Why is the American accent so easy to imitate?

WRP   Sat Feb 28, 2009 8:46 am GMT
Linking Rs are the hardest thing not to do. I don't have nearly as many as your average southern English/Welsh/Australian English speaker, but they do persist. The two worst for me are "Mama and Dad" and "Yeah it is", which are inevitably rendered as "Mummer n Dad" and "Yar it is".

Boston Brahmin is pretty nearly RP with random swerves into regular Boston speech so I don't think RP speakers would have too many issues with it. Of course most Americans wouldn't believe it actually is an American accent. The biggest problem with regular Boston accents for basically everyone else is the vowels. That's not what it's most known for, it's definitely the most unique feature.
Jasper   Sat Feb 28, 2009 4:50 pm GMT
"Seanie does it.....and talks too fast. If you're gonna do western speech, especially, you gotta slow the pace. Not to southern extremes, but to a more measured and reserved cadence."

Agreed again.

Kate Winslet did an otherwise acceptable California dialect in one movie, but her cadence gave it away. Being too rapid and clipped, it could have only been mistaken for a real Californian dialect if she were a crack addict.

On a related note, Jane Seymour did a very convincing American accent, too, but once again, her linking "r" gave her away.
Kate Blanc   Sat Feb 28, 2009 5:06 pm GMT
''Kate Winslet did an otherwise acceptable California dialect in one movie''

Yes, Reading's (read: Redding) Kate Winslet put on a Cali accent opposite Canadian Jim Carey in NY-based and shot ''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind''. Accent mixing in a head mixing movie.
Travis   Sat Feb 28, 2009 5:36 pm GMT
That *is* one thing I notice about both Westerners and Southerners - they talk really, really... really slowly, and say every word as if it were actually to be pronounced distinctly and separately from every other word.* On the other hand, I have never really associated such with Californians, even though they still overall definitely speak slower than English English-speakers.

* it honestly feels like you guys are saying things word by word off an invisible teleprompter, and could you at least go and be willing to mash together and cut down words, especially grammar words, as needed?
Jasper   Sat Feb 28, 2009 6:01 pm GMT
<chuckle> Travis, of course we don't do it on purpose.

On a related note, I recently heard Bette Davis comment that it was relatively easy for her to imitate a Southern accent, although the rate of speech is slower. She opined that perhaps the long months of hot weather have a tendency to make the speakers drawl.

I don't know if it's true, but it's a tantalizing theory.
Uriel   Sat Feb 28, 2009 6:53 pm GMT
It's not just the rate of speed that is different, too -- it's also the content. Westerners are a little more reticent. I once worked with an Easterner -- a Connecticut woman who sounded like a stereotypical New Yorker -- and it wasn't just the strong "cawfee" accent that gave her away, it was also the intensity of her gaze, the forcefulness of her delivery, and the sheer amount of verbal diarrhea. She didn't take a breath or let you get a word in edgewise once she got going. She told me that the quietness of people in this part of the country (Southwest) drove her absolutely nuts!

As an illustration of this, she related that she had once been on a date with a guy here, and was dominating the conversation (as usual) because he just wasn't holding up his end, as far as she was concerned. In fact, he was retreating from the verbal onslaught, and the first clue she had of this was when he finally got an opportunity to speak and asked her, with some puzzlement, "Do you say EVERY thought that comes into your head?" She thought about it and said, "Well, yes." And he said, "Why?" And she replied, "Because they're all important!"

So there you go. A little bit of a cultural difference across the US. Westerners are quieter, less confrontational, and edit themselves more for content, while Easterners are more assertive (usually read as "pushy"), in your face, and verbal. Different behavioral standards apply.
Travis   Sun Mar 01, 2009 7:20 am GMT
The thing about all this is that there seems to be two different things going on here, one cultural and one linguistic. From people I have known from here who have been out East, I have heard basically the same sorts of overall impressions, which differ significantly from things here in the Midwest (except for maybe in Chicago) culturally. But at the same time, we definitely have an overall speed of delivery when speaking that is greater than that in the South in the West overall. In the case of here, though, it seems to not be a matter of, well, pressure of thought at work. It seems to be more is just a matter of speaking in a more, well, flowing manner rather than actually clearly thinking out and clearly saying each thing that one wants to express. Such goes for both what one says and how one says it here, as much of what one says really may be of little content value but may consist largely of grammar words, optional adverbial forms, and like, and at the same time there is a willingness to be "sloppy" enunciation-wise, especially with respect to less important or more common words. This seems to sharply contrast with speech in the South and West overall, where less words seem to generally be used, and those words which are said are much clearer and unreduced than here.
Poliglob   Sun Mar 01, 2009 4:03 pm GMT
Here's a good site for any of you who are interested in U.S. Southern accents, especially slang and street talk. http://www.wfnz.com/pages/139668.php (That's in Charlotte, North Carolina.) Bear in mind that you won't hear much of the more cultivated and formal language -- even persons who can speak that way will be talking down. It's a call-in sports show, in which there's a wide variety of white and black dialects.

I live in a neighboring state and am familiar with the various sports rivalries (comparable, I suppose, to some of the soccer rivalries in the U.K. and other parts of Europe). Still I'm stunned by some of the stuff they say. A lot of it is funny, though, especially if you understand the inside jokes. The Whiner Line recordings are short telephone messages from listeners, most of which insult the fans of the various teams, as well as the hosts and guests of the show. They're full of bleeped profanity (though occasionally part of a word slips by).

The ones on the site today (March 1) are from the Friday show, which I heard live in syndication. (It will probably be replaced by a new one Tuesday.) Friday they were mostly about college basketball and from whites. Last week some North Carolina State Wolfpack fans called in and boasted that their team would beat the Wake Forest Deacons (which along with the North Carolina Tarheels and Duke Blue Devils usually do well in basketball). After a week or so of bragging, though, their team lost. Now fans of other teams are calling in and giving them a hard time about it.

This style of braggadocio and insulting talk may have its origin in 'trash talking', something common among black basketball players for a good while. A lot of it is tongue-in-cheek. Whatever you do don't try this stuff on Southern blacks or whites in real life and face to face -- unless you know the persons you're addressing very well. Despite all the profanity there's a fine line about what can be said when and to whom.

For a good example of black dialect, check out 'Q pumps up Gamecock nation'. The Gamecocks are the University of South Carolina team. Their coach was expected to call in to the show for an interview but was very late in calling. The reference to hot dogs in Q's neck is a running joke about him being out of shape, and the fat there looking like hot dogs.

You can either play the audio or download it as mp3 files.
Poliglob   Sun Mar 01, 2009 4:50 pm GMT
Howard Baker, a Southern senator from Tennessee whose speech was unusually slow, once said something to the effect that his daddy told him never to talk any faster than he could think. :-)

It's true, I believe, that Southerners tend to speak more slowly than most Americans. This varies a good bit from individual to individual, though. Also emotion has an effect.

I catch myself speaking very fast sometimes, too fast (too fast, at least, to enunciate clearly and give what I'm saying a meaningful intonation). Also there's the problem that Baker mentioned. The faster I talk the more likely I am to say something stupid. :-)
Brad Stedman   Mon Mar 02, 2009 1:51 am GMT
@Kate Blanc:

You know, in America we pronounce Reading as "Redding", too. You Brits are so clueless about life in the US.
Brad Stedman   Mon Mar 02, 2009 1:55 am GMT
Of course you always get the story of the dumb fat American tourist pronouncing UK town names in such ridiculous fashions they must have found him living in a corn silo for the past 30 years. No American says Suffolk as "Suf*folk" or Reading as "Read*ing" like what you do with a book.

If they mispronounce them in the UK, they're mispronouncing them in the US, too.
Jasper   Mon Mar 02, 2009 2:52 am GMT
↑ This comment reminds me of a snippet read once in a travel column:

While it might amuse American tourists to see towns in England called Shipton-under-Wichwood or Small Dole, they fail to see the humor in the names of such American towns such as Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.

It's all about what we're used to, folks.
Travis   Mon Mar 02, 2009 6:00 am GMT
And just so you know, that's [oˈkʰãːnə̃ːməːwɒʔk] or [əˈkʰãːnə̃ːməːwɒʔk], depending on the degree of stress you give it (and some speakers may have [ɑ] rather than [ɒ]).
Damian in Edinburgh   Mon Mar 02, 2009 9:06 am GMT
Jasper....sorry to correct you....but it's Shipton-under-Wychwood! ;-)

It amuses many Americans when they travel north out of Bath, England, and find themselves entering Pennsylvania. No not PA - a cute wee English village with the same name.

It also amuses them when they pass through the Essex village of Ugley and until fairly recently they would have seen references to the Ugley Women's Institute - the WI being a well established organisation for women in the UK. However, PC intervened and the notice was changed to something else considered less controversial and chuckle making.

The map of the UK is covered with placenames which amuse all English speaking people let alone the Americans. Pratts Bottom is an area of south east London - I don't know if the word "prat" is used in America - to mean a stupid person. Many place names in south west England contain the word "piddle" - surely you use that word too for taking a pee?
Piddle Trenthide in Dorset, and Wyre Piddle in Worestershire.

I could go on and on and on with funny UK names...but I won't.
--   Mon Mar 02, 2009 2:52 pm GMT
<<Yes, Reading's (read: Redding) Kate Winslet put on a Cali accent opposite Canadian Jim Carey in NY-based and shot ''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind''. Accent mixing in a head mixing movie.>>

This makes me chuckle. There is a town of 80,000 people in Pennsylvania called Reading and the one in England is known enough, so we know how to say Redding. We're not completely clueless. ;)