"English" accent isn't specific enough ... for example, I think the same phrase said in a Cockney accent might inspire the opposite effect, as would one based on some of the accents common to the American South, which are probably the cosest we have to remnants of the accents of the original English colonists ...
I'm considering adopting an English (not Cockney) accent. To boost my credibility.
Slippy, THINK! Your current life goal is chainsaw sculpture, right? Do you honestly think effecting a plummy accent is gonna endear you to the class of people that matters in the rough-hewn world of treestump carving? Fageddabout David Niven and Michael Caine, start thinking John Goodman or something. Suits you better anyway. Besides, it's impossible to master a nasal tone when you're wearing noseplugs. THINK about it, man!
I'm considering adopting an English (not Cockney) accent. To boost my credibility.
Slippy, THINK! Your current life goal is chainsaw sculpture, right? Do you honestly think effecting a plummy accent is gonna endear you to the class of people that matters in the rough-hewn world of treestump carving? Fageddabout David Niven and Michael Caine, start thinking John Goodman or something. Suits you better anyway. Besides, it's impossible to master a nasal tone when you're wearing noseplugs. THINK about it, man!
I'm considering adopting an English (not Cockney) accent. To boost my credibility.
Slippy, THINK! Your current life goal is chainsaw sculpture, right? Do you honestly think effecting a plummy accent is gonna endear you to the class of people that matters in the rough-hewn world of treestump carving? Fageddabout David Niven and Michael Caine, start thinking John Goodman or something. Suits you better anyway. Besides, it's impossible to master a nasal tone when you're wearing noseplugs. THINK about it, man!
A Scottish accent of an appropriately pleasing lady will make me melt and do anything required of me. Stayed there for a summer and worked with a crazy girl I avoided social situations with but enjoyed listening to without listening to her. Never knew what she was saying but appreciated the tones of her rhythmic musings.
Why aye - It's called received pronounciation (RP). It doesn't belong to any particular area or class. Having said that, many might say that it sounds a bit 'posh' or affected, and it often is. My Grandad moved to London from Yorkshire and 'cleaned up' his accent to 'get on' in the business world. It's tragic, but it worked in the first half of last century. I believe both T. Blair and G. Brown were Scots. - M. Thatcher got shot of Lincolnshire dialect. I myself have some sort of estuary accent, but it can rapidly revert to RP if I answer the phone or try to enunciate particularly clearly to a non-anglophone. It's a kind of BBC accent. It is not (at least not precisely) that of the huntin' shootin' and fishin' classes.
It's a little hard to say what's up with it. The credibility of RP as opposed to regional dialect, may have something to do with experiments conducted with newsreaders on the radio. Yorkshiremen didn't believe Yorkshiremen reading the news. Why they believed the other fellow is anybody's guess.
One of the upshots of the French Revolution was the establishment of a standard French language. In accordance with the principle of taking power and influence away from the established estates of clergy and nobility and making it accessible to commoners in their newly acquired role as citizens, it was decided that the 'language of power and influence' - effectively that which was spoken by the educated and influential in the Isle de France area around Paris - should be defined and taught as the French language to everyone in French schools. As you live there, you can obviously check this out. I like to think of it a kind of recognition of the social animals we are, i.e. like dogs in a pack, with hard-wired perceptions of status.
...One of the upshots of the French Revolution was the establishment of a standard French language. In accordance with the principle of taking power and influence away from the established estates of clergy and nobility and making it accessible to commoners in their newly acquired role as citizens, it was decided that the 'language of power and influence' - effectively that which was spoken by the educated and influential in the Isle de France area around Paris - should be defined and taught as the French language to everyone in French schools...
I read this with a great deal of interest, and having traveled a great deal in France find that while it is true, the colloquialism in the various parts of France was at one time indeed something to behold... almost akin to the differences in from north to south in the USA
If one left Paris and drove south, one would find a great deal of difference in the spoken language, and the cadence differs dramatically once you arrive in "Le Midi"
A Scottish accent of an appropriately pleasing lady will make me melt and do anything required of me. Stayed there for a summer and worked with a crazy girl I avoided social situations with but enjoyed listening to without listening to her. Never knew what she was saying but appreciated the tones of her rhythmic musings.
Yea, but in Scotland we have such regional accents that we don't understand each other half the time. I drive 15 minutes up the road to Falkirk and think they sound funny!
A Scottish accent of an appropriately pleasing lady will make me melt and do anything required of me. Stayed there for a summer and worked with a crazy girl I avoided social situations with but enjoyed listening to without listening to her. Never knew what she was saying but appreciated the tones of her rhythmic musings.
Yea, but in Scotland we have such regional accents that we don't understand each other half the time. I drive 15 minutes up the road to Falkirk and think they sound funny!
I was in inverness. Wasn't too bad there. And was she interesting and not crazy I might have listened to her, but as it happens she was crazy and uninteresting.
She hated coffee shops and book shops. So my refuge was a Starbucks in a borders. Safe as houses!
I live in the south of France in "le Midi" and the accent here is quite strong but i'm originally from Newcastle in the north of England where we probably have one of the strongest accents in the UK, i think the UK has a greater variation of accents than France. The older generation where i live in France still converse with each other in "Occitan" an old dialect very similar to Spanish, its dying out now and even if the younger people understand it none of them speak it.
I think 'Occitan' is a reference to the way people south of an East-West line roughly across the middle of France used to say 'yes'. North of the line it was 'oi' and South of the line was 'oc'. Hence the wine region known as Languedoc. Nowadays they say oui (or 'non' in the case of Charles de Gaulle considering Britain's application to join the common market). There were, and to some extent still are, a number of languages in the French hexagon, what with Bretagne and that area around Gallicia, Limoux etc. Land borders are often a bit random and dialects tend to smear across them, so Frenchmen sound more Italian in the Alpes Maritimes and more Spanish in the Pyrenees.
A Scottish accent of an appropriately pleasing lady will make me melt and do anything required of me. Stayed there for a summer and worked with a crazy girl I avoided social situations with but enjoyed listening to without listening to her. Never knew what she was saying but appreciated the tones of her rhythmic musings.
Yea, but in Scotland we have such regional accents that we don't understand each other half the time. I drive 15 minutes up the road to Falkirk and think they sound funny!
I was in inverness. Wasn't too bad there. And was she interesting and not crazy I might have listened to her, but as it happens she was crazy and uninteresting.
She hated coffee shops and book shops. So my refuge was a Starbucks in a borders. Safe as houses!
Funnily enough, in Inverness they have some of the best pronounced English in the whole of the UK. I think it stems from the fact that for many it's a second language to them, with Gaelic being so predominant up there.
