Accents

[Harry P.]

And don't forget... in Baaaaaaaahston you have to paaaaaaaaaahk ya caaaaaaaaaah!

[Rob Hall]

Also the lady who played in X files... who's name escapes me now... she's also Australian.. and I didnt know this until I saw her on the episode of Top Gear (UK) and it really caught me by surprise!

Gillian Anderson, she was born in the US, but lived in the UK as a child, and has lived and worked in the UK since the X-Files went off...I've seen her on British TV shows, speaking w/ a British accent.

[Rob Hall]

And don't forget... in Baaaaaaaahston you have to paaaaaaaaaahk ya caaaaaaaaaahr!

My sister lived there 8 years, never picked up the accent, never was mistaken for a local..that was after a decade in Arizona (no distinct accent here either, at least in Phoenix..then again, most people I know weren't born here). 

Edited April 19, 2016 by Rob Hall

[Harry P.]

My cousin's daughter lives in Boston. She must feel like a fish out of water!

[SfanGoch]

This is not meant as political commentary, so please don't take it there... but how funny that Bernie Sanders has that super thick accent, while Donald Trump has (to my ear, at least), no discernible accent at all. Yet they were both born in the same city! (Bernie in Brooklyn, Donald in Queens, just a couple of miles apart!). Weird how that works.

Actually, growing up in Jamaica, NY, Donald does have a perceptible "Queens" accent, as does his brother, Robert, and his father, Fred. I worked for Trump and interacted with him daily. You can hear the accent whenever he uses a word with a short "a" in it. It's nasally and a somewhat drawn out. That particular accent was found all over Queens and all the way to western Nassau County, where a lot of Queens residents moved. It's not as widespread as it was thirty to forty years ago; but, you can still hear it in some neighborhoods. 

Bernie's is influenced by a combination of good old Brooklynese, Yiddish and Eastern European (Polish, Russian, etc.) He grew up in the midwood section which has had a very large population of Eastern European Jews since the early 20th Century. Most of my teachers in Brooklyn Tech H.S. who were from Midwood talked and sounded like Bernie. They always dropped the "r", pronouncing words like "car" as "cah". This was in imitation of the pseudo-aristocratic "London" accent that was in vogue in the early 20th Century. It was supposed to impart a contrived, supposed sense of sophistication. You can hear it listening to FDR, certain actors and actresses from the 30s through the mid "50s. That's why Bernie pronounces "millionaires and billionaires" as "millionahs and billionahs". This accent pretty much died out almost everywhere after WWII, coinciding with the decline of the British Empire, and folks started to roll their "r" again.. Everywhah, except in Midwood.  

 

Edited April 19, 2016 by SfanGoch

[Harry P.]

Interesting!

I guess you being from Noo Yawk yourself, you hear Trump's Queens accent. But I don't. If I didn't know who Donald Trump was and was hearing him speak for the first time, I would never guess he was from NYC.

I find this topic fascinating!

[SfanGoch]

Wanna hear some great accents? Listen to Jackie Mason, born in Sheboygan; Lawrence Welk, born in Strasburg, N.D. and Stanley Myron Handelman, born in Brooklyn and sounded like Bernie Sanders doing a Jackie Mason imitation.

[SSNJim]

My wife can't understand people with thick southern accents, I have to be the interpreter, I think it's hilarious but the person speaking rarely does. I will say though I was getting gas in Virginia once and the female attendant was trying to tell the guy at the next pump over something through the intercom and he and I couldn't understand a word she said and he had Virginia plates. It sounded more like she was from way up in the West Virginia hills and was eating laughy taffy while talking.

I've seen TV shows where they have subtitles for people with thick southern accents like they're speaking a foreign language. I've never seen it for any other American accent.

[Joe Handley]

Have you guys ever watched something while reading the closed captioning, particularly for something live, like the news?  You almost need to have a translator to try and figure out what the cc converter is trying to interpret what is being said, especially when the variety of accents you run into around here get involved.

[maltsr]

Same here! I never knew Hugh Laurie was British. His "American" accent on House was absolutely perfect. I remember the first time I ever saw him on TV speaking in his "normal" way... I couldn't believe it!

Not forgetting Damian Lewis (Homeland) and Stephen Moyer (True Blood) are also British.  Anna Paquin from True Blood is from New Zealand, so neither leading actor in that show is from the US!

[cowboy rich]

One of my wife's friends just called and I thought of this conversation, I don't know what the accent would be becuase she has lived in Colorado her whole life and her parents are from Nebraska, but she sounds like Boomhower from King of the hill, took me almost a year to figure out what she was saying!!

Rich

[Rob Hall]

I've seen TV shows where they have subtitles for people with thick southern accents like they're speaking a foreign language. I've never seen it for any other American accent.

When watching NASCAR broadcasts in the mid 80s, I always thought Bill Elliott needed subtitles..very strong accent.

[Petetrucker07]

I hear all sorts of accents being a truck driver. I've come across a few guys that sound just like Boomhauer from King of the Hill. "That dang oh, mmmm thing boy, get ryt out in there and shhhoooom maaaann!"

California has all sorts of accents too. You got the valley girl, like Fer sheer. Then you got the surfer thing, like totally bro. The you got the central valley that sounds a lot like the south. Oh, don't forget the ghetto, yo.

Edited April 19, 2016 by Petetrucker07

[dshue76]

When watching NASCAR broadcasts in the mid 80s, I always thought Bill Elliott needed subtitles..very strong accent.

Listen to Ward Burton and Jeff Burton, they sound nothing alike and they are brothers.

 

[slusher]

My middle brother was born in Kentucky and lived their until he was 8 and live in Chicago for many years and lives now in Indiana and now has a Hoosier accent.  

[gino]

And don't forget... in Baaaaaaaahston you have to paaaaaaaaaahk ya caaaaaaaaaah!

kinda the same here in maine   except  u  "paaaak youwa caaaa in youwa door yaaaad ! "

and if you have to tow it out of the mud you   "yaaad it outta theya ! "

[Matt Bacon]

I once heard an interesting radio programme about the evolution of "British" (ie all parts of the British Isles) accents. They differences are founded in the variations of languages spoken by waves of settlers, and the sounds they made. But the last thousand plus years or so, they grew distinctive in clusters around where people took their animals, produce etc to market. Which is why you can see very clear, sharp boundaries between distinctive accents, not always for obvious geographical reasons. The people from one side of a hill might speak differently from those on the other side because they headed North instead of Suth to the nearest market town. That's how we get to pack quite so many accents into such a small island!   Of course, mobility into cities in the last 200 years or so has blurred the picture. I guess the US and Canada, being younger, and much much larger, are more shaped by where waves of immigrants originally arrived from than where they took their cows to market...

bestest,

M.

 

[JTalmage]

A friend of mine, born in Kentucky, has a total surfer dude accent. 

[Can-Con]

Not forgetting Damian Lewis (Homeland) and Stephen Moyer (True Blood) are also British.  Anna Paquin from True Blood is from New Zealand, so neither leading actor in that show is from the US!

Paquin was born in Winnipeg. She just spent her childhood in New Zealand  then moved to L.A. She was only in N.Z. for about 9 years so I'd imagine it'd be pretty easy to slip back and forth between accents.

Kind of the opposite of Amanda Tapping from Stargate. Born in England but brought up in Toronto. If you ever seen "Sanctuary" which she also starred in, she affects a flawless British accent on that show.

[Can-Con]

kinda the same here in maine   except  u  "paaaak youwa caaaa in youwa door yaaaad ! "

and if you have to tow it out of the mud you   "yaaad it outta theya ! "

Yea, that seems to be regional too. 

My cousin't wife is from Limestone [northern Maine] and talks nothing like that. I've been in that area many times myself and I can't remember meeting anyone who talked like the sheriff from "Murder she Wrote". LOL

Must be a southern Maine thing. 

[TarheelRick]

What is this accent ya'll are talking about?  

[SfanGoch]

What is this accent ya'll are talking about?  

Betra en í ósköpunum út úr mér. Ég tók ekki eftir nein hreim í skrifa þinna. 

[Ace-Garageguy]

Betra en í ósköpunum út úr mér. Ég tók ekki eftir nein hreim í skrifa þinna. 

Þeir hafa kommur á Íslandi ?

[Harry P.]

Wanna hear some great accents? Listen to Jackie Mason, born in Sheboygan; Lawrence Welk, born in Strasburg, N.D. and Stanley Myron Handelman, born in Brooklyn and sounded like Bernie Sanders doing a Jackie Mason imitation.

Ok, in Lawrence Welk's defense, his "native" language as a child was German, so I can understand his accent, even though he was born in the US.

Jackie Mason? Yes, he was born in Wisconsin, but he grew up in NYC. Not sure what age he was when his family moved east, but if he was an infant, no wonder he has the NYC accent.

[SfanGoch]

Þeir hafa kommur á Íslandi ?

Bara á fimmtudögum.