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Hay! Yew tawk funnae!

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12:32 / 27.10.05

Bumping this thread because some talk of accents in the Canadians and the rest of the world thread has got me thinking, and I didn’t want to derail things there.

Rising & Revolving says: Canadians initially identify my accent as British

In this thread, Praying Mantis (what happened to her, btw?) says:
seriously, if a guy has a british accent of some sort, his attractiveness level, in my mind, goes up several notches. for sure.

I’m intrigued about this idea of a ‘British accent’ because I just can’t imagine what that is. I’ve certainly never heard a Briton talk about having a British accent. When people from other countries refer to a British accent, do they mean a south-east, BBC English accent, or do all Scottish, Irish, Welsh, English accents have something in common that people over familiar with the differences don’t detect?

On a related note, there’s a trailer for the West Wing on a new digital channel from Channel 4 called ‘More Four’. Richard Schiff and Allison Janney find this name highly amusing – giggle as they try to get their mouths around it and liken it to ‘mo-fo’. I’m not quite sure what’s so funny about it. Does ‘four’ not rhyme with ‘more’ to an American?

rising and revolving

13:01 / 27.10.05

Well, it's the same way that people earlier in this thread talk about people having an American accent. Which is effectively meaningless (as briefly discussed upthread) - are we talking Philly? Brooklyn? New Orleans? Californian? All very different. Then people confuse a Canadian accent for an 'American' accent - which is actually sort of reasonable, as there's more similarity between the British Columbia accent and the Seattle one than between, say, a standard mid-west and the Seattle.

"When people from other countries refer to a British accent, do they mean a south-east, BBC English accent"

Yeah, sorta. But actually (for me, anyhow) I think it's a collection of things that I'd dump into one pile. I'd tend to dump all the English accents into one pile marked "English accents" - from a Cockney to Liverpool. Those being two I could probably seperate back out again if I had to I guess, thanks to lots of TV Cockney and the Beatles.

It's exactly that dumping into one box that results in my (clearly Australian) accent ending up in the "British" file in other peoples minds, I'd say.

lord nuneaton savage

14:14 / 27.10.05

My accent is a rather mutable beastie as I'm quite a good mimic and will (unconciously) adapt it depending on whom I'm talking to. As a result a lot of people tend to think I'm taking the piss and I get punched a lot.

However, when I get angry I get VERY posh. Clipped Southern English accent=scary. Y'know like Alan Rickman in Die Hard.

14:32 / 27.10.05

I have a generic estuary accent, which I hate, the area I'm from is known for its poor diction, a phenomena known as the Snorbens mumble.
When I'm on the phone or trying to make myself understood my voice raises in pitch & I tend to go more RP, I think due to my Mum and her world-service-influenced childhood.
However when drunk I tend to adopt the accents of those around me, which as Lord Nuneaton says, brings the chance of being punched.
I'm hoping that sooner or later the scottish accent will rub off on me, as it's a cool accent, or at least cooler than mine.

16:01 / 27.10.05

Funny accent story.

While backpacking across Orkney with my newlywed wife on our honeymoon, we stopped one evening in a pub in Stromness. Two locals at the bar, one from Hoy, were attempting to have a conversation.

We weren't surprised that we couldn't figure out what they were saying due to the thick brogue , but we were surprised when, after a few minutes of attempting to follow the conversation, we realized that neither of the participants could understand what the other was saying either.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

17:56 / 27.10.05

When I went to mono's folks' place in New England, everyone absolutely loved that I kept saying "cheers". Which of course made me very self-conscious about it and realise just how stupid it actually sounds... but, y'know, people seemed to like it.

wembley can change in 28 days

18:01 / 27.10.05

Man, I wish I'd never left Canada. Having ex-patted myself (careful!) three years ago, I can now turn on the CBC and open my ears in joyous anticipation and then hear...

wtf!!! Do I fucking sound like THAT?!? Why can't I be a Kiwi? Texan? Brooklyner/ite? ANYTHING a bit more musical and a little less like I got hit with a block of wood at birth.

The cool thing now is that I can identify a Canadian accent with wonderful accuracy, which is something I could never do when living in North America. At least we sound... gentle.

My Finnish accent is also getting better, but the weirdest thing is hearing my Finnish friends - the ones I see on a near-daily basis - starting to say certain words in English with a Canadian accent. That's some weird shit.

toughest, fastest, fatest

07:37 / 28.10.05

My accent is a weird mix, first of all Southampton UK, which is a cross between cockney and west country yokel, and then due to spending eight years in the North I've picked up the habit of saying path, and grass the proper northern way, and now I live in London I'm picking up a London accent, which is a shame.

I do have a tendency to adopt the accent of whoever I'm talking to, which really distracted me the other day when having a conversation with west country people and some irish people, and a west indian bloke.

Hattie's Kitchen

08:25 / 28.10.05

My accent is broad Liverpudlian, although it is a lot softer now than it used to be. My dad's Irish and at times there is a bit of an Irish twang to my accent, probably to do with having so many of my Irish relatives living in the UK and spending a lot of time with them growing up. Although I have been mistaken for Russian, Polish and other Slavic accents. I have no idea why.

17:09 / 28.10.05

I've been told I have the American newscaster accent, but I hear my own Valley Girl accent, which started as an affectation but has stuck. It's sort of nasal on some vowels and wide-mouthed on others, with softened consonants, such as 'budder' for 'butter'. I find it amusing to hear people say 'buttah'. I can lapse into other accents also, sounding more surferish when speaking with people from the beachier parts of LA, or more stonerish with East LA folk.

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