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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

#91

Post by psyc »

WorldMaker wrote: post #88
psyc wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's too much appeal to consequences here. I'd rather see someone make an argument for why a set of pronunciations can't be canonical. I certainly know exactly which pronunciations are the "neutral" ones, even the ones I don't use myself. So how did those pronunciations receive their status? What does it mean for us to hear them as "unaccented", and why exactly is that misguided?

The armchair linguistics as I know it: Accents (and languages in general) are typically social, tribal. We use them as one of the markers of "our tribe" versus "not our tribe". Things that sound neutral/unaccented to us are things that sound like they come from "around us", from within our tribe. Things that sound foreign are clearly not from our tribe. The misguided part here is that thinking because it sounds neutr…

I grew up in a region with a strong, distinctive regional accent and dialect. Every member of my family, teachers, friends, literally everyone all spoke with that accent. But even from a very young age (like 3-4) I knew it was an accent. I didn't pick it up. I understood what canonical pronunciation was, and opted for that. So, what, I just decided that newscasters were my tribe for some reason? I'm just very suspicious of the idea that its completely relative, and just depends on what you're used to hearing. If you were being taught a foreign language by a native speaker, I think you'd be much less likely to doubt them when they told you "this is how it is pronounced."

And you ended with another appeal to consequences.

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

#92

Post by teddyh »

mc32 wrote: post #46
matt4077 wrote: post #8

Whenever I'm traveling in areas where people speak with an accent (either english or my native language), I can't stop myself from imitating it. Really badly. After a week or so I'm terribly annoyed by the sound of my own voice. It has even happened when someone was visiting, and acting in some sort of leadership role with a lot of speaking time. So I could imagine a single Hollywood director could possibly start a t…

I think it was John Cleese once, who was speaking of a fellow actor who could do great impressions of others and do many accents --he said, "He never had his own voice". Not sure if Cleese had a point, but it's an interesting take on his fellow actor and that he finds "having one's own voice" important, to some extent.

He was probably referring to Peter Sellers.

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

#93

Post by mc32 »

teddyh wrote: post #92
mc32 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was John Cleese once, who was speaking of a fellow actor who could do great impressions of others and do many accents --he said, "He never had his own voice". Not sure if Cleese had a point, but it's an interesting take on his fellow actor and that he finds "having one's own voice" important, to some extent.

He was probably referring to Peter Sellers.

Yep, you're quite right. Thanks. Here it is. http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?story... At 00:20:40

"CLEESE: Yes, I do. And it just showed why he was such a wonderful impersonator. But it showed that in a very strange way because he'd overslept. And his chauffer Bert said, sorry, boys, Peter's overslept. I'll make you coffee. He'll be out in a bit. And we just sat there sipping coffee. And when Peter came out, he was still in his dressing gown or his robe. And he was apologizing for having overslept, but apologizing in a voice that was not his own. And suddenly, he switched into a rather sort of plumy upper-class voice and was talking to us like this as he walked towards us. And at a moment, he was talking a bit like that. And then he went into another voice, sat on the sofa and 10 seconds later, he was talking to us in his own voice. And see, we were the first persons that he'd spoken to that morning. He'd only just been up a few minutes. And we realized when Graham and I - Graham Chapman and I - sort of compared notes afterwards, we realized that Peter Sellers in the morning had to find his own voice.

DAVIES: So he wasn't trying to impress you. It's like somebody tuning in...

CLEESE: No, no...

DAVIES: ...A radio dial and finding the station.

CLEESE: There was a lack of real personality at his core. And the people who were very good impressionists are often rather like that. Similarly, people who write very good parodies but don't write such great original comedy, those people often lack a certain emotional life. They're very clever, their observation is good, but emotion doesn't inform their work in any way. So their work tends to be brilliantly observed, but not very - what's the word? - not very powerful. They don't tend to be terribly funny. They tend to be terribly clever. So this kind of personality type - a person who has a weak sense of their own identity - they're frightfully good at copying other people, whether it's other writers or other performers.

But we realized that Peter literally had to find his own voice in the morning. And to that extent, he was a sort of personality that he'd had to manufacture himself from different parts. And I - one of the Pythons was ever so slightly like that. And we could always tell when he had been spending time with one of his Beatles friends because he would have a slight Liverpool accent for the next 24 hours."

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

#94

Post by nailer »

jewbacca wrote: post #90
nailer wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As wikipedia mentions, don't cite wikipedia itself. The first reference on the site prefers 'Transatlantic' too: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/08/oh-old-timey-m...

Key word: prefers . The grandparent comment is framing this as "that word is wrong , because in the context I've encountered it in, we used this other, right , word". When, assuredly meeting whatever measure you might use to qualify this besides the GP poster's personal experience (... though they do seem to recognize its meaning well enough), "mid-atlantic accent" and "trans-atlantic accent" are synonyms. ---- Like,…

You're right, I was way too absolutist there. Edited.

You still shouldn't cite wikipedia!

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

#95

Post by emodendroket »

psychometry wrote: post #70
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.

But modern linguists are generally not the kind of people who'd want to take an elocution class today. Mostly people who would want to take such a class are people whose accents clearly mark them as being in a disfavored group. So if "modern linguists" really oppose the very concept of such a class I'd say they're being rather solipsistic.

And in fact I don't think they do, since linguists are among the specialists who contribute to "accent reduction" courses, which seems like a modern name for the same thing.

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

#96

Post by foldr »

psyc wrote: post #91
WorldMaker wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The armchair linguistics as I know it: Accents (and languages in general) are typically social, tribal. We use them as one of the markers of "our tribe" versus "not our tribe". Things that sound neutral/unaccented to us are things that sound like they come from "around us", from within our tribe. Things that sound foreign are clearly not from our tribe. The misguided part here is that thinking because it sounds neutr…

I grew up in a region with a strong, distinctive regional accent and dialect. Every member of my family, teachers, friends, literally everyone all spoke with that accent. But even from a very young age (like 3-4) I knew it was an accent. I didn't pick it up. I understood what canonical pronunciation was, and opted for that. So, what, I just decided that newscasters were my tribe for some reason? I'm just very suspici…

The problem with this view is that there are instances where the 'canonical' pronunciation in one group is the 'noncanonical' pronunciation in another, and vice versa. For example, in British English, 'r' deletion is part of the 'canonical' pronunciation and it's only nonstandard dialects that are rhotic. In American English it's the other way round. So in general, it can't be that features of the pronunciation itself somehow determine whether or not it is canonical.

I doubt you really know what accent you spoke with when you were three or four. As to why you picked up an accent somewhere close to SAE, it's most likely for reasons of prestige.

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

#97

Post by zc75 »

pash wrote: post #33
dirtbox wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm British which I think qualifies me to say it very much was. He had a few inflections of the period, but there's no mistaking it.

I won't tell you what you hear, but his manner of speaking is often held out as an example of Mid-Atlantic diction, albeit an idiosyncratic one—Cary Grant spoke like Cary Grant. His accent was his native Bristol at base, with Americanisms heaped on top, a Mid-Atlantic destination arrived at from the opposite direction of contemporary American actors. But with his short American a 's and clipped cadence, to my ear his…

Just a counterpoint: I have short A's and a clipped cadence. I'm English and have never been to America. (Not that I'm from Bristol either!)

I've never thought of Cary Grant's accent to be anything but English. I don't hear any American in it at all.

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

#98

Post by psyc »

foldr wrote: post #96
psyc wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in a region with a strong, distinctive regional accent and dialect. Every member of my family, teachers, friends, literally everyone all spoke with that accent. But even from a very young age (like 3-4) I knew it was an accent. I didn't pick it up. I understood what canonical pronunciation was, and opted for that. So, what, I just decided that newscasters were my tribe for some reason? I'm just very suspici…

The problem with this view is that there are instances where the 'canonical' pronunciation in one group is the 'noncanonical' pronunciation in another, and vice versa. For example, in British English, 'r' deletion is part of the 'canonical' pronunciation and it's only nonstandard dialects that are rhotic. In American English it's the other way round. So in general, it can't be that features of the pronunciation itsel…

I don't have to remember. I have recordings. Things like 'r' are a bit of a puzzle. What determines when a letter is silent? I don't actually believe pronunciation is absolute or fixed in time. But I don't believe its perfectly relative, either, or that "standard" does not have a meaning. Most accents sound like vowel sounds aliasing as other vowel sounds. I think the standard accent just doesn't alias nearly as much among all the vowel sounds, and I think that's meaningful.

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

#99

Post by jessaustin »

cgio wrote: post #40
DonaldFisk wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well spotted. Latin has three genders, and Atlas is listed as masculine in all of the online dictionaries listed here: http://www.lexilogos.com/english/latin_dictionary.htm so it should indeed be Atlas obscurus.

Or Atlas obscurae?

I don't know Latin, but from the word "alumnae" I would expect that to be the plural feminine ending. Of course in the one case it's a noun and in the other it's an adjective, so I may be way off base.

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

#100

Post by wanda »

ojosilva wrote: post #14

I missed references in the article to Kelsey Grammer, the actor who portrayed Fraser Crane in the sitcom Fraser. That was how I became acquainted with the Mid-Atlantic accent, by researching Grammer's (or Fraser's to be more precise) distinctively snobby accent. Fraser's lines and Grammer's interpretation probably deserve a place in the canons of American English accents and linguistics.

In the spirit of the aforementioned sitcom's titular character, and with no ill sentiment intended toward the parent, I must hasten to point out that it is spelled 'Frasier'.
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