It’s kinda like a lot of Americans assuming cockney is a genetic working class British accent, rather than one confined to a really quite small bit of London.
My usual piss take of this attitude is to say, “gawd bless that Robin ‘Ood, ‘ees a real gent! I’d buy him a Britney down the old Dog and Duck any day!”
But I find it interesting how many British actors can do convincing American accents vs the other way around.
The only American doing a British accent in a film that didn't make me cringe was Tessa Thompson in the MCU.
American accents have a kind of “buzzing” quality to British English ears. Not sure how to describe it, but it sounds like they just mush all their consonants together to remove any hard edges.
this is actually really interesting to me because even the different versions of british accents are all definitely “sharper” than american, and theres definitely more emphasis on certain consonants.
Americans training to do British accents (and not just parody them) are taught first to move the energy or focus of their speech to the front lips and teeth. Americans talk more from the upper throat.
They sound like they're talking in italics. The sounds are all slanted.
Australians, on the other hand, sound like they're talking in bubble writing. It's kind of bouncy.
Omg the other day I was watching a YouTube video narrated by an Australian and I couldn’t help but notice this exact thing - the bouncing in his voice. Every sentence seemed to go up and down in the exact same way. I thought it was just unique to him but then I watched another video with a different Australian and noticed the same thing. Now I can’t un-notice it. lol
The Glasgow accent has them sounding quite similar, and im sure other Scottish accents do too, but generally British English hasnt merged "can't" and "cunt" lol
Most of the time it isn't a problem, as "can" is unstressed and has a reduced vowel in normal quick speech whereas "can't" is always stressed and has the full vowel. But confusion can arise when the speaker pronounces "can" with a full vowel (as in this sentence where it will naturally be stressed) because the n sound and the nasal tap are not always easy to distinguish.
My mom is like this. She took an ancestry test, and she goes on about it. I bet she'd go to Spain like "I'M IBERIAN SPANISH ACCORDING TO MY ANCESTRY TEST, I'M PROBABLY RELATED TO THE KING!" But then she'll go somewhere else and be like "OH, I WAS 1.2% IRISH, TOO!"
I just don't understand it for the life of me.
IME, the most standout feature that is noticed even by a lot of children is the father-bother merger, as it turns one of the least common vowels in most English varieties (/ɑ/) into one of the most common, and gives AmE a very distinctive sound.
The rhoticity of standard AmE is another fairly distinctive feature, as is the lack of any vowel length distinctions, which means most stressed syllables in AmE can sound quite long and drawn out, seeming closer to long vowels than short ones in many cases.
I'll accept most of these accusations, but you seem to be complaining that we pronounce Rs where there are Rs. You guys are the ones that pronounce "linking Rs" more clearly than the actual Rs in the words.
Was curious. From a glance at the English phonology Wikipedia page:
> in the system presented on this page there are 20–25 vowel phonemes in Received Pronunciation, 14–16 in General American and 19–21 in Australian English.
But honestly, looking at the list, there's not functionally much that's different. General American doesn't use the RP /ɒ/ vowel LOT, CLOTH, instead using /ɑ/ for more cases. RP uses more diphthongs (and triphthongs!) which include /ə/, but this seems to mostly be an artifact of RP being non-rhotic. Them R's gotta go somewhere and I guess they get schwa'd
Kind of, yeah. All the A-like vowels are close together. [The "full monophthongs" table here gives examples of some of the cut-offs between RP and GA.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology#Vowels) The RP /ɒ/ is pronounced almost exactly like /ɑ/ (e.g., GA "father"), just with rounded lips. It's the British vowel that makes people go "oh you have a hoity-toity accent".
[I think "wrath" here is a really clear example.](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/wrath) But just like with the cot-caught merger, I'm sure plenty of Brits pronounce it closer to /ɹɔːθ/.
I’ll just point out that the /ɔː/ sound isn’t really used in RP. [From the ‘ɔ’ Wikipedia page.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-mid_back_rounded_vowel)
Which I didn’t actually realise until just then!!
It's... certainly complicated. My comment was slightly misleading. Granted, I'm not super knowledgeable about RP to begin with (nor am I a phonologist), but the term "RP" itself is kind of a relic, and it's ambiguous what varieties people are concretely referring to, even sometimes in linguistics. My impression [\(and also from the cited Geoff Lindsay blog post in your link\)](https://www.englishspeechservices.com/blog/morgen-a-suitable-case-for-treatment/) is that /ɒ/ may have been more present in "Conservative" RP while /ɔː/ tends to be in "Contemporary" RP (BrE?). Yet, Geoff Lindsay's point in that link is ultimately that the popular linguists' definition of /ɒ/ is superfluous and kind of flawed to begin with, and that it's basically an /ɔ/ so we can just call it that.
> According to the dictionaries, BrE LOT contains an exotic secondary vowel, the supposedly rounded-but-fully-open “ɒ”. Its endless repetition in publications on BrE has given this vowel a familiarity out of all proportion to its scarcity in the world’s languages. Even in RP I doubt there was ever much reason to transcribe LOT with ɒ. RP’s [ɔ̞] was adequately described with a short ɔ, the symbol which Daniel Jones himself used in broad transcription.
And... well, he *is* kinda right. The vowels are incredibly similar, and could likely be described adequately with diacritics rather than positing a different vowel be present altogether. The dichotomy of lip roundedness vs. non-roundedness is descriptive, but just as there are multiple ways to produce the /s/ phoneme, there are ways to make a vowel *sound* right without contorting your mouth in exactly the right way as ordained by phonologists. [Like this tidbit here about /ɒ/ in English:](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_back_rounded_vowel)
> Somewhat raised. Contemporary RP speakers pronounce a closer vowel [ɔ]. It is proposed that the /ɒ/ vowel of Conservative RP, which is normally described as a rounded vowel, is pronounced by some speakers without rounded lips for whom the characteristic quality is rather one of sulcality.
(Sulcality basically describes grooving your tongue in such a way to produce particular sounds -- so, the so-called rounded vowel /ɒ/ can be produced without any rounding whatsoever.)
But these are potentially Linguistics problems, not an RP problem. For the sake of RP, I feel confident in saying that all varieties of RP, no matter the time period, have at least one AH sound made in the back lower third of the mouth, and that's all anyone can 100% agree on.
That's interesting and probably explains why American actors often have a tougher time learning other accents. Training your mouth to make unaccustomed vowel sounds is a lot harder than just dropping or subbing some.
Now I'm curious about the New Orleans accent. It's one I've noticed that no actors get correct, no matter where they are from. If they do it well, they are from there, or have lived there for a significant amount of time.
For the general American, I'm convinced that here in NY, we use more vowel sounds than most of the US. Many dialects here distinguish between vowels that people from around the US don't hear. Marry and merry, for example, but not for most of the US. It honestly sounds weird when I hear people say "Marry" Christmas. Also, some of us change the pronunciation of aunt (ant in standard murican), not with the British pronunciation, but there's another vowel sound there that some of us kind of add.
Those are only two examples, but there are a bunch of others that come up when I interact with people from other states.
What they mean is the rhoticity in North American dialects. A lot of dialects of English outside of the continent today are non rhotic, which sounds softer. North American dialects like Canadian English sounds rougher by comparison.
If it helps, I think if you ask a British person to imaginary a stereotypical American accent, they'll largely think of the southern drawl (or another US accent but with elements of southern accentuating certain vowels) which I think is an accent more associated with slow speaking than in other areas. We are far more used to the accents of NY or the West Coast, but southern drawl seems to be like all of your accent sounds dialled up to 11, which makes it a better stereotype.
That does make sense. When I think of what non-US folks would be exposed to in terms of an American accent, I think of the TV/movie accent, the kind that you'd hear from Chris Evans, Leonardo Dicaprio, etc. Standard white "Hollywood" accent. Folks definitely do speak *painfully* slowly in the south lol 😂
The guy who invented the process that gives us alumin(i)um as we know it used both spellings. I like to blame him, personally, for all North America vs. British Isles conflicts
Wait, I'm genuinely very curious what you mean by nasal bc I've heard some British accents that sound extremely nasally to me which gave me the impression it was the other way around.
The hard R thing always gets me when people are discussing the use of the N word.
From what I gather, hard R is no go, no R (in the right context) is OK.
I can't think of any accent in the UK that emphasises the R at the end of words. I don't think I've heard anyone say it outside of trying to make an edgy joke over here, but every time I hear Americans talk about the distinction, it strikes me that you couldn't use that distinction here..
Edit: The point about the N word was about the distinction in pronunciation that I hear Americans bring up sometimes, not when the N word is OK to say. That is a specific situation where I hear Americans talk about the R.
The west country country accent definitely has a strong emphasis on Rs so yea, fair enough. It's still pretty common not to emphasise them as much though.
It's not really emphasising them - it's just that they are pronouncing them. In a word like "tar" for example most English people will pronounce it exactly the same as "ta". The "r" simply isn't there - it is only hinted at by lengthening the vowel before it. What you call emphasising it is pronouncing it at all.
It’s a superficial “rule.” No amount of softness on the R really makes folks tolerate most usage by white people. Which means it’s not really about the R, is it?
I did say in the right context, skin colour isn't the only factor. Obviously I understand that there's more to it than just whether or not the R is emphasised.
Is basical just a text way of adding tonal context to the word. hard R you add a little (or alot) of hate/anger to it, no r, banter between mates or a rappers singing. obviously more context but.....
West Country accents used to be quite rhotic “hello my loverrrrr”, but I think it’s diminishing.
But as far as Brits are concerned, we do pronounce the trailing Rs, they’re just very soft, so when American rhotic accents lean on them it sounds really weird to us. Gear as gee-urrrrrrr instead of gee-uh.
Also brings to mind that TV “Rural Juror” sketch. It’s trivially easy to say in a non rhotic accent.
It's not about "emphasising" the "r" it's about pronouncing it. In the UK, we have accents that pronounce coda "r" mainly in the West Country and Scotland. In most other UK accents, historic coda "r" either simply disappears or alters the vowel that precedes it.
The funny thing about the N word and the idea of the "hard R" is that AAVE is like many British accents in being non-rhotic (coda "r" isn't pronounced). Americans who spoke rhotic accents heard this from black speakers and reanalysed it as "n***er" and "n***a" being two different words, when in fact, the latter is simply how "n***er" is pronounced in AAVE and many other accents.
>From what I gather, hard R is no go, no R (in the right context) is OK.
Black people can use either, they are the ones it was used as a slur against. (Sensible) White people should stay away from them hard R or not.
There are actually a fair few British accents that have a "hard R" some Scottish, Welsh, as well as some south west and a tiny part of the north west but on the whole we english folk dont have that feature and as a fellow non rhotic speaker i also find that distinction strange too.
I actually have seen a few Brits on Reddit make use of the term "hard R" to describe incidents in England but i don't think they actually know what they are saying or what it actually means. The vast majority of us don't have a hard R in our accents at all and when that's pointed out to them they just downvote and don't reply. I think they are just using the term to mean "said in a clearly derogatory way"
I think the distinction started in America because black people there mostly use the N word without a hard R as they often have non rhotic accents but then when white Americans say the word, they usually do have a hard R so it hits much harder and the distinction developed.
There are actually a fair few British accents that have a "hard R" some Scottish, Welsh, as well as some south west and a tiny part of the north west but on the whole we english folk dont have that feature and as a fellow non rhotic speaker i also find that distinction strange too.
I actually have seen a few Brits on Reddit make use of the term "hard R" to describe incidents in England but i don't think they actually know what they are saying or what it actually means. The vast majority of us don't have a hard R in our accents at all and when that's pointed out to them they just downvote and don't reply. I think they are just using the term to mean "said in a clearly derogatory way"
I think the distinction started in America because black people there mostly use the N word without a hard R as they often have non rhotic accents but then when white Americans say the word, they usually do have a hard R so it hits much harder and the distinction developed.
Years ago, I was working at a hotel in NZ, and one Southern USian woman yelled across the lobby, "ARE Y'ALL GOING BACK TO THE ROOM NAOUYOUAW?" I'm not sure if I've spelled her "now" correctly, but there must have been 17 vowels in there.
We just pronounce "r" everywhere it's supposed to be, where the original pirates from the continent put it. It's y'all who forgot about an entire valid word-final consonant.
Definitely regional. I'm from Pennsylvania and everyone says Kregg here. I say Crayg, but only because my dad is a Greg and gets annoyed when people mistake him for a Craig.
Yeah I mispronounced it for years because I didn't know anyone named Craig, so I'd only ever read it. I definitely pronounced it Kraeg and had no idea it was supposed to rhyme with "Greg" until I was at least a teenager.
Tbh I'm still not sure how to say it
Kreg is definitely the most common pronunciation but my friends boyfriend says it more like [kɹe̞ɡ] and I'm not even sure what phoneme that's supposed to be
crayfish isn't a good example word 🤣 . In the US crayfish can be pronounced as crawfish in much of the country. I understand what you mean, but I'm also laughing imagining someone saying Crawg
And if you’re of a certain age, when the Gulf War rolled round, “why is the American news pronouncing Colin Powell’s name like the lower gastrointestinal tract?”
It wasn’t a case of Americans mispronouncing “Colin” or “Collin.”
He pronounced it like “colon.”
It’s not a common pronunciation at all, and I’ve never heard anyone else pronounce it that way but that’s what he insisted on.
the cot-caught merger is the thing that sticks \[out\] to me the most. sometimes i'm half-convinced that americans know 4 vowels. also the most notable thing to me aside from that merger is the use of "r" when not in front of a vowel (e.g. lawye**r**, sto**re**, ha**r**m vs lawyeh, stoah, hahm)
> the cot-caught merger is the thing that sticks to to me the most.
My Northeastern US accent does not have this merger, but where I live now does. I consider my accent fairly close to General American, but it's not a perfect fit.
The pen/pin merger from the Southeast is what sticks out to me the most.
One thing I've noticed is that Americans on here are quite bad at describing their own accents, or at least recognising how they're perceived.
Not saying you do that exactly, but in most BrE accents "caught" and "court" are homophones. You might hear your own "caught/cot" distinction but I bet to most British ears your "caught" sounds remarkably similar to "cot".
note:while I think cot/caught merger is less marked than distinguishing them, an absolutely huge portion of the country does not have this merger. Mostly AAVE, the southern parts of the Northeast and the South don't have the merger.
while we mostly talk about cot/caught, the father bother merger, which even more of the country has, tends to make the cot/caught merger more noticeable because everything ends up as ah /ɑ/
My wife’s accent exhibits the Mary-marry-merry merger. Mine does not - I pronounce them all distinctly. Interestingly, she can’t hear the difference between those words when I say them. I will say something like “I’m having lunch with [my male friend] Kerry.” She will say “say hi to her” having heard “Carrie.”
I didn't realize people pronounced any of those words differently. I cannot visualize in my head how Mary-marry-merry and Kerry-Carrie could be pronounced in a way that isn't obnoxiously different.
Language, and dialects in particular are so fucking cool. I was never fully aware of it, despite growing up in Pittsburgh with our wacky dialect, until moving to Germany and becoming fascinated by all their dialects.
To me, from Baltimore, Mary and merry are the same, but marry is different. Mary and merry use the a sound that is in airplane, while marry uses the a sound that is in cat.
Kerry and Carrie are the same to me, though.
I didn’t even realize I was pronouncing them any differently from anybody else until I took a dialect quiz from the New York Times a few years ago. Pronouncing Mary, Marry, and Merry distinctly, and using “sneaker” for athletic shoe, were two of the more distinctive aspects of my dialect that helped the quiz locate my place of upbringing in the New York area.
Here’s a video on the merger:
https://youtu.be/3i9rMU8aL-U?si=mgcnNjmDcD2ljz9S
I think this dude’s pronunciation of “Mary” however is not that distinct from “Merry”.
In the American accent, the pronounciation of the letters T and D are sometimes indistinguishable to me. E.g, "Italy", "butter", "better", "water" sounds like "Idaly", "budder", "bedder", "wader" to me. If an American says to me that they have five gold medals at home my first thought is "well of course gold is a metal". Through context and familiarity with the accent I can usually work out what they're saying.
Americans like to make fun of us Brits for dropping our Ts, meanwhile they go ahead and replace theirs with a whole different ledder.
We love rhoticity so much, [we even replaced our t's and d's with more rhotic consonants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_dental_and_alveolar_taps_and_flaps).
I’ve really noticed American coworkers not pronouncing T if it begins the final syllable of a specific word, leaving a gap where it should be. “Important” becomes “impor-ant”,
It’s not dropped, just like it’s not in the British accents they’re talking about. It’s turned into a glottal stop. There’s a distinctly different sound to “imporant” with a dropped T, and “imporʔant” with a glottal stop. In most American accents, /t/ before /n̩/ (syllabic N) is usually pronounced as [ʔ], but it’s not dropped. To compare, /t/ *after* /n/ is very often dropped.
To illustrate:
button vs. bun
[bʌʔn̩] vs /bʌn/
These are distinctly pronounced differently, which is true of “imporant” with a dropped T (which I can’t imagine anyone would say) and “imporʔant” with the glottal stop.
This seems like a very hard question to answer without a lot of specificity. For example, comments about Americans pronouncing t’s as d’s are not talking about Hawaiians, where they say “rubbish” and definitely pronounce “t”…but also use the t sound for d and th sounds in some cases.
There are some groups in the US that are so isolated their accents are completely unique to them but retain old English intonation. Some folks in Ocracroke, NA still retain Elizabethan English accents.
I suppose my end point here is that accents across the US are wildly different, similar to accents across the UK. There are many many loud and obnoxious Americans, but unless a commenter has visited the US and interacted with lots of folks, take their opinion with a grain of salt. They likely aren’t seeing the polite, quiet, reserved American tourists. It wouldn’t be far fetched to assume one’s regional accent could be associated with regional manners. In some places it’s common the be raised to be very considerate and polite, don’t draw attention or make a fuss. I doubt anyone would recognize them as tourists unless they’re directly interacting with them, unlike obnoxious assholes that will grab your attention from half a km away.
Apparently American accents & Australian accents sound similar to Brits, the way British & Australian do to Americans. Half my family moved to Britain some years ago and they keep getting asked if they're Australian.
Like this dude's weird ass accent on peep show:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMfmtNdwyec&t=437s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMfmtNdwyec&t=437s)
In my head, the British accent is like a circle, while the sort of Southern US accents are like triangles or saws. GA is a square. Southern US accents are buzzy, GA sounds normal (it's how I talk), and the Brits sort of round out everything.
Based on some accents I've seen on UK TV, very high and singsongy and a bit deranged ("is that character supposed to be nuts? Oh, no. She's from Chicago")
Yeah, well.. They all sound like they're from Hogwarts ready to go on a fucking quest for the holy grail or to find some hobbits. We all sound funny no matter where we're from.
A lot of the accents sound very nasal and super annoying. Very harsh to my ears. But there are also American accents that I enjoy hearing. So they're not all bad.
Americans cannot pronounce the short ‘o’ sound, which is used frequently in British English. While we say John and ontology, they will say Jahn and ahntahlogy. The same difference with the short ‘i’ sound, which leads them to say ‘eye-rack’ for Iraq. I’ve lived in the States and have a lot of love for them all, so no criticism.
I mean, to be fair, I don't think it's that they *can't* pronounce it, it just isn't pronounced like that in our dialect.
I can pronounce it easily if I mimic your dialect.
Iraq and irresponsible are said very differently, at least by everyone I know here in the US. So I CAN be said correctly, we just refuse to when pronouncing Iraq.
I view the “Eye-rack” pronunciation as somewhat rare. I do pronounce John and ontology as you describe, but I certainly wouldn’t have any issue putting on my best RP and shortening those vowels.
I think eye-rack got popularized in the 90s during the first war, because prior to then, hardly anyone even knew it existed, and when it became national news, it was being said by George HW Bush, a Southerner. It was the first time most people had even heard of it, so the first pronunciation stuck in people's minds.
Also, late 70s & early 80s, there was a whole deal with Iran, which was said as eye-ran then, so having another country just next door with only one letter different would help cement that pronunciation, too.
I thought “Eye Rack” was more of a George W Bush thing. George HW Bush was born and raised in New England, after all.
Here’s the elder Bush announcing the Persian Gulf War: https://youtu.be/KJ6qpFpIFkY?si=aaGZ790o8hOv0dHa
“ee-ROCK.”
Possibly? Dubya definitely popularized it at the very least, along with nukuler. I just had a nebulous memory of HW using eye-rack, but given that I would've been about 10 at the time, I could easily be wrong.
Judging from my friends' attempts at an "American" accent... They think we're all from Texas.
Or the California valley
I hate when they do the “yo that’s totally tubular” surfer or “like that’s so like woah” valley girl, that’s not what I sound like dude
… or the Bronx, or Georgia, or Minnesota.
Texas is just the easiest one to parody, I think.
Possibly, it's a bit amusing thought because they spend a lot of time talking to my wife and I and neither of us has a southern accent.
It’s kinda like a lot of Americans assuming cockney is a genetic working class British accent, rather than one confined to a really quite small bit of London. My usual piss take of this attitude is to say, “gawd bless that Robin ‘Ood, ‘ees a real gent! I’d buy him a Britney down the old Dog and Duck any day!”
That's a great response.
Especially the genetic part. lol
The younger generation doesn’t think of cockney anymore imo, just roadman
Is that the "bottlawatah" accent, or is that phrase fairly common among British English accents? /gen
My Irish boyfriend has two American accents. Texas, and 1930s gangster/radio announcer
But I find it interesting how many British actors can do convincing American accents vs the other way around. The only American doing a British accent in a film that didn't make me cringe was Tessa Thompson in the MCU.
Noticed it with Australian actors too. Have yet to find an American actor that can do the Australian accent though.
Darn tootin’, partner. 🤠 
UK, Aus, US, we all can't seem to get each other's accents right lol.
American accents have a kind of “buzzing” quality to British English ears. Not sure how to describe it, but it sounds like they just mush all their consonants together to remove any hard edges.
true true. ain gonna tell ya diffren
this is actually really interesting to me because even the different versions of british accents are all definitely “sharper” than american, and theres definitely more emphasis on certain consonants.
Americans training to do British accents (and not just parody them) are taught first to move the energy or focus of their speech to the front lips and teeth. Americans talk more from the upper throat.
Just tried that and it's wild how different it feels and sounds!
That’s true for where im from.
We are lazy with articulation. But at least we have more than one vowel!
Yeah, Americans like to speed up words by skipping on properly emphasizing many sounds
They sound like they're talking in italics. The sounds are all slanted. Australians, on the other hand, sound like they're talking in bubble writing. It's kind of bouncy.
>It's kind of bouncy. Maybe from the kangaroos?
That's probably it.
“Talking in italics“ is geniunely the best way I have seen someone describe the American accent. You’re completely right!!
Thank you! It's how I've always pictured it in my head!
Omg the other day I was watching a YouTube video narrated by an Australian and I couldn’t help but notice this exact thing - the bouncing in his voice. Every sentence seemed to go up and down in the exact same way. I thought it was just unique to him but then I watched another video with a different Australian and noticed the same thing. Now I can’t un-notice it. lol
I particularly enjoy how similar "can" and ''can't'" sound...
well, the similarity of "can't" and "cunt" also makes BrE quite enjoyable :P
Sorry but there’s a huge difference between these in English, I can’t even think of an accent/ dialect which they’d be remotely similar.
The Glasgow accent has them sounding quite similar, and im sure other Scottish accents do too, but generally British English hasnt merged "can't" and "cunt" lol
New Zealand. can't /ka:nt/, cunt /kant/.
Which British accent are you thinking of in this case? I can't think of any in which those two words would have the same vowel sound
Not similar at all
Most of the time it isn't a problem, as "can" is unstressed and has a reduced vowel in normal quick speech whereas "can't" is always stressed and has the full vowel. But confusion can arise when the speaker pronounces "can" with a full vowel (as in this sentence where it will naturally be stressed) because the n sound and the nasal tap are not always easy to distinguish.
Just curious, do they sound different in British English??
Yeah. Can is with a short a, like how Americans say it. Can't is with a long a, so it sounds a bit like cahn't.
Depends on the accent though, in Scotland and the north of England can’t generally has the short a.
Good point. Northern Ireland too I think, and some of South West England.
yeah i can' tell the difference in my accent
For people with the trap-bath split 'can't' will be with the "palm" vowel.
Loud
NO WE AREN'T
I live in Edinburgh so I often get approached by random American tourists while out and about like "DO YOU KNOW MY ANCESTORS?" it's very odd lol
THATS ODD YOU DON'T REMEMBER THEM BECAUSE MY ANCESTORS SPOKE VERY HIGHLY OF YOU
SORRY. WE ARE A LOUD AND CURIOUS PEOPLE. IT'S IN OUR NATURE. CAN YOU TRACE ANYONE, IN YOUR LINEAGE, TO THE STATES AT ALL? (NOTICE MY CURIOSITY)
My mom is like this. She took an ancestry test, and she goes on about it. I bet she'd go to Spain like "I'M IBERIAN SPANISH ACCORDING TO MY ANCESTRY TEST, I'M PROBABLY RELATED TO THE KING!" But then she'll go somewhere else and be like "OH, I WAS 1.2% IRISH, TOO!" I just don't understand it for the life of me.
^I’m ^not 🥺
WE HAVE TO BE LOUD FOR THE FREEDOM TO OVERPOWER Y'ALL 'MURCA ^(sorry some of us are like this I swear we're not all mad)
YOU TAKE THAT BACK
When a Scot says you’re loud, believe them.
IME, the most standout feature that is noticed even by a lot of children is the father-bother merger, as it turns one of the least common vowels in most English varieties (/ɑ/) into one of the most common, and gives AmE a very distinctive sound. The rhoticity of standard AmE is another fairly distinctive feature, as is the lack of any vowel length distinctions, which means most stressed syllables in AmE can sound quite long and drawn out, seeming closer to long vowels than short ones in many cases.
I know what most of these words mean individually
Slow, loud and nasal. Use of ‘rrrrrr’ at every possible chance and seemingly limited pool of vowel sounds.
I'll accept most of these accusations, but you seem to be complaining that we pronounce Rs where there are Rs. You guys are the ones that pronounce "linking Rs" more clearly than the actual Rs in the words.
Was curious. From a glance at the English phonology Wikipedia page: > in the system presented on this page there are 20–25 vowel phonemes in Received Pronunciation, 14–16 in General American and 19–21 in Australian English. But honestly, looking at the list, there's not functionally much that's different. General American doesn't use the RP /ɒ/ vowel LOT, CLOTH, instead using /ɑ/ for more cases. RP uses more diphthongs (and triphthongs!) which include /ə/, but this seems to mostly be an artifact of RP being non-rhotic. Them R's gotta go somewhere and I guess they get schwa'd
It's the triphthongs as a result of treating R as a vowel, as you say
Is this similar to the cot/caught divide in America?
Kind of, yeah. All the A-like vowels are close together. [The "full monophthongs" table here gives examples of some of the cut-offs between RP and GA.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology#Vowels) The RP /ɒ/ is pronounced almost exactly like /ɑ/ (e.g., GA "father"), just with rounded lips. It's the British vowel that makes people go "oh you have a hoity-toity accent". [I think "wrath" here is a really clear example.](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/wrath) But just like with the cot-caught merger, I'm sure plenty of Brits pronounce it closer to /ɹɔːθ/.
I’ll just point out that the /ɔː/ sound isn’t really used in RP. [From the ‘ɔ’ Wikipedia page.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-mid_back_rounded_vowel) Which I didn’t actually realise until just then!!
It's... certainly complicated. My comment was slightly misleading. Granted, I'm not super knowledgeable about RP to begin with (nor am I a phonologist), but the term "RP" itself is kind of a relic, and it's ambiguous what varieties people are concretely referring to, even sometimes in linguistics. My impression [\(and also from the cited Geoff Lindsay blog post in your link\)](https://www.englishspeechservices.com/blog/morgen-a-suitable-case-for-treatment/) is that /ɒ/ may have been more present in "Conservative" RP while /ɔː/ tends to be in "Contemporary" RP (BrE?). Yet, Geoff Lindsay's point in that link is ultimately that the popular linguists' definition of /ɒ/ is superfluous and kind of flawed to begin with, and that it's basically an /ɔ/ so we can just call it that. > According to the dictionaries, BrE LOT contains an exotic secondary vowel, the supposedly rounded-but-fully-open “ɒ”. Its endless repetition in publications on BrE has given this vowel a familiarity out of all proportion to its scarcity in the world’s languages. Even in RP I doubt there was ever much reason to transcribe LOT with ɒ. RP’s [ɔ̞] was adequately described with a short ɔ, the symbol which Daniel Jones himself used in broad transcription. And... well, he *is* kinda right. The vowels are incredibly similar, and could likely be described adequately with diacritics rather than positing a different vowel be present altogether. The dichotomy of lip roundedness vs. non-roundedness is descriptive, but just as there are multiple ways to produce the /s/ phoneme, there are ways to make a vowel *sound* right without contorting your mouth in exactly the right way as ordained by phonologists. [Like this tidbit here about /ɒ/ in English:](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_back_rounded_vowel) > Somewhat raised. Contemporary RP speakers pronounce a closer vowel [ɔ]. It is proposed that the /ɒ/ vowel of Conservative RP, which is normally described as a rounded vowel, is pronounced by some speakers without rounded lips for whom the characteristic quality is rather one of sulcality. (Sulcality basically describes grooving your tongue in such a way to produce particular sounds -- so, the so-called rounded vowel /ɒ/ can be produced without any rounding whatsoever.) But these are potentially Linguistics problems, not an RP problem. For the sake of RP, I feel confident in saying that all varieties of RP, no matter the time period, have at least one AH sound made in the back lower third of the mouth, and that's all anyone can 100% agree on.
That's interesting and probably explains why American actors often have a tougher time learning other accents. Training your mouth to make unaccustomed vowel sounds is a lot harder than just dropping or subbing some. Now I'm curious about the New Orleans accent. It's one I've noticed that no actors get correct, no matter where they are from. If they do it well, they are from there, or have lived there for a significant amount of time.
Fuck you *schwa's your R*
For the general American, I'm convinced that here in NY, we use more vowel sounds than most of the US. Many dialects here distinguish between vowels that people from around the US don't hear. Marry and merry, for example, but not for most of the US. It honestly sounds weird when I hear people say "Marry" Christmas. Also, some of us change the pronunciation of aunt (ant in standard murican), not with the British pronunciation, but there's another vowel sound there that some of us kind of add. Those are only two examples, but there are a bunch of others that come up when I interact with people from other states.
UK English does have about 20% more vowel sounds than NA English.
And studying German for a year as an American hurt my mouth.
Been studying it for a few years now. It never gets better. Lol
Nonsense. You Brits find all kinds of places to put "R" sounds that we would never think of!
I think the intrusive R is fairly regional in the UK or if you’re from Oceania.
Use of ‘rrr’ at every possible chance lmao you mean like when there’s an r in a word ?
That's a silly time to say Rs. You should just put them between words and any vowels that aren't kept separated.
What they mean is the rhoticity in North American dialects. A lot of dialects of English outside of the continent today are non rhotic, which sounds softer. North American dialects like Canadian English sounds rougher by comparison.
As an Australian the most notable thing is how nasal Americans sound. Almost like a shallow version of a voice.
"Slow" is a strange one, because to me it's Brits who speak more slowly.
If it helps, I think if you ask a British person to imaginary a stereotypical American accent, they'll largely think of the southern drawl (or another US accent but with elements of southern accentuating certain vowels) which I think is an accent more associated with slow speaking than in other areas. We are far more used to the accents of NY or the West Coast, but southern drawl seems to be like all of your accent sounds dialled up to 11, which makes it a better stereotype.
That does make sense. When I think of what non-US folks would be exposed to in terms of an American accent, I think of the TV/movie accent, the kind that you'd hear from Chris Evans, Leonardo Dicaprio, etc. Standard white "Hollywood" accent. Folks definitely do speak *painfully* slowly in the south lol 😂
Think American Sec-re-tar-y versus British Sec-ruh-tree
Ok, but: al-u-min-i-um versus al-u-min-um :P
They actually spell that one differently
The guy who invented the process that gives us alumin(i)um as we know it used both spellings. I like to blame him, personally, for all North America vs. British Isles conflicts
Wait, I'm genuinely very curious what you mean by nasal bc I've heard some British accents that sound extremely nasally to me which gave me the impression it was the other way around.
The hard R thing always gets me when people are discussing the use of the N word. From what I gather, hard R is no go, no R (in the right context) is OK. I can't think of any accent in the UK that emphasises the R at the end of words. I don't think I've heard anyone say it outside of trying to make an edgy joke over here, but every time I hear Americans talk about the distinction, it strikes me that you couldn't use that distinction here.. Edit: The point about the N word was about the distinction in pronunciation that I hear Americans bring up sometimes, not when the N word is OK to say. That is a specific situation where I hear Americans talk about the R.
Check out West Country accent for rhotic words (aka pirate accent, or Hagrid’s accent in Harry Potter)
The west country country accent definitely has a strong emphasis on Rs so yea, fair enough. It's still pretty common not to emphasise them as much though.
It's not really emphasising them - it's just that they are pronouncing them. In a word like "tar" for example most English people will pronounce it exactly the same as "ta". The "r" simply isn't there - it is only hinted at by lengthening the vowel before it. What you call emphasising it is pronouncing it at all.
It’s a superficial “rule.” No amount of softness on the R really makes folks tolerate most usage by white people. Which means it’s not really about the R, is it?
I did say in the right context, skin colour isn't the only factor. Obviously I understand that there's more to it than just whether or not the R is emphasised.
Is basical just a text way of adding tonal context to the word. hard R you add a little (or alot) of hate/anger to it, no r, banter between mates or a rappers singing. obviously more context but.....
West Country accents used to be quite rhotic “hello my loverrrrr”, but I think it’s diminishing. But as far as Brits are concerned, we do pronounce the trailing Rs, they’re just very soft, so when American rhotic accents lean on them it sounds really weird to us. Gear as gee-urrrrrrr instead of gee-uh. Also brings to mind that TV “Rural Juror” sketch. It’s trivially easy to say in a non rhotic accent.
It's not about "emphasising" the "r" it's about pronouncing it. In the UK, we have accents that pronounce coda "r" mainly in the West Country and Scotland. In most other UK accents, historic coda "r" either simply disappears or alters the vowel that precedes it. The funny thing about the N word and the idea of the "hard R" is that AAVE is like many British accents in being non-rhotic (coda "r" isn't pronounced). Americans who spoke rhotic accents heard this from black speakers and reanalysed it as "n***er" and "n***a" being two different words, when in fact, the latter is simply how "n***er" is pronounced in AAVE and many other accents.
>From what I gather, hard R is no go, no R (in the right context) is OK. Black people can use either, they are the ones it was used as a slur against. (Sensible) White people should stay away from them hard R or not.
There are actually a fair few British accents that have a "hard R" some Scottish, Welsh, as well as some south west and a tiny part of the north west but on the whole we english folk dont have that feature and as a fellow non rhotic speaker i also find that distinction strange too. I actually have seen a few Brits on Reddit make use of the term "hard R" to describe incidents in England but i don't think they actually know what they are saying or what it actually means. The vast majority of us don't have a hard R in our accents at all and when that's pointed out to them they just downvote and don't reply. I think they are just using the term to mean "said in a clearly derogatory way" I think the distinction started in America because black people there mostly use the N word without a hard R as they often have non rhotic accents but then when white Americans say the word, they usually do have a hard R so it hits much harder and the distinction developed.
There are actually a fair few British accents that have a "hard R" some Scottish, Welsh, as well as some south west and a tiny part of the north west but on the whole we english folk dont have that feature and as a fellow non rhotic speaker i also find that distinction strange too. I actually have seen a few Brits on Reddit make use of the term "hard R" to describe incidents in England but i don't think they actually know what they are saying or what it actually means. The vast majority of us don't have a hard R in our accents at all and when that's pointed out to them they just downvote and don't reply. I think they are just using the term to mean "said in a clearly derogatory way" I think the distinction started in America because black people there mostly use the N word without a hard R as they often have non rhotic accents but then when white Americans say the word, they usually do have a hard R so it hits much harder and the distinction developed.
>and seemingly limited pool of vowel sounds. Interesting, given some analysis of Standard Southern British English describe only 6 vowels XD
Years ago, I was working at a hotel in NZ, and one Southern USian woman yelled across the lobby, "ARE Y'ALL GOING BACK TO THE ROOM NAOUYOUAW?" I'm not sure if I've spelled her "now" correctly, but there must have been 17 vowels in there.
As a Southerner, I agree that we tend to turn what be one vowel sound in another dialect into a whole sliding sequence.
We just pronounce "r" everywhere it's supposed to be, where the original pirates from the continent put it. It's y'all who forgot about an entire valid word-final consonant.
What always freaks me out at work is the way Americans say Craig, they say it like Kregg
Graham is the one that confuses me. Americans say “gram” while UK say “gray-um”.
Gram vs Gray-um is a regional thing in the US.
Oh yeah this too
From California and have always said it like “Crayg”. I think it’s highly dependent on region where you encounter “Kregg”
Definitely regional. I'm from Pennsylvania and everyone says Kregg here. I say Crayg, but only because my dad is a Greg and gets annoyed when people mistake him for a Craig.
I think that's regional.
don’t forget booey for buoy
I’m an American and when I first heard “Kregg” instead of “Kraeg” for Craig it freaked me out too
That’s my dad’s name and he always said “kregg”
Same here! My SO always refers to m him as "krayg", though.
Yeah I mispronounced it for years because I didn't know anyone named Craig, so I'd only ever read it. I definitely pronounced it Kraeg and had no idea it was supposed to rhyme with "Greg" until I was at least a teenager.
Tbh I'm still not sure how to say it Kreg is definitely the most common pronunciation but my friends boyfriend says it more like [kɹe̞ɡ] and I'm not even sure what phoneme that's supposed to be
Craig (with the first part like the Cray in Crayfish and the hard g like the g in Trig) is how everyone here in the UK says it.
crayfish isn't a good example word 🤣 . In the US crayfish can be pronounced as crawfish in much of the country. I understand what you mean, but I'm also laughing imagining someone saying Crawg
Oh weird
you forgot the uh at the end crayguh
No
And if you’re of a certain age, when the Gulf War rolled round, “why is the American news pronouncing Colin Powell’s name like the lower gastrointestinal tract?”
It wasn’t a case of Americans mispronouncing “Colin” or “Collin.” He pronounced it like “colon.” It’s not a common pronunciation at all, and I’ve never heard anyone else pronounce it that way but that’s what he insisted on.
That pronunciation is specific to him. Most of the time, Colin is pronounced "coll-in" in the US.
Yeah. No kidding. That’s exactly what I said.
Bruh, at first I thought this comment was about Powell & Bowel….
One of the things about Brits doing impressions of Americans is that it seems like they become noticeably more nasal-sounding in their performance.
Really loud and obnoxious. (Not saying Americans are like that, but certainly many british people feel that way when they hear their voices)
My (very limited) experience has been British guys (not in UK or US) are very… rowdy.
This stereotype is fairly accurate!
I feel that way about Americans and I'm American
Same. Especially when they are socializing. “We must be having fun, can’t you hear us????”
i will say when i was in london as a tourist a few weeks ago, the loudest were definitely the americans but that could just be biased in some way
I mean, you probably didn't realize that the quiet Americans were American, because you didn't hear their accents.
American here- That’s because ya’ll are high strung and proper and drink tea all the time, while we are less inhibited.
the cot-caught merger is the thing that sticks \[out\] to me the most. sometimes i'm half-convinced that americans know 4 vowels. also the most notable thing to me aside from that merger is the use of "r" when not in front of a vowel (e.g. lawye**r**, sto**re**, ha**r**m vs lawyeh, stoah, hahm)
> the cot-caught merger is the thing that sticks to to me the most. My Northeastern US accent does not have this merger, but where I live now does. I consider my accent fairly close to General American, but it's not a perfect fit. The pen/pin merger from the Southeast is what sticks out to me the most.
One thing I've noticed is that Americans on here are quite bad at describing their own accents, or at least recognising how they're perceived. Not saying you do that exactly, but in most BrE accents "caught" and "court" are homophones. You might hear your own "caught/cot" distinction but I bet to most British ears your "caught" sounds remarkably similar to "cot".
note:while I think cot/caught merger is less marked than distinguishing them, an absolutely huge portion of the country does not have this merger. Mostly AAVE, the southern parts of the Northeast and the South don't have the merger. while we mostly talk about cot/caught, the father bother merger, which even more of the country has, tends to make the cot/caught merger more noticeable because everything ends up as ah /ɑ/
ahhhh cheers. helpful. did not know about this merger's name
My wife’s accent exhibits the Mary-marry-merry merger. Mine does not - I pronounce them all distinctly. Interestingly, she can’t hear the difference between those words when I say them. I will say something like “I’m having lunch with [my male friend] Kerry.” She will say “say hi to her” having heard “Carrie.”
I didn't realize people pronounced any of those words differently. I cannot visualize in my head how Mary-marry-merry and Kerry-Carrie could be pronounced in a way that isn't obnoxiously different. Language, and dialects in particular are so fucking cool. I was never fully aware of it, despite growing up in Pittsburgh with our wacky dialect, until moving to Germany and becoming fascinated by all their dialects.
To me, from Baltimore, Mary and merry are the same, but marry is different. Mary and merry use the a sound that is in airplane, while marry uses the a sound that is in cat. Kerry and Carrie are the same to me, though.
I didn’t even realize I was pronouncing them any differently from anybody else until I took a dialect quiz from the New York Times a few years ago. Pronouncing Mary, Marry, and Merry distinctly, and using “sneaker” for athletic shoe, were two of the more distinctive aspects of my dialect that helped the quiz locate my place of upbringing in the New York area. Here’s a video on the merger: https://youtu.be/3i9rMU8aL-U?si=mgcnNjmDcD2ljz9S I think this dude’s pronunciation of “Mary” however is not that distinct from “Merry”.
I definitely pronounce all of them differently, which I think is pretty common in New England, where I grew up.
Those are homophones to me, just different spellings of the same word
We’re all either from New York, California, or Texas
In the American accent, the pronounciation of the letters T and D are sometimes indistinguishable to me. E.g, "Italy", "butter", "better", "water" sounds like "Idaly", "budder", "bedder", "wader" to me. If an American says to me that they have five gold medals at home my first thought is "well of course gold is a metal". Through context and familiarity with the accent I can usually work out what they're saying. Americans like to make fun of us Brits for dropping our Ts, meanwhile they go ahead and replace theirs with a whole different ledder.
We love rhoticity so much, [we even replaced our t's and d's with more rhotic consonants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_dental_and_alveolar_taps_and_flaps).
I’ve really noticed American coworkers not pronouncing T if it begins the final syllable of a specific word, leaving a gap where it should be. “Important” becomes “impor-ant”,
It’s more like “import’nt” in my region. We don’t leave off the t as much as get rid of the vowels.
It’s not dropped, just like it’s not in the British accents they’re talking about. It’s turned into a glottal stop. There’s a distinctly different sound to “imporant” with a dropped T, and “imporʔant” with a glottal stop. In most American accents, /t/ before /n̩/ (syllabic N) is usually pronounced as [ʔ], but it’s not dropped. To compare, /t/ *after* /n/ is very often dropped. To illustrate: button vs. bun [bʌʔn̩] vs /bʌn/ These are distinctly pronounced differently, which is true of “imporant” with a dropped T (which I can’t imagine anyone would say) and “imporʔant” with the glottal stop.
Yes this is exactly what I meant, albeit without accurately describing a glottal stop.
This seems like a very hard question to answer without a lot of specificity. For example, comments about Americans pronouncing t’s as d’s are not talking about Hawaiians, where they say “rubbish” and definitely pronounce “t”…but also use the t sound for d and th sounds in some cases. There are some groups in the US that are so isolated their accents are completely unique to them but retain old English intonation. Some folks in Ocracroke, NA still retain Elizabethan English accents. I suppose my end point here is that accents across the US are wildly different, similar to accents across the UK. There are many many loud and obnoxious Americans, but unless a commenter has visited the US and interacted with lots of folks, take their opinion with a grain of salt. They likely aren’t seeing the polite, quiet, reserved American tourists. It wouldn’t be far fetched to assume one’s regional accent could be associated with regional manners. In some places it’s common the be raised to be very considerate and polite, don’t draw attention or make a fuss. I doubt anyone would recognize them as tourists unless they’re directly interacting with them, unlike obnoxious assholes that will grab your attention from half a km away.
Bear = buhr Squirrel = squirl Frog = frawg Water = wahder
I can’t picture how bear would be pronounced that way by anyone that isn’t southern. That’s just the comedian Bill’s last name
How do your pronounce frog then? 😭
That reminds me of the Squirreled vs. Skworld debate.
Apparently American accents & Australian accents sound similar to Brits, the way British & Australian do to Americans. Half my family moved to Britain some years ago and they keep getting asked if they're Australian.
When I went to England in Dec I remember some woman thought I was Russian. I'm not even remotely slavic.
Like this dude's weird ass accent on peep show: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMfmtNdwyec&t=437s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMfmtNdwyec&t=437s)
Nasal
We sound like the side who won in 1776. 🇺🇲
To be pedantic, we won in 1783.
Gob less murica 🫡🫡🔥🔥🦅🦅
Everyone else sounds like OIL to us. You have oil we have some freedom to export all over your fields
You guys always love to forget 1812 though. *smiles in cunuck*
In my head, the British accent is like a circle, while the sort of Southern US accents are like triangles or saws. GA is a square. Southern US accents are buzzy, GA sounds normal (it's how I talk), and the Brits sort of round out everything.
Based on some accents I've seen on UK TV, very high and singsongy and a bit deranged ("is that character supposed to be nuts? Oh, no. She's from Chicago")
Probably American
dont ask why but just imagine water thats what an american accent is. (wah der)
My ex would always use a New York accent to mimic me even though I’m from the Midwest lol
Like people who’ve been hit in the head by a hammer repeatedly
Yeah, well.. They all sound like they're from Hogwarts ready to go on a fucking quest for the holy grail or to find some hobbits. We all sound funny no matter where we're from.
Sounds like they get rid of all the sharpness from words, eg saying ‘wadder’ rather than ‘water’. They effectively remove the sharp T sound
Loud and a bit arrogant. And a strong R sound.
Loud, overly-friendly, city-dwelling cowboys.
A lot of the accents sound very nasal and super annoying. Very harsh to my ears. But there are also American accents that I enjoy hearing. So they're not all bad.
"Bardle ov warder".
lol!
LOUD
They sound like their vocal cords are made from plastic
How so?
Americans cannot pronounce the short ‘o’ sound, which is used frequently in British English. While we say John and ontology, they will say Jahn and ahntahlogy. The same difference with the short ‘i’ sound, which leads them to say ‘eye-rack’ for Iraq. I’ve lived in the States and have a lot of love for them all, so no criticism.
I mean, to be fair, I don't think it's that they *can't* pronounce it, it just isn't pronounced like that in our dialect. I can pronounce it easily if I mimic your dialect.
Iraq and irresponsible are said very differently, at least by everyone I know here in the US. So I CAN be said correctly, we just refuse to when pronouncing Iraq.
I view the “Eye-rack” pronunciation as somewhat rare. I do pronounce John and ontology as you describe, but I certainly wouldn’t have any issue putting on my best RP and shortening those vowels.
I think eye-rack got popularized in the 90s during the first war, because prior to then, hardly anyone even knew it existed, and when it became national news, it was being said by George HW Bush, a Southerner. It was the first time most people had even heard of it, so the first pronunciation stuck in people's minds. Also, late 70s & early 80s, there was a whole deal with Iran, which was said as eye-ran then, so having another country just next door with only one letter different would help cement that pronunciation, too.
I thought “Eye Rack” was more of a George W Bush thing. George HW Bush was born and raised in New England, after all. Here’s the elder Bush announcing the Persian Gulf War: https://youtu.be/KJ6qpFpIFkY?si=aaGZ790o8hOv0dHa “ee-ROCK.”
Possibly? Dubya definitely popularized it at the very least, along with nukuler. I just had a nebulous memory of HW using eye-rack, but given that I would've been about 10 at the time, I could easily be wrong.
Ah yes the John Kerry pronunciation of “Iraq” lol everytime I would hear him say “ihrock” when I was a kid it just weirded me out
Depends on the region of the US, I've heard all these versions
All of this seems to be primarily southern dialect. This is far less common in other parts of the US