which Grant plays alongside a cast from both sides of the Atlantic. Hear it?
(I'm American and have lived in England, by the way.)
0. https://youtu.be/JpCm22wh6qQ
His accent was his native Bristol at base, with Americanisms heaped on top, a Mid-Atlantic destination arrived at from the opposite direction of contemporary American actors. But with his short American a's and clipped cadence, to my ear his delivery often seems closer to that of his American co-stars than to that of his English ones. For example, take a listen to the trailer of The Grass is Greener (1961) [0], in which Grant plays alongside a cast from both sides of the Atlantic. Hear it?
(I'm American and have lived in England, by the way.)
0. https://youtu.be/JpCm22wh6qQ
Just a counterpoint: I have short A's and a clipped cadence. I'm English and have never been to America. (Not that I'm from Bristol either!)
I've never thought of Cary Grant's accent to be anything but English. I don't hear any American in it at all.
I've never thought of Cary Grant's accent to be anything but English. I don't hear any American in it at all.
I disagree - to me the inflections in his on-screen speech sound predominantly American. (For the record, I'm British too)
Whenever I'm traveling in areas where people speak with an accent (either english or my native language), I can't stop myself from imitating it. Really badly. After a week or so I'm terribly annoyed by the sound of my own voice. It has even happened when someone was visiting, and acting in some sort of leadership role with a lot of speaking time.
So I could imagine a single Hollywood director could possibly start a trend (if everybody'a speech center were as spineless as mine).
So I could imagine a single Hollywood director could possibly start a trend (if everybody'a speech center were as spineless as mine).
> Whenever I'm traveling in areas where people speak with an accent
Nit-pick, but everyone speaks with an accent :)
(I'm not sure if you meant it that way, but I have met people who genuinely think that they don't have an accent and are 'unaccented', and it's just other people who do...)
Nit-pick, but everyone speaks with an accent :)
(I'm not sure if you meant it that way, but I have met people who genuinely think that they don't have an accent and are 'unaccented', and it's just other people who do...)
But there's a neutral General American which a majority(?) of Americans speak, with very minor variations. Most accents that deviate strongly from it are slowly dying out.
This is in stark contrast to the UK, or just England, where you have an incredible amount of linguistic diversity in a very small geographical area. RP is theoretically "standard", but in reality it's a niche upper class thing.
This is in stark contrast to the UK, or just England, where you have an incredible amount of linguistic diversity in a very small geographical area. RP is theoretically "standard", but in reality it's a niche upper class thing.
> But there's a neutral General American which a majority(?) of Americans speak, with very minor variations.
So this was actually the kind of thing I was hoping to address with my comment. The idea that there's a "neutral" accent is, linguistically speaking, nonsense. That said, there probably isn't too much harm in it, in that if you're an American talking to other Americans there's probably not much ambiguity.
The problem is more that it could create the mistaken idea that, say, "General American" is somehow "normal" and therefore anybody speaking with a different accent becomes "the other", for whatever that may mean. It becomes a reference point to judge other accents against, when that's not necessarily helpful.
And there's a lot of accent prejudice out there... ask anyone who's gone for a job interview, for example, who's been very well-qualified but has an accent that the interviewer didn't expect (this can be due to regional or social backgrounds, or even gender – e.g. so-called "valley girl speak"/high rising terminal). Just something worth thinking about, that's all. I know I've dismissed someone before off-hand based on how they sound, which is not a good thing, and something I'd like to be more aware of myself.
So this was actually the kind of thing I was hoping to address with my comment. The idea that there's a "neutral" accent is, linguistically speaking, nonsense. That said, there probably isn't too much harm in it, in that if you're an American talking to other Americans there's probably not much ambiguity.
The problem is more that it could create the mistaken idea that, say, "General American" is somehow "normal" and therefore anybody speaking with a different accent becomes "the other", for whatever that may mean. It becomes a reference point to judge other accents against, when that's not necessarily helpful.
And there's a lot of accent prejudice out there... ask anyone who's gone for a job interview, for example, who's been very well-qualified but has an accent that the interviewer didn't expect (this can be due to regional or social backgrounds, or even gender – e.g. so-called "valley girl speak"/high rising terminal). Just something worth thinking about, that's all. I know I've dismissed someone before off-hand based on how they sound, which is not a good thing, and something I'd like to be more aware of myself.
There's too much appeal to consequences here. I'd rather see someone make an argument for why a set of pronunciations can't be canonical. I certainly know exactly which pronunciations are the "neutral" ones, even the ones I don't use myself. So how did those pronunciations receive their status? What does it mean for us to hear them as "unaccented", and why exactly is that misguided?
The armchair linguistics as I know it: Accents (and languages in general) are typically social, tribal. We use them as one of the markers of "our tribe" versus "not our tribe". Things that sound neutral/unaccented to us are things that sound like they come from "around us", from within our tribe. Things that sound foreign are clearly not from our tribe.
The misguided part here is that thinking because it sounds neutral/unaccented to you means it is the "right" one. That path potentially leads to xenophobia and tribalism.
The misguided part here is that thinking because it sounds neutral/unaccented to you means it is the "right" one. That path potentially leads to xenophobia and tribalism.
I grew up in a region with a strong, distinctive regional accent and dialect. Every member of my family, teachers, friends, literally everyone all spoke with that accent. But even from a very young age (like 3-4) I knew it was an accent. I didn't pick it up. I understood what canonical pronunciation was, and opted for that. So, what, I just decided that newscasters were my tribe for some reason? I'm just very suspicious of the idea that its completely relative, and just depends on what you're used to hearing. If you were being taught a foreign language by a native speaker, I think you'd be much less likely to doubt them when they told you "this is how it is pronounced."
And you ended with another appeal to consequences.
And you ended with another appeal to consequences.
«So, what, I just decided that newscasters were my tribe for some reason?»
That is not all that unlikely an explanation, really. Newscasters are shared figures of authority. But it may also be deeper than that. We watch sit-coms or soap operas and share their stories in a similar fashion we might trade tribal social cues. We interact at a very young age with educational TV programming like Sesame Street. There's a lot of pop culture jokes about many of us being raised by TV in the last several generations, but there is a lot of truth there too.
«And you ended with another appeal to consequences.»
Only because I read that you were inquiring about specific possible consequences. My apologies if that is not what you were asking.
That is not all that unlikely an explanation, really. Newscasters are shared figures of authority. But it may also be deeper than that. We watch sit-coms or soap operas and share their stories in a similar fashion we might trade tribal social cues. We interact at a very young age with educational TV programming like Sesame Street. There's a lot of pop culture jokes about many of us being raised by TV in the last several generations, but there is a lot of truth there too.
«And you ended with another appeal to consequences.»
Only because I read that you were inquiring about specific possible consequences. My apologies if that is not what you were asking.
The problem with this view is that there are instances where the 'canonical' pronunciation in one group is the 'noncanonical' pronunciation in another, and vice versa. For example, in British English, 'r' deletion is part of the 'canonical' pronunciation and it's only nonstandard dialects that are rhotic. In American English it's the other way round. So in general, it can't be that features of the pronunciation itself somehow determine whether or not it is canonical.
I doubt you really know what accent you spoke with when you were three or four. As to why you picked up an accent somewhere close to SAE, it's most likely for reasons of prestige.
I doubt you really know what accent you spoke with when you were three or four. As to why you picked up an accent somewhere close to SAE, it's most likely for reasons of prestige.
I don't have to remember. I have recordings. Things like 'r' are a bit of a puzzle. What determines when a letter is silent? I don't actually believe pronunciation is absolute or fixed in time. But I don't believe its perfectly relative, either, or that "standard" does not have a meaning. Most accents sound like vowel sounds aliasing as other vowel sounds. I think the standard accent just doesn't alias nearly as much among all the vowel sounds, and I think that's meaningful.
>What determines when a letter is silent? I don't actually believe pronunciation is absolute or fixed in time
Not sure what you mean here. There are rhotic dialects which lack a rule of 'r' deletion and non-rhotic dialects which don't. It has nothing to do with letters. It has to do with the presence or absence of a particular phonological rule. The relevant feature most certainly is fixed in time, in the sense that speakers of non-rhotic dialects consistently delete /r/ phonemes following a vowel whereas speakers of rhotic dialects do not.
>I think the standard accent just doesn't alias nearly as much among all the vowel sounds, and I think that's meaningful.
This is simply false. There are non-standard dialects that make more distinctions between vowels than standard dialects.
Not sure what you mean here. There are rhotic dialects which lack a rule of 'r' deletion and non-rhotic dialects which don't. It has nothing to do with letters. It has to do with the presence or absence of a particular phonological rule. The relevant feature most certainly is fixed in time, in the sense that speakers of non-rhotic dialects consistently delete /r/ phonemes following a vowel whereas speakers of rhotic dialects do not.
>I think the standard accent just doesn't alias nearly as much among all the vowel sounds, and I think that's meaningful.
This is simply false. There are non-standard dialects that make more distinctions between vowels than standard dialects.
I think a better name than "General American" is possibly the American Television Received Accent in that I think the key to the homogenization of a lot of the American English accent landscape is unintentionally a result of mass media consumption (primarily American TV) over a handful of generations now.
Personally, though I tend to think of it as the "American Chameleon" accent as I, like the poster above, find that it trends to adapting to regional variances (often without a conscious intent to do so). I have a hunch that this is a feature of the "accent" rather than a weakness in the speaker, but this is merely lay speculation. It's weird to think of a defining characteristic of an accent being its flexibility rather than rigidity to preferred forms, but I think that helps account for why this "General American" accent is so common in America at this point, because it seems to be sort of an American "Borg" accent: your regional distinctions will be assimilated.
Personally, though I tend to think of it as the "American Chameleon" accent as I, like the poster above, find that it trends to adapting to regional variances (often without a conscious intent to do so). I have a hunch that this is a feature of the "accent" rather than a weakness in the speaker, but this is merely lay speculation. It's weird to think of a defining characteristic of an accent being its flexibility rather than rigidity to preferred forms, but I think that helps account for why this "General American" accent is so common in America at this point, because it seems to be sort of an American "Borg" accent: your regional distinctions will be assimilated.
General American is still an accent, albeit a neutral one, and it's hard to find people who still speak it on a daily basis outside the Pacific Northwest. Even in the region where it was allegedly first spoken (Iowa), the average person today speaks with an Inland Northern accent, or central Canadian further north.
I have been told that the least accent is the flat Nebraska pronunciation of say, Johnny Carson. I believe it's called General American. It's at least semi-mythic - but some variation of it is used frequently in broadcast.
I think it was John Cleese once, who was speaking of a fellow actor who could do great impressions of others and do many accents --he said, "He never had his own voice".
Not sure if Cleese had a point, but it's an interesting take on his fellow actor and that he finds "having one's own voice" important, to some extent.
Not sure if Cleese had a point, but it's an interesting take on his fellow actor and that he finds "having one's own voice" important, to some extent.
I don't know who John Cleese was talking about but the great comic actor Ronnie Barker (of The Two Ronnies, for you Americans) was like that. Always playing a Cockney barrow boy, Welsh housewife, upper class patrician, so when you heard him on a chat show actually being "himself" it seemed very weird. He was a notoriously private person so those masks might have been part of that. It worked for him anyway, and he must have made at least as many people laugh as did Cleese.
He was probably referring to Peter Sellers.
Yep, you're quite right. Thanks. Here it is. http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?story... At 00:20:40
"CLEESE: Yes, I do. And it just showed why he was such a wonderful impersonator. But it showed that in a very strange way because he'd overslept. And his chauffer Bert said, sorry, boys, Peter's overslept. I'll make you coffee. He'll be out in a bit. And we just sat there sipping coffee. And when Peter came out, he was still in his dressing gown or his robe. And he was apologizing for having overslept, but apologizing in a voice that was not his own. And suddenly, he switched into a rather sort of plumy upper-class voice and was talking to us like this as he walked towards us. And at a moment, he was talking a bit like that. And then he went into another voice, sat on the sofa and 10 seconds later, he was talking to us in his own voice. And see, we were the first persons that he'd spoken to that morning. He'd only just been up a few minutes. And we realized when Graham and I - Graham Chapman and I - sort of compared notes afterwards, we realized that Peter Sellers in the morning had to find his own voice.
DAVIES: So he wasn't trying to impress you. It's like somebody tuning in...
CLEESE: No, no...
DAVIES: ...A radio dial and finding the station.
CLEESE: There was a lack of real personality at his core. And the people who were very good impressionists are often rather like that. Similarly, people who write very good parodies but don't write such great original comedy, those people often lack a certain emotional life. They're very clever, their observation is good, but emotion doesn't inform their work in any way. So their work tends to be brilliantly observed, but not very - what's the word? - not very powerful. They don't tend to be terribly funny. They tend to be terribly clever. So this kind of personality type - a person who has a weak sense of their own identity - they're frightfully good at copying other people, whether it's other writers or other performers.
But we realized that Peter literally had to find his own voice in the morning. And to that extent, he was a sort of personality that he'd had to manufacture himself from different parts. And I - one of the Pythons was ever so slightly like that. And we could always tell when he had been spending time with one of his Beatles friends because he would have a slight Liverpool accent for the next 24 hours."
"CLEESE: Yes, I do. And it just showed why he was such a wonderful impersonator. But it showed that in a very strange way because he'd overslept. And his chauffer Bert said, sorry, boys, Peter's overslept. I'll make you coffee. He'll be out in a bit. And we just sat there sipping coffee. And when Peter came out, he was still in his dressing gown or his robe. And he was apologizing for having overslept, but apologizing in a voice that was not his own. And suddenly, he switched into a rather sort of plumy upper-class voice and was talking to us like this as he walked towards us. And at a moment, he was talking a bit like that. And then he went into another voice, sat on the sofa and 10 seconds later, he was talking to us in his own voice. And see, we were the first persons that he'd spoken to that morning. He'd only just been up a few minutes. And we realized when Graham and I - Graham Chapman and I - sort of compared notes afterwards, we realized that Peter Sellers in the morning had to find his own voice.
DAVIES: So he wasn't trying to impress you. It's like somebody tuning in...
CLEESE: No, no...
DAVIES: ...A radio dial and finding the station.
CLEESE: There was a lack of real personality at his core. And the people who were very good impressionists are often rather like that. Similarly, people who write very good parodies but don't write such great original comedy, those people often lack a certain emotional life. They're very clever, their observation is good, but emotion doesn't inform their work in any way. So their work tends to be brilliantly observed, but not very - what's the word? - not very powerful. They don't tend to be terribly funny. They tend to be terribly clever. So this kind of personality type - a person who has a weak sense of their own identity - they're frightfully good at copying other people, whether it's other writers or other performers.
But we realized that Peter literally had to find his own voice in the morning. And to that extent, he was a sort of personality that he'd had to manufacture himself from different parts. And I - one of the Pythons was ever so slightly like that. And we could always tell when he had been spending time with one of his Beatles friends because he would have a slight Liverpool accent for the next 24 hours."
Ooh, that Eric Idle dig at the end...
There is also many bands with fake accents, like 1980s Minor Threat with whatever UK accent Ian Mackaye was channeling
I remember how in the 1990s I listened to Green Day (US with British accent) and Bush (British with US accent).
Completely off-topic, but does Latin have genders? Is "Atlas" feminine there? "Atlas obscura" sounds very wrong to me, I imagine it should be "Atlas obscurus".
Well spotted. Latin has three genders, and Atlas is listed as masculine in all of the online dictionaries listed here: http://www.lexilogos.com/english/latin_dictionary.htm so it should indeed be Atlas obscurus.
Or Atlas obscurae?
How is that supposed to parse?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_declension#First_and_sec... gives the declension for adjectives such as obscurus.
I think the web site gets it wrong because of "camera obscura" (Latin for "dark room"). Camera (modern French: "la chambre") is feminine so takes the feminine form of the adjective.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_declension#First_and_sec... gives the declension for adjectives such as obscurus.
I think the web site gets it wrong because of "camera obscura" (Latin for "dark room"). Camera (modern French: "la chambre") is feminine so takes the feminine form of the adjective.
I think it's not the Atlas that is obscure/dark, but rather an Atlas of darkness.
Then it should be "Atlas obscuritatis" or "Atlas tenebrarum".
I don't know Latin, but from the word "alumnae" I would expect that to be the plural feminine ending. Of course in the one case it's a noun and in the other it's an adjective, so I may be way off base.
An earlier example of this accent is the 1921 recording of William Jennings Bryan reading his famous 1896 "Cross of Gold" speech.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UV2wRCcWJa8
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UV2wRCcWJa8
Fraser's lines and Grammer's interpretation probably deserve a place in the canons of American English accents and linguistics.