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How a Fake British Accent Took Old Hollywood by Storm

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Re: How a Fake British Accent Took Old Hollywood by Storm

#61

Post by openasocket »

tluyben2 wrote: post #59
openasocket wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

Re: How a Fake British Accent Took Old Hollywood by Storm

#62

Post by kbutler »

douche wrote: post #41
ewzimm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

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...)

Re: How a Fake British Accent Took Old Hollywood by Storm

#63

Post by amyjess »

> “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.

Re: How a Fake British Accent Took Old Hollywood by Storm

#64

Post by openasocket »

lucozade wrote: post #60
openasocket wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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).

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"

Re: How a Fake British Accent Took Old Hollywood by Storm

#65

Post by amyjess »

stonogo wrote: post #47
jomamaxx wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Re: How a Fake British Accent Took Old Hollywood by Storm

#66

Post by emodendroket »

> 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.

Re: How a Fake British Accent Took Old Hollywood by Storm

#67

Post by nailer »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #13

" . . . 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.

> " . . . 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.

Re: How a Fake British Accent Took Old Hollywood by Storm

#68

Post by lottin »

amyjess wrote: post #63

> “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 a…

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/.

Re: How a Fake British Accent Took Old Hollywood by Storm

#69

Post by nptatall »

emodendroket wrote: post #66

> 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, Bost…

> The entire concept of an elocution class is wildly offensive to most of the modern linguists I know

Emphasis mine.

Are you a linguist?

Re: How a Fake British Accent Took Old Hollywood by Storm

#70

Post by psychometry »

emodendroket wrote: post #66

> 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, Bost…

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.
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