More accurately, How Things Work recopies James Fallows’ blog entries from 6 months ago.
I weep for adverbs.
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How I see every popular thing about an accent or mode of speech: “People Pretend to Know About Linguistics, Say Nonsense.”
I counted about four outright errors, and at least two bits of nonsense (there’s no such things as “soft” vowels, and “clipped” doesn’t mean a damned thing). We don’t pronounce the {t} in “water” as a /d/. We pronounce it as a flap. And so on, and so on, and so on.
And then I read the comments, and gave up.
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I was going to mention that in the very first example, Archie Leach Cary Grant is British to begin with, so not really the best example.
ETA @LemoUtan whoopsie! you said it first
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I consider this the final word on the topic:
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Haven’t watched the video, and am not sure whether “Transatlantic accent” is the same thing as a “Midatlantic accent” (the description makes it sound so), but I’ve always seen this as a positive thing. It’s very much like an English koine.
The Mid-atlantic accent was mainly a standardized way of teaching English for radio announcers, actors, and other public speakers as a way of creating a neutral accent that could be understood everywhere, as the variety of regional accents in both the US and the UK were often incomprehensible to distant regions. It centered on high society in New England, and was considered “proper” American English for broadcast, as was the “Oxford” accent for the BBC. More here… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent
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For those unwilling to google:
Language Mystery Redux: Who Was the Last American to Speak This Way?
That Weirdo Announcer-Voice Accent: Where It Came From and Why It Went Away
The Rise and Fall of Announcer-Speak, Class War Edition
American Announcer-Speak: The Origin Story
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Loyd Grossman said he grew up in Boston but he sure as shit don’t sound like he’s from Boston. He sounds more New Haven, Connecticut, upper crusty, definitely mid Atlantic. The first guy sounds like an Americanized Australian or something.
Just a mish-mash of accents - Danish, Canadian, British…
I might as well post this now too - English football manager after a year or two in the Netherlands.
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You are an industrious man, sir.
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Ah, nuts. Why are entertaining ‘just so’ stories always wrong? I should know better by now, really I should.
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Can’t believe no-one referenced the way World War II Spitfire pilots spoke in South London youth-gang speak…
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Disappointingly I could find no source for your story so I could only link to the Spanish version. But it didn’t ring true 'cos however people may have behaved in the presence of the King the Georgian period was a time when people were openly disrespectful of the monarch in public. The Hanoverians had been imported after all.
Don’t worry there’ll be another story along to catch everyone out before you know it.
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Probably “announcer voice” was a thing around the world. I know there’s an identifiable old-timey dutch way of speaking that’s linked with old radio and television presenters as well. And it turned out sounding vaguely upper-class too.
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uncanny. the accent is 50/50, but the patterns, style, and word choice sound like a native Nederlander when they speak English. 2 years? fascinating. I bet he really likes it there!
Speaking of disappearing accents, I just remembered some interviews from the last disc on the Library of Congress Jelly Roll Morton set. I haven’t listened in a long while, but some of these guys spoke with an accent that I would not have associated with New Orleans (in recent times anyway). They sound like Francophones speaking English, which for all I know, they were. But I would not have imagined it would have persisted as late as 100 years ago, not to mention 66 years ago (when the recordings were made). Not that I’ve (EDIT) not spent a lot of time in N.O. but I didn’t encounter anyone with this accent. (Sample)
EDIT: Man, I really meant that I had not.
This could be why:
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sounds like he’s from the swamp, not the city?
