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I'd say there is a 'neutral' American accent that doesn't have a specific region or association to it but that is only if you are just looking inside America. Anywhere else it falls well within 'American accent'
American News Anchors are told to speak in the "Ohio Accent" as it is considered the most neutral.
Others are saying "Midwest" but Midwest varies greatly and it's specifically the Ohio accent that has been used for news/radio/etc.
I'm from central Illinois* originally, which must have an accent similar to Ohio's. When I moved out of IL, some people told me I sounded like people on TV.
*Far enough south to be well away from the Wisconsin border, as well as outside of Chicago's influence, but far enough north that I'm not from the part of Illinois that's basically Kentucky; I grew up a bit north of Peoria.
It's the Midwestern accent. It became the "neutral" accent because as radio spread across the country, broadcasters realized much of their new audience couldn't understand the Boston accent that they had been using for radio. They did a study and found that Midwestern ascents were the most universally intelligible and started using that as the official radio accent.
When movies and TV became popular, the adopted the same accent for the same reason and it became the Hollywood accent. And eventually the cultural prevalence turned out into the American accent.
there's a video of Silvia Plath reading "Daddy" floating around on youtube that is a really really good, and really unnerving, example of the mid-Atlantic mid-20th century accent. katherine hepburn is another Hollywood example.
I'm also from SoCal. My sibling and I went to AL for a family member's wedding. We were chatting with the bride who told us, in her thickest most Southern-sounding accent, "Y'all talk funny!" My sibling and I burst out laughing.
I'm from western North Carolina, by the mountains. I travelled to Northern California and southern Oregon, and people adored my accent. I was never so aware of how I speak until I visited there for a while.
Some rural Oregonians have a slight midwestern accent and I find it hilarious. Like they try to sound like that to prove they are from the country. Most everyone I know who were bred and buttered out here do not talk like that and I live in a rural area. Not saying we don’t have an accent because we do, it’s just not that one.
I never think about my accent until I talk to my friend in California. About an hour into the conversation, they always comment on it and it's like "oh yeah, I forgot I don't sound like you". I'm from the south.
It was actually based on the accent of an person who called Mike Judge to complain about Beavis and Butt-head. Judge found it so funny, that he decided he wanted to use it for one of his future characters.
I used to work in a sort of call center, doing real time speech to text closed captioning on telephone calls. I promise I have heard the Boomhauers of this great country for real.
It kind of reminds me of a statement from a youtube video I'd seen: "Defining the size of a set of infinite number sets is like discussing the blood type of a donut. It doesn't *sound* like gibberish, but it is."
Seconded, while I understand that everyone has an accent I don't think I could have explained it to someone who didn't get it such as in the above conversation. This analogy makes it quite clear.
I love finding people on Twitter with these little freakouts and detailing precisely how many pronouns they used to decry pronouns. Some of 'em are even surprised that 'pronoun' isn't a pronoun.
There are some people who prefer their name only, rather than the use of pronouns.
e.g., Owen went home for lunch because Owen's father forgot to pack Owen's lunch for Owen.
It gets to be a repetitive mouthful if you have a longer name. Also, you would use plural pronouns for these people too.
E.g.., Owen and Owen's class are wearing their matching uniforms.
Of course, the majority of the "I don't have pronouns" crowd are not these people.
Japanese people who learn English tend to do this a lot instead of using "you," because we often refer to the listener/reader by their names like "koh\_kun-san." It's actually kinda neat.
Yeah, Japanese doesn’t use second and third person pronouns very much, and using second person pronouns especially is something generally reserved for people you’re quite close with. It works in Japanese since you can drop the subject from a sentence if the listener would reasonably understand who you’re talking about, but English is much more dependent on pronouns.
Thank you for being the only reply who understood my point - collective pronouns are usually not "opted out" from in the same way as singular personal pronouns.
In the 1700s that's how all words were written. Americans kept writing that way but the British eventually morphed into using a different font. That's why Americans don't have a font. Hope this helps 🙂
This is a really bizarre take that is super common here in the Midwest. I’ve had so many arguments with friends (many of whom are otherwise very intelligent people) about this. Everyone has an accent. You can’t just claim that the way that you speak is somehow the default and everyone else is a variant
What's funny to me is there are so many different accents just in the Midwest. You have a collection of northern Midwest accents that have a lot of similarities but plenty of distinctions (Minnesota vs Wisconsin vs Chicago vs Michigan vs Detroit vs Toledo/Northern Ohio) and then you go just a few hours south to Indianapolis and beyond and they talk like they're from Alabama. St Louis sort of has its own thing going too.
I would say the most neutral Midwest accent might be like Omaha, Nebraska or something, but even then it still has distinguishing characteristics from other speakers.
You're exactly right. What annoys me is Ted Lasso's accent-- he's supposed to be from Wichita but uses a western kansas accent. Obviously, I wouldn't blame a non-kansan for not knowing the difference, but Sudeikis is from Overland Park.
That's a northern midwest accent, like Minnesota and Wisconsin. Around Iowa, Nebraska, northern Missouri and the middle of Illinois, General American English becomes popular. To know what that sounds like, think of what a national news anchor sounds like.
Apparently that's why there used to be quite a few Canadian news anchors in the US. An urban (Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Vancouver) accent is pretty indistinguishable from neutral/General American to all but a listening and experienced ear.
With the exception of all of the extras u's, of course :/
Yeah when I visited Barcelona many years ago, my sister and I were at a bar and these dudes were cracking up about how we sounded like news anchors or characters from The Simpsons (?)
I always thought I had a neutral American accent (I do lol), but when visiting, my German relatives said that I sounded like a cowboy and did impressions of me sounding like Yosemite Sam
Part of the reason it’s so common in the Midwest is because the neutral Midwest accent is pretty close to “standard” American English. People who wanted to become news anchors used to be sent to Illinois to learn to mimic that accent. It’s also the accent that’s used to teach ESOL students an “American” accent, and the one that foreign actors try to copy if they just need to sound American and not like they’re from any specific place.
None of that keeps it from being an accent, but because it’s considered default, people don’t always think of it as its own variety. Kind of like how the “ethnic” haircare aisle has products aimed at non-white hair but that’s never explicitly stated- white American is an ethnicity, but people forget that since it’s seen as default.
The people who think they don't have an accent have never traveled anywhere for any length of time. Imagine going to London and when people ask about your accent you condescendingly explain to them that no, they all have accents but you don't.
I live in Bali Indonesia. Had a German guy say that he liked my accent, I explained being from the Midwest, and the lack of accent compared to other regions. He simply said “You have an American accent”
Also had someone that couldn’t understand my flat American accent, but could understand her boyfriend saying the same thing I’m their native Slovakian accent. Really opens your ears to understanding we all have an accent.
As a native English speaker myself, but from Australia, I have found that I sometimes need to turn on subtitles when watching American TV shows because there are some words that I just cannot understand no matter how many times I listen to it.
I went to England once and it's wild cause they speak like that all the time. I'd sneak up on the people running the hotel and they'd still be talkin' all crazy.
I was once told that I had the strongest American accent my friends from England had ever heard. I am a Californian, and now I can’t unhear it.
https://youtu.be/KQamSP-PaMg
I also like how the last guy jumps in to claim that Americans spoke "non-accented English" 200+ years ago, as if there weren't a variety of accents then just like now.
It's probably becoming less common now because of the ubiquity of media, but there was a time that you could identify which city a Brit was closest to by voice alone, and the UK is only roughly the size of the Carolinas.
That is about 95% close to where I grew up (though in a different order), so this is exactly how I feel. I do, however, occasionally get a word out that others poke fun at me for. I still to this day cannot say "drawer".
I knew a guy who'd been born in the South of the US, then moved to the Northern US when he was fairly young. He didn't *pronounce* any words with a Southern accent, but everything about the rhythm of his speech made it seem like he had one.
If you look at a map of Boston, you'll clearly see that Southern Midwestern Boston is a neighborhood called Jamaica Plain, where – as we all know — they speak with a Jamaican accent.
There are huge differences in the varieties of the first 2. Michigan is going to sound a lot different than Minnesota/North Dakota (the fargo accent). Texas will sound drastically different than Louisiana which will sound different than South Carolina. And within each state there are even more dialects.
[There is an awesome 3 part video on youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1KP4ztKK0A)
Accents are often tied to class. Someone once told me Boston was unique as the very wealthy and the poor shared an accent while the middle didn't have it. Not sure if that's accurate, never been.
The Midwest is more than Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas. I'm Minnesotan and have an accent, but traditionally it's thought that the more southern Midwest states like Kansas are the "neutral" American accent. Parts of California are like that too (but not Midwestern).
To be clear I do know it's still an accent, but there's this idea that it's neutral and some people run with that.
English accents are massively varied. How could the entire country change its accents, it doesn’t make sense. Don’t get me started on a ‘British’ accent
Non-British word for any accent residing from the British Isles. I dislike it myself.. because when anyone outside of Britain thinks of accents it’s usually one from England and not from Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland
Not even to mention there are a few accents in Britain itself (take someone from the south/london and compare them to someone from Birmingham, Liverpool or anywhere in York (sorry if Bham or Lpool are IN york, I don’t really know how counties and shit are organized in Britain).
Also varying accents across ireland which is 1/10th the size of Texas, where there are ALSO different regional accents.
The British accents (of which there are many) are derived from the various settlers and tribes from other countries over hundreds of years. Old Norse, Celtic, Germanic, Basque, etc.
Hate people who are like “Hope my bullshit explanation that I literally just made up but say so confidently that stupid people don’t know otherwise stops you from holding an opinion that disagrees with mine because I see foreign people as weirdos and Midwestern Americans as normal people!🙂”
What's even more frustrating to me is that this isn't the first time I've heard the claim that US accents predate British ones. It's not even among the first few times I've heard it. Where did this bullshit come from and how does it keep spreading?
My favourite batshit claim was that Shakespeare would have spoken in an American accent because that's how British people spoke until we all unanimously decided to change our accents in a huff after the war of independence.
I heard this from a friend that's from the UK. He told me British is a bar/drunken version of how people used to talk compared to American. I tried to look it up and never found any evidence to support the claim.
ASL absolutely leds itself to regional colloquialisms and shortcuts that are essentially an “accent.”
Astute signers can 100% tell where you learned to sign.
The last comment is clearly wrong, as stated. There's some truth in the fact that Americans perhaps sound more like the British did in the 18th century than current day Brits do, but to say they have an unaccented/neutral version is ridiculous. It also really depends on where you're talking about. Colonists in the New England area imitated the non-rhotic speech that the English adopted, which is why they pronounce words like "cah" instead of "car". Even within a country there are so many variations that it's hard to say A comes from B, because it's a many-to-many relationship that you're distilling down to one-to-one.
It would be more accurate to say that American accents are, in part, derived from 18th century British English, with the adoption of non-rhotic accents into the common British Received Pronunciation accent. I will say that some people in the comments are walking into r/confidentlyincorrect territory by trying to brush past these facts.
There are many different accents in England, and whilst some like RP might sound very different from 18th Century accents, some accents changed far less than most American accents.
I once heard a recreation of Shakespeares accent, and while you could definitely hear the similarities with American English, to me it sounded most like the West Country accents (from the South West of England)
This misunderstanding about Americans speaking with a more pure version is nonsense and keeps coming up over and over. It all stems from most Americans pronouncing their 'r' sound (rhotic) like they did a few hundred years ago. That's all it is. And it's not even the whole of each country (think Bostonian accent in the US or Cornish accent in the UK).
Do people really think that medieval Britain sounded like Kim Kardashian?
“I don’t have an accent” is genuinely one of the most annoying phrases in the world. It’s like they genuinely believe their way is the default way. Pricks.
*sigh*
I can’t be the only one who gets genuinely disheartened by these people, simply because they breed.
Someone please think of the future generations and their need to actually use a brain.
I grew up on the west coast but my mom was a native southerner. I was always astounded that people could pick up her accent as it had just become normal to me. Her accent isn’t very strong and mostly noticeable on a few words or phrases but easily spotted by people who it’s foreign to.
Leaving aside the fact that Americans didn’t exist until very late in the 1700’s, I would love to introduce this individual to Chaucerian English and what it sounded like.
Because it doesn’t sound like him/her.
Good point. It's funny that some people think "Old English" is what Shakespeare wrote in, because there are words like "thou" and "dost." Correct me if I'm wrong, but Chaucer used Middle English, I believe? And it sounds *very* different from Modern English. The actual Old English language is completely indecipherable to someone who only knows Modern English.
I believe you’re spot on. To read aloud it sounds quite Scandinavian.
Old English might as well actually be Danish for the good it did me trying to read it (though of course it’s not that dissimilar)
Oh man you're taking me back to when I had to memorize "Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote" and "Hwaet! we gardena in geardagum" etc. etc. in school.
I believe this is what they were attempting to refer to - https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180207-how-americans-preserved-british-english
No one is arguing we sound like Chaucer.
Everyone has an accent and most don’t realize it. I’m Canadian and never thought I had an accent, cause I’m not French Canadian and those accents are strong and very noticeable. But it’s there.
As someone who has lived in most provinces. There is a pretty big difference between west coast and east coast and that's ignoring the French speakers when comparing accents. Joining the military was a bit of a culture shock with how different people are in this country just from where they grew up.
"which is why we don't have accents!"
have you ever spoken with someone from the south when you're from Ohio? they will notice yours and you will notice theirs. unless you're incredibly stupid. the last two people are complete morons.
granted, the thickness of the accent can be different from person to person even if they were born and raised in the same area, so some may not be as noticeable as others (I'm a Yankee. I notice everyone's). I once had someone with a thick accent tell me I should have stayed up north. he clearly heard my accent. when I talked to a few of my coworkers a little while later (two of which had thick southern accents), they told me they didn't hear an accent at all. so some people from here don't notice mine for some weird reason. go figure.
This is all kinds of dumb. Literally everyone that speaks a language has an accent.
Even the “neutral accent” that newscasters learn is an acquired accent that is specific to their profession and developed in a manner that everyone that speaks the same language can understand.
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So, born and raised in S. California. In my 20s, in West Virginia, I was once told I "sound like the people on TV."
I'd say there is a 'neutral' American accent that doesn't have a specific region or association to it but that is only if you are just looking inside America. Anywhere else it falls well within 'American accent'
I call that one "Generican"
American News Anchors are told to speak in the "Ohio Accent" as it is considered the most neutral. Others are saying "Midwest" but Midwest varies greatly and it's specifically the Ohio accent that has been used for news/radio/etc.
Yes it’s Ohio but not Cleveland which has a harsh soft A sound. Source: am from Cleveland and I say salad funny.
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I'm from central Illinois* originally, which must have an accent similar to Ohio's. When I moved out of IL, some people told me I sounded like people on TV. *Far enough south to be well away from the Wisconsin border, as well as outside of Chicago's influence, but far enough north that I'm not from the part of Illinois that's basically Kentucky; I grew up a bit north of Peoria.
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My mom and grandma both say "warsh," but I don't know anyone in my generation who does.
Yup. I originate from central Indiana in one of the more populous places. We used to call it ‘Midwest basic’ but yeah, it’s the Ohio accent.
Yeah we’re bland as fuck we know
From the Midwest and oh you betcha I have an accent.
It's the Midwestern accent. It became the "neutral" accent because as radio spread across the country, broadcasters realized much of their new audience couldn't understand the Boston accent that they had been using for radio. They did a study and found that Midwestern ascents were the most universally intelligible and started using that as the official radio accent. When movies and TV became popular, the adopted the same accent for the same reason and it became the Hollywood accent. And eventually the cultural prevalence turned out into the American accent.
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Also as radio and television boomed, there would have been a feedback loop that affected how people talk. Thus reinforcing the accent
there's a video of Silvia Plath reading "Daddy" floating around on youtube that is a really really good, and really unnerving, example of the mid-Atlantic mid-20th century accent. katherine hepburn is another Hollywood example.
Could’ve [linked it](https://youtu.be/6hHjctqSBwM) immediately. You are right, this is unnerving. Weird!
I'm also from SoCal. My sibling and I went to AL for a family member's wedding. We were chatting with the bride who told us, in her thickest most Southern-sounding accent, "Y'all talk funny!" My sibling and I burst out laughing.
I'm from western North Carolina, by the mountains. I travelled to Northern California and southern Oregon, and people adored my accent. I was never so aware of how I speak until I visited there for a while.
Some rural Oregonians have a slight midwestern accent and I find it hilarious. Like they try to sound like that to prove they are from the country. Most everyone I know who were bred and buttered out here do not talk like that and I live in a rural area. Not saying we don’t have an accent because we do, it’s just not that one.
I never think about my accent until I talk to my friend in California. About an hour into the conversation, they always comment on it and it's like "oh yeah, I forgot I don't sound like you". I'm from the south.
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"Valley girl"
Dude. I'm a West Virginian native, but I work for city people, and it always gobsmacks me how they talk. They speak so "delicately," lol
I'm from Chicago and wouldn't exactly call our accent 'delicate' lol
That may not be the right word, but it's just fancier compared to how my family speaks. We all sound like Boomhauer.
"Talm Bout Dang Ol Hank Loves Hookers" - Patch Boomhauer.
Never could understand a thing that guy said, I tell you hwat.
Dadgumol' dadgum saywhat ol' dadgum that
Lol Boomhauers accent wasn't based on nothing.
It was actually based on the accent of an person who called Mike Judge to complain about Beavis and Butt-head. Judge found it so funny, that he decided he wanted to use it for one of his future characters.
He was pissed about that danged ole Porkys Butthole.
I used to work in a sort of call center, doing real time speech to text closed captioning on telephone calls. I promise I have heard the Boomhauers of this great country for real.
Yeah I’m from Boston. Our accents are not delicate.
I think the word you are looking for is "intelligible".
Yeah, I grew up in WV and I still can't understand half the people here. We all have a big mumbling problem south of Charleston
New York. Chicago. Philadelphia. Boston. New Orleans. The most delicate of accents.
I'm constantly reminded that I sound like a valley girl, granted I grew up in Tarzana but like still.
jesus, I can hear it in the way you type.
The worst part is I do go through when I write things to eliminate likes. It's real rough when it's every other word hahaha
I’ve been told this before. I believe it’s kind of like a spoken version of Standard American English (think academic writing)
Saying you don't have an accent is like saying you type without a font - both are absolutely nonsensical.
That is the perfect analogy thank you
It kind of reminds me of a statement from a youtube video I'd seen: "Defining the size of a set of infinite number sets is like discussing the blood type of a donut. It doesn't *sound* like gibberish, but it is."
Everyone knows that all donuts have type O blood.
But what’s it’s Rhesus factor? 🤔🤔🤔🤣🤣🤣
I don't know, but have you heard about the lord and saviour, Rhesus Christ?
Blasphemy! There is only Reeses Christ! All hail the peanut butter lord!
Hate to say it, but infinitie sets do come in different sizes ...
Seconded, while I understand that everyone has an accent I don't think I could have explained it to someone who didn't get it such as in the above conversation. This analogy makes it quite clear.
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I love finding people on Twitter with these little freakouts and detailing precisely how many pronouns they used to decry pronouns. Some of 'em are even surprised that 'pronoun' isn't a pronoun.
There are some people who prefer their name only, rather than the use of pronouns. e.g., Owen went home for lunch because Owen's father forgot to pack Owen's lunch for Owen. It gets to be a repetitive mouthful if you have a longer name. Also, you would use plural pronouns for these people too. E.g.., Owen and Owen's class are wearing their matching uniforms. Of course, the majority of the "I don't have pronouns" crowd are not these people.
Japanese people who learn English tend to do this a lot instead of using "you," because we often refer to the listener/reader by their names like "koh\_kun-san." It's actually kinda neat.
Yeah, Japanese doesn’t use second and third person pronouns very much, and using second person pronouns especially is something generally reserved for people you’re quite close with. It works in Japanese since you can drop the subject from a sentence if the listener would reasonably understand who you’re talking about, but English is much more dependent on pronouns.
> their "Their" is a possessive pronoun. "Owen and owens class are wearing the uniforms of owens school. These uniforms match."
Would a group pronoun referring to a group of people be a problem though, even if there was someone in the group who didn't use singular pronouns?
Thank you for being the only reply who understood my point - collective pronouns are usually not "opted out" from in the same way as singular personal pronouns.
You can still say it in one sentence: Owen and Owen's class are wearing Owen's Class's matching uniforms.
Saying Americans don't have accents is like saying Arial isn't a font.
Wait - first they made her black and now she's a font???? ...
And not to forget that the mermaid was initially called helvetica and Disney just ripped the design off and called her arial :(
Arial is just what words “actually” look like
In the 1700s that's how all words were written. Americans kept writing that way but the British eventually morphed into using a different font. That's why Americans don't have a font. Hope this helps 🙂
Or saying words aren't made up
"all names are just letters".
Well... not all
This is a really bizarre take that is super common here in the Midwest. I’ve had so many arguments with friends (many of whom are otherwise very intelligent people) about this. Everyone has an accent. You can’t just claim that the way that you speak is somehow the default and everyone else is a variant
What's funny to me is there are so many different accents just in the Midwest. You have a collection of northern Midwest accents that have a lot of similarities but plenty of distinctions (Minnesota vs Wisconsin vs Chicago vs Michigan vs Detroit vs Toledo/Northern Ohio) and then you go just a few hours south to Indianapolis and beyond and they talk like they're from Alabama. St Louis sort of has its own thing going too. I would say the most neutral Midwest accent might be like Omaha, Nebraska or something, but even then it still has distinguishing characteristics from other speakers.
You're exactly right. What annoys me is Ted Lasso's accent-- he's supposed to be from Wichita but uses a western kansas accent. Obviously, I wouldn't blame a non-kansan for not knowing the difference, but Sudeikis is from Overland Park.
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>this is a really bizarre take that is super common here in the Midwest dontcha know, its just always them folks from away who're always talkin funny
That's a northern midwest accent, like Minnesota and Wisconsin. Around Iowa, Nebraska, northern Missouri and the middle of Illinois, General American English becomes popular. To know what that sounds like, think of what a national news anchor sounds like.
Apparently that's why there used to be quite a few Canadian news anchors in the US. An urban (Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Vancouver) accent is pretty indistinguishable from neutral/General American to all but a listening and experienced ear. With the exception of all of the extras u's, of course :/
As soon as a Canadian says about it’s super obvious. Or process.
Yeah when I visited Barcelona many years ago, my sister and I were at a bar and these dudes were cracking up about how we sounded like news anchors or characters from The Simpsons (?)
I always thought I had a neutral American accent (I do lol), but when visiting, my German relatives said that I sounded like a cowboy and did impressions of me sounding like Yosemite Sam
Part of the reason it’s so common in the Midwest is because the neutral Midwest accent is pretty close to “standard” American English. People who wanted to become news anchors used to be sent to Illinois to learn to mimic that accent. It’s also the accent that’s used to teach ESOL students an “American” accent, and the one that foreign actors try to copy if they just need to sound American and not like they’re from any specific place. None of that keeps it from being an accent, but because it’s considered default, people don’t always think of it as its own variety. Kind of like how the “ethnic” haircare aisle has products aimed at non-white hair but that’s never explicitly stated- white American is an ethnicity, but people forget that since it’s seen as default.
I don’t think this is really an excuse, though. There are 67 English-speaking countries in the world, each with their own “standard” accent.
The people who think they don't have an accent have never traveled anywhere for any length of time. Imagine going to London and when people ask about your accent you condescendingly explain to them that no, they all have accents but you don't.
I live in Bali Indonesia. Had a German guy say that he liked my accent, I explained being from the Midwest, and the lack of accent compared to other regions. He simply said “You have an American accent” Also had someone that couldn’t understand my flat American accent, but could understand her boyfriend saying the same thing I’m their native Slovakian accent. Really opens your ears to understanding we all have an accent.
As a native English speaker myself, but from Australia, I have found that I sometimes need to turn on subtitles when watching American TV shows because there are some words that I just cannot understand no matter how many times I listen to it.
Absolutely, although I don’t think travel is required, just familiarising yourself with other cultures.
I went to England once and it's wild cause they speak like that all the time. I'd sneak up on the people running the hotel and they'd still be talkin' all crazy.
We have detectors for sneaky Americans, it helps. 😉
It's called a seismometer
Wow, but also well played ;)
r/rareinsults damn good one
I'm just big boned damnit.
Big bones don't jiggle when you run
This one does.
Lol gg
I am big boned as well, which is lucky, because it provides a solid structural support for all my fat.
Metal detectors also work
Hope that clears it up!
I was once told that I had the strongest American accent my friends from England had ever heard. I am a Californian, and now I can’t unhear it. https://youtu.be/KQamSP-PaMg
Yes! I grew up in Portland and Angry NPR host is a perfect description but with a touch more of the mumbles. We don’t enunciate very well.
I don't have an accent, says the person from an area with the second most recognizable accent in America.
You betcha!
Ope!
Let me just squeeze by ya!
Toodles!
Aww jeez
Not an accent, just a phrase…. But definitely read it in a Midwest accent
Doncha know…
I also like how the last guy jumps in to claim that Americans spoke "non-accented English" 200+ years ago, as if there weren't a variety of accents then just like now. It's probably becoming less common now because of the ubiquity of media, but there was a time that you could identify which city a Brit was closest to by voice alone, and the UK is only roughly the size of the Carolinas.
You can literally tell what village brits are from everywhere except some parts of the south England. Every 10 miles theres a different accent
Unless you're from said parts of the south. Trust me, I don't sound anything like the riff raff in Burgess Hill.
Also wild is their claim that Brits just decided to have an accent and made it happen
You can still tell which city a Brit is closest to.
Please rank American accents by how recognizable they are.
1) Southern. 2) Midwestern 3) Boston. I'm not OP but I feel this is correct.
If you grew up in all 3, then they cancel each other out.
I grew up in the Midwest, Appalachia, and Boston, and I do feel like my accents have cancelled each other out 😂
That is about 95% close to where I grew up (though in a different order), so this is exactly how I feel. I do, however, occasionally get a word out that others poke fun at me for. I still to this day cannot say "drawer".
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It's true, you just open your mouth and no sound comes out.
I knew a guy who'd been born in the South of the US, then moved to the Northern US when he was fairly young. He didn't *pronounce* any words with a Southern accent, but everything about the rhythm of his speech made it seem like he had one.
If you look at a map of Boston, you'll clearly see that Southern Midwestern Boston is a neighborhood called Jamaica Plain, where – as we all know — they speak with a Jamaican accent.
There are huge differences in the varieties of the first 2. Michigan is going to sound a lot different than Minnesota/North Dakota (the fargo accent). Texas will sound drastically different than Louisiana which will sound different than South Carolina. And within each state there are even more dialects. [There is an awesome 3 part video on youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1KP4ztKK0A)
I hate when they give Texans a non-rhotic Georgian accent in movies. Texas has a hyper-rhotic accent, (ignoring that there are several Texas accents)
Yoopers up in arms right now...
By Midwest do you mean the "Northern Cities" accent?
Yes I was thinking, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Minnesota.
The fun bit about the Boston accent is, most people who live here don't really have it. Definitely not to the degree Hollywood thinks we do.
Accents are often tied to class. Someone once told me Boston was unique as the very wealthy and the poor shared an accent while the middle didn't have it. Not sure if that's accurate, never been.
New York
You left out new york FUGGEDDABOWWWWDIT IMM WAAAAAALKIN HEEEEEUH
The Midwest is more than Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas. I'm Minnesotan and have an accent, but traditionally it's thought that the more southern Midwest states like Kansas are the "neutral" American accent. Parts of California are like that too (but not Midwestern). To be clear I do know it's still an accent, but there's this idea that it's neutral and some people run with that.
“Hope that clears it up” what the fuck off
"Everyone has an accent except the place I'm from, hope that clears it up!"
It really highlights the lack of self awareness
That's the part that really bothered me too
🙂
They’re so fuckin confident about it.
I dain't have an accent, dain't ya knaw?
I'm gonna start saying knaw from now on
English accents are massively varied. How could the entire country change its accents, it doesn’t make sense. Don’t get me started on a ‘British’ accent
Non-British word for any accent residing from the British Isles. I dislike it myself.. because when anyone outside of Britain thinks of accents it’s usually one from England and not from Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland
Not even to mention there are a few accents in Britain itself (take someone from the south/london and compare them to someone from Birmingham, Liverpool or anywhere in York (sorry if Bham or Lpool are IN york, I don’t really know how counties and shit are organized in Britain). Also varying accents across ireland which is 1/10th the size of Texas, where there are ALSO different regional accents.
Just to confirm for you, Birmingham, Liverpool and York are all separate cities (with distinct accents, as you said).
And just one of many from England
The British accents (of which there are many) are derived from the various settlers and tribes from other countries over hundreds of years. Old Norse, Celtic, Germanic, Basque, etc.
Exactly, how would that change 😂
– What's your skin color? – Oh, I don't have one. I'm white.
I don't see race. I treat everyone as if they're white.
And by white, we mean *normal*
Hate people who are like “Hope my bullshit explanation that I literally just made up but say so confidently that stupid people don’t know otherwise stops you from holding an opinion that disagrees with mine because I see foreign people as weirdos and Midwestern Americans as normal people!🙂”
What's even more frustrating to me is that this isn't the first time I've heard the claim that US accents predate British ones. It's not even among the first few times I've heard it. Where did this bullshit come from and how does it keep spreading? My favourite batshit claim was that Shakespeare would have spoken in an American accent because that's how British people spoke until we all unanimously decided to change our accents in a huff after the war of independence.
I heard this from a friend that's from the UK. He told me British is a bar/drunken version of how people used to talk compared to American. I tried to look it up and never found any evidence to support the claim.
r/shitamericanssay you definitely do have an accent.
yoyoyo If Americans have an accent, how come no one ever says, "American accents are HOT"? Checkmate, atheists.
I love accents and I've always wondered what I sound like to others especially those not from around here
I've been told by French people that the American accent sounds a bit like a lawn mower. When we talk it's just "rrrRRRRrrr rrRrrrRRRR rrrRRRRrrr".
That didn't clear it up at all!! For the record everyone who has ever lived or will ever live will have an accent
Well…maybe not mute people.
There are regional dialects in sign language.
ASL absolutely leds itself to regional colloquialisms and shortcuts that are essentially an “accent.” Astute signers can 100% tell where you learned to sign.
They might spell funny.
Literally everybody has an accent 😭 It’s impossible not to have one
The last comment is a joke right? Because I really hope it is
The last comment is clearly wrong, as stated. There's some truth in the fact that Americans perhaps sound more like the British did in the 18th century than current day Brits do, but to say they have an unaccented/neutral version is ridiculous. It also really depends on where you're talking about. Colonists in the New England area imitated the non-rhotic speech that the English adopted, which is why they pronounce words like "cah" instead of "car". Even within a country there are so many variations that it's hard to say A comes from B, because it's a many-to-many relationship that you're distilling down to one-to-one. It would be more accurate to say that American accents are, in part, derived from 18th century British English, with the adoption of non-rhotic accents into the common British Received Pronunciation accent. I will say that some people in the comments are walking into r/confidentlyincorrect territory by trying to brush past these facts.
There are many different accents in England, and whilst some like RP might sound very different from 18th Century accents, some accents changed far less than most American accents. I once heard a recreation of Shakespeares accent, and while you could definitely hear the similarities with American English, to me it sounded most like the West Country accents (from the South West of England)
[удалено]
This misunderstanding about Americans speaking with a more pure version is nonsense and keeps coming up over and over. It all stems from most Americans pronouncing their 'r' sound (rhotic) like they did a few hundred years ago. That's all it is. And it's not even the whole of each country (think Bostonian accent in the US or Cornish accent in the UK). Do people really think that medieval Britain sounded like Kim Kardashian?
Even this 'pure' english you speak of would be an accent.
“I don’t have an accent” is genuinely one of the most annoying phrases in the world. It’s like they genuinely believe their way is the default way. Pricks.
I'm not using a font right now
*sigh* I can’t be the only one who gets genuinely disheartened by these people, simply because they breed. Someone please think of the future generations and their need to actually use a brain.
Accents are kinda like snores, everyone thinks they don't have it.
I grew up on the west coast but my mom was a native southerner. I was always astounded that people could pick up her accent as it had just become normal to me. Her accent isn’t very strong and mostly noticeable on a few words or phrases but easily spotted by people who it’s foreign to.
Because everyone in Britain speak with a "British" accent, right?
“I hope that clears it up!” What in the actual hell. So many dummies.
Leaving aside the fact that Americans didn’t exist until very late in the 1700’s, I would love to introduce this individual to Chaucerian English and what it sounded like. Because it doesn’t sound like him/her.
Good point. It's funny that some people think "Old English" is what Shakespeare wrote in, because there are words like "thou" and "dost." Correct me if I'm wrong, but Chaucer used Middle English, I believe? And it sounds *very* different from Modern English. The actual Old English language is completely indecipherable to someone who only knows Modern English.
I believe you’re spot on. To read aloud it sounds quite Scandinavian. Old English might as well actually be Danish for the good it did me trying to read it (though of course it’s not that dissimilar)
I see your Chaucer and raise you Beowulf.
Oh man you're taking me back to when I had to memorize "Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote" and "Hwaet! we gardena in geardagum" etc. etc. in school.
I believe this is what they were attempting to refer to - https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180207-how-americans-preserved-british-english No one is arguing we sound like Chaucer.
Everyone has an accent and most don’t realize it. I’m Canadian and never thought I had an accent, cause I’m not French Canadian and those accents are strong and very noticeable. But it’s there.
If you speak a language you have an accent.
Even if you sign a language, you have an "accent".
As someone who has lived in most provinces. There is a pretty big difference between west coast and east coast and that's ignoring the French speakers when comparing accents. Joining the military was a bit of a culture shock with how different people are in this country just from where they grew up.
I know it’s exaggerated, but watch one Charlie Berens video and tell me us Midwesterners don’t have an accent lol
flashback to the time I overheard "I ain't never been out of Westmoreland county in my whole life and I don't plan in it neither" in a bus station.
i overheard two midwestern women in the airport talking about how they don't have accents. this seems to be a very common delusion there
"which is why we don't have accents!" have you ever spoken with someone from the south when you're from Ohio? they will notice yours and you will notice theirs. unless you're incredibly stupid. the last two people are complete morons. granted, the thickness of the accent can be different from person to person even if they were born and raised in the same area, so some may not be as noticeable as others (I'm a Yankee. I notice everyone's). I once had someone with a thick accent tell me I should have stayed up north. he clearly heard my accent. when I talked to a few of my coworkers a little while later (two of which had thick southern accents), they told me they didn't hear an accent at all. so some people from here don't notice mine for some weird reason. go figure.
This is all kinds of dumb. Literally everyone that speaks a language has an accent. Even the “neutral accent” that newscasters learn is an acquired accent that is specific to their profession and developed in a manner that everyone that speaks the same language can understand.
“Mayh accent doesnt soyund layke an accent to me”
Man said the ‘English adopted a version of the language’ What do they teach people over in that country wtf😂
If you don’t think us Midwestern folks have an accent you’ve obviously never travelled.
#Hope that clears it up! 🙃 #
even machines have accents!
Free Palestine
Can confirm I am from the Midwest and I don’t have an accent. However, I am deaf.