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In their defence, Queens English (Kings English now?) or RP was what most (older) Brits grew up hearing from news and documentaries. I’m still conditioned to give more weight to an argument given in a formal accent.
Though I do love how shocked Americans are by the range of British accents. E.g. the pirate, in “Treasure Island” was using a particularly thick West country accent.
Also see “Hot Fuzz” for the best play on accents!
He says “an ‘edge is an ‘edge, only chopped it doon cause couldn’t see view no more waz monin bout?”
Can I trade them for groceries?
It’s because we know you didn’t go to school in America
don’t worry, this malady can be cured by following british politics for a month or two
I think we were worse than America when we had the conveyer belt of PMs
feel like the conveyor might restart any time soon.
Just listen to Boris Johnson talk. Dude’s head is so far up his ass he can taste his own hair.
As an American, Boris Johnson and Nigel Garage still sound like morons to me. Factoring in a 20 IQ accent upgrade, puts them in the low 50s. How are they even able to speak?
How are they even able to speak?
Money and attention. Give a broken record a platform and watch as people dance to the irregular beat
Life finds a way to fuck shit up.
My favorite is how autocorrect turned Farage into Garage. More life fucking things up.
private eye typo
I take twenty away.
I know what you people do at your soccer hooliganeries.
Which British accent though? Like RP will make you sound intelligent, West Country makes you sound like a farmer, Northern Irish makes you sound like you’re about to stab someone, Edinburgh makes you sound like a lawyer, Glaswegian makes you sound like a docker, Liverpudlian makes you sound like a rascal, Yorkshire makes you sound like a Union leader, and Shetland makes you sound like a folklorist.
ASAR - All Scousers are Rascals
We know for certain we can rule out the Dudley accent anyway.
And Welsh (particularly central Wales) makes you sound irresistible. That might just be me mind.
I need a Shetland voice actor to read the Silmarillion…
Lenny Bruce said “Thank God Einstein came from Germany! If he’d told people about the Theory of Relativity in a Georgia accent they’d have laughed him out of the college.”
Depends on which accent.
As far as Americans are concerned, there are only 2 British accents:
Villain or wise mentor: Queen’s English
Henchman or comic relief: Cockney
I would really like to see a movie about a team up between detectives with Yorkshire, Brummie and Scouse accents; working cross regionally to bring down a gang of criminals. Hardcoded subtitles for the Americans please.
Michael Cain would like to have a word about the Cockney accent typecasting.
In Flushed Away, is Rita’s accent Cockney? It’s certainly not Coruscanti
Hey now, I’ve watched enough Simon Roper to know that’s not true.
Anecdotal…
British gal is visiting New York. Loves it and makes plenty of friends. She learns that if she has a job offer she can almost certainly get permission to stay. Goes to an employment agency and gets an interview the same day. Hired to a prestigious firm almost immediately. They tell her they love her classy British accent. In the UK she was lower middle class.
edit = silly me. I forgot that ‘middle class’ means different things.
At home, she would be a barmaid at the local.
In NYC she was a receptionist in a law firm on Madison Avenue.
lower middle class
Do you mean in US terms or UK? That phrase means something very different in the UK.
I’m an idiot.
Yes, I meant USA.
To rephrase, to a Brit she was a slum girl who’d gotten a bit of education.
To americans she was Lady Diana’s cousin.
In the UK she was lower middle class.
Did she speak RP tho? Or is this so nuanced in the UK that everyone can tell when you try to speak RP but come from a lower middle class family?
Okay, now I’m lost. RP? Role playing? Ron Perlman? Randy panties?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_American_Speech
The ‘midlantic’ accent was created in Hollywood and popularized by actors like Kate Hepburn and Cary Grant.
Thanks for the information.
Nah, despite the article that was just the “North Eastern Elite” accent and people just spoke like that.
It does, but I once met a Mancunian who sounded, in his own words, common as muck and rough as fuck to a fellow brit, but in the states was treated like Shakespeare
Many yanks don’t tend to think of brummie or scouse…
Why go with two English accents and not Irish and Scottish?
My apologies in advance to the good people of Birmingham but it is well documented that the accent is associated with low intelligence.
As someone living not far from Brum, I concur. Brummies are thick.
Fair point.
Because Americans tend to have positive views of scottish accents. I picked the two most famous examples of accents generally viewed somewhat negatively.
Because it says British? Ireland isn’t British
Assuming “British” is being used colloquially, as it often is, to describe someone or something from the UK, then there are Irish accents in the UK. The island of Ireland contains Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK. People from Northern Ireland have Irish accents. Try telling Nadine Coyle she doesn’t have an Irish accent.
Interesting take. Try telling Nadine Coyle she has a British accent?
That’s fair. It’s not like the whole thing around Northern Ireland and Britain isn’t without its complications and controversies, to understate it massively. But that applies just as much to saying that people from Northern Ireland aren’t British as much as it does to saying they *are *.
People from Northern Ireland are legally entitled to choose to be British citizens. That doesn’t make their accent British, any more than them cooking boxty makes boxty British.
Is Ireland one of the British Isles?
Given that the people of Ireland reject that name, it’s a very British thing to deadname them.
Serious answer - no Prythonic speakers lived in Ireland, so there is no proper basis for the name beyond people quoting a Greek who had never been there. It fell out of use for a millennium and was revised by a Welshman who spoke to angels as a way to erase the separate identities of Scotland, Wales and Ireland. His reasoning was that the King of the Britons, Arthur, had conquered Ireland (if he ever existed, he did not). I am speaking of John Dee who also coined the terms British Empire (it stuck) and British Ocean (it decidedly did not).
To expand on Arthur, if he ever was a real person his first historical record was written 300 years after his supposed death and it claims he was a war leader, not a king, fighting the Saxons to ultimately no avail, though the Historia Brittonnum makes sure to assure the reader that’s only because the Saxons kept bringing in new troops and not because Arthur lost any battles.
Why can’t England be part of the Irish Isles?
Isn’t that already how it works in the UK, for RP? Which is probably the “British accent” that most non-Brits are thinking of, anyway.
Not necessarily. In many places RP labels you as a posh wanker.
…or a Tory, Criminal or Conman (or all of the above).
This is true- am British, lived in America. Also good for dating
How do You think this works for central Europe?
Americans mostly just engage with the UK through high budget BBC productions or posh Brits who are rich enough to fly over here. Continental Europeans mostly deal with yobs flying Ryanair to Villinus or Amsterdam for Stag parties.
Well, if we’re actually talking TX here, wouldn’t that just about put you into Mensa territory - relatively speaking, of course?
Haha yeah texas dumb
Also though, not in terms of IQ. Texas is exactly average, which makes sense because it has a massive population.
Also the mensa cutoff is top 2% of general population or like 130.
It was a joke. I’m honestly dunking on them mainly because I don’t care for the dominant political mindset. I know they have the same intelligence mix as most any other large populace.
That’s ok, they’re only functionally literate. They don’t know any better and didn’t say it in a way that makes me think they’ve got the necessary accent to have extra intelligence.
Pretty spot-on, honestly - I chose this moniker because it seemed to fit my “Jack of all trades, master of none” knowledge levels. I know my limitations, and will freely admit to them. That includes not having the IQ-boosting accent.
I’m pretty sure that doesn’t apply to someone who speaks heavy Brummie or Scouse.
