Are American true native speakers of English?
Whichever way you pronounce the name Gerard you have to admit the bloke is well and truly fit, but maybe a wee bit too obsessive about it.....excessive narcissim is not really a desirable quality even if understandable. How can he spare the time to spend so much of it down the gym - at best I can only manage about three or four hours per week there at the very most.
Gerard Butler's accent...undeniably Lowland Scottish...BUT...if you listen carefully to his speech you can hear traces of the American creeping into it....he really needs to watch that very closely or it will completely contaminate it! He really should counteract that by spending less time over in America - he shoud come home to Scotand more often, join our local Outdoor Pursuits and Activities Centre, and do some working out walking, jogging and general mucking about up in the Trossachs....he no doubt knows the area very well, as I do. ;-)
http://www.visitscottishheartlands.com/areas/trossachs/index.cfm
Jesus, why do Americans have to continually insist that they speak "English" instead of a run-off pidgin drivel salopp slang? Their vocabulary may vaguely resemble English but at the end of they day they are just a bunch of trigger-happy GW-Bush-loving cowboys with no real culture with a chronic need to have to try to "prove" to the world that they have anything to contribute besides Big Macs and Mickey Mouse.
What's with all the trolls?
Maybe it's a convention? Trolls of the World 2009? There have certainly been enough of them in this forum recently. . .
I am very sure that the english spoken in the US would be considered a dialect. It varies a lot regionally, but I'm pretty sure the reason we don't call it "run-off pidgin drivel salopp slang" has to do with how much space that would take up on government forms.
<<Whichever way you pronounce the name Gerard you have to admit the bloke is well and truly fit, but maybe a wee bit too obsessive about it.....excessive narcissim is not really a desirable quality even if understandable. How can he spare the time to spend so much of it down the gym - at best I can only manage about three or four hours per week there at the very most.>>
It's all good. I would only need an hour or so of his time, and he would probably get some good cardio out of it. Win-win.
<<Gerard Butler's accent...undeniably Lowland Scottish...BUT...if you listen carefully to his speech you can hear traces of the American creeping into it...>>
Uh .... like what? Definitely not noticeable to us Americans!
He is well fit (something I'd really like to say in real life if it wouldn't sound completely ridiculous). I can't hear any American accent on him, but I'm sure that's the Phil Keoghan effect (sounds NZ, or more realistically Australian, to Americans and American to New Zealanders). Wonder how that will go for him. Everything I've seen him in suggests his not the best at adjusting his accent (bless his hot abs).
From a historical point of view American English can be regarded a dialect. It was the English pilgrim fathers who came to the US and brought the language with them. From that point, the language developed in a certain direction in the States. That's why there are differences between US and British English. I am from the <a href="http://students.washington.edu/stc6/washington/seattle-things-to-do.html">Seattle area</a> and sure that people here are not speaking "true native English" - whatever this might be.
From a historical point of view American English can be regarded a dialect. It was the English pilgrim fathers who came to the US and brought the language with them. From that point, the language developed in a certain direction in the States. That's why there are differences between US and British English. I am from the <a href="http://students.washington.edu/stc6/washington/seattle-things-to-do.html" target="_blank">Seattle area</a> and sure that people here are not speaking "true native English" - whatever this might be.
I'd say 66 % of Americans have a General American accent.
Only 3 % of Britishers use RP (Received Pronunciation aka. BBC English).
That means, people from UK are more likely to sound ''dialectal'' (that is they are more likely to have an accented speech).
No way, American MTV would allow heavy Southern, Bostonian or Chicagoan accents in their program, but look at MTV UK, most youngsters there have a heavy Cockney or Cockney-like accent. It sounds very rural.
I'd say 66 % of Americans have a General American accent.
Only 3 % of Britishers use RP (Received Pronunciation aka. BBC English).
That means, people from UK are more likely to sound ''dialectal'' (that is they are more likely to have an accented speech).
No way American MTV would allow heavy Southern, Bostonian or Chicagoan accents in their program, but look at MTV UK, most youngsters there have a heavy Cockney or Cockney-like accent. It sounds very rural.
<<No way American MTV would allow heavy Southern, Bostonian or Chicagoan accents in their program, but look at MTV UK, most youngsters there have a heavy Cockney or Cockney-like accent. It sounds very rural. >>
I wouldn't say that Am MTV wouldn't allow their hosts to have regional accents. Otherwise, many kids in the programming for Am MTV, like the Real World characters, have accents.
***most youngsters there have a heavy Cockney or Cockney-like accent. It sounds very rural***
That has to be the first time I've ever seen/heard the "Cockney" accent described as rural!!! ;-)
@SteveZ,
You do realize that British English has evolved a lot in the last few centuries. In some respects North American English is closer to the original Elizabethan English than modern England English is. For example in GA, final r's are still pronounced. Shakespear would have pronounced all of his R's, as well as pronouncing "can't" and "shan't" like most modern North Americans.
American English isn't quite the same as the UK version but diversity was bound to occur the moment the two communities were geographically separated.
There are a lot of people in the States who are not of British descent but speak English as their native language. It's been established a long time over there!
YOu could just as easily ask, do Scots and Irishmen count as native speakers of English? After all, their ancestors most likely spoke a Celtic language.