Why is the American accent so easy to imitate?
Washington state, like the US as a whole, doesn't actually have an official language just a defacto one. At least not now. Besides official languages doesn't have all that great an effect on the languages actually spoken. English is the official language of Illinois, but at least in my neighborhood in Chicago hearing Spanish and Ukrainian involves a complicated process called opening my window. The church across the street has Polish inscriptions, though now most of the parishioners are of Mexican extraction.
Too bad we didn't have this Polish discussion yesterday, since it was Pulaski Day here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_Pulaski_Day
I love random state and city holidays.
5% of Louisianans use French at home, and about 400,000 are bilingual. In some counties (such as St Martin) better than 30% of the population (and probably about 50% of the European population) speak French as a first language. Interestingly, for the long French Louisiana heritage, Maine actually has a higher % of French speakers due to proximity with Quebec. There are some weird linguistic enclaves that have survived in the US. On the regional holidays, Mardi Gras was just celebrated. I know it exist on some levels nationwide now (as an excuse to get drunk mainly), but not on the scale it is along the coast from Acadiana to Mobile.
It's as big as Thanksgiving (2 or 3 days off school or work to attend the parades and other festivities). As a graduate student that spends most of my time locking in a cage, they call it a carrel but its a cage, in the corner of the library- I don't think I've ever been more homesick.
<<An eccentric Wisconsin with funny names.....sounds good! That's where that goofy guy (played by Kris Marshall) in "Love Actually" headed for with a suitcase full of condoms hoping that his (to quote him) "cute British accent" would help him in his quest to get laid with American girls.....accordingly to him British girls are "too stuck up".>>
Trust me, that was doubly funny to us, because an American would be completely bemused by his fascination with such a seemingly boring and obscure part of the US -- not sure if that was entirely intentional on the part of the writer, but that was my take on it, anyway! But I think the fact that one of those "Wisconsonites" was blatantly Texan (hat and all) suggests that the writer simply has no concept of US geography or regional culture and it's all just a mishmash of stereotypes to him. But we wouldn't expect him to know any better.
Just to note, the national media, aside from maybe the program A Prairie Home Companion (which can be heard on National Public Radio and like), has practically no clue about how life really is like in the Upper Midwest. Things may be set in the Upper Midwest (typically Wisconsin) or involve people from there, but they will not be culturally accurate at all. A good example of this is That 70's Show, which is set in someplace in southeastern Wisconsin, and while it references things in Wisconsin or commonly thought about Wisconsin, it really has no accuracy culturally with respect to life here - and they did not even try to have the actors speak like they were from here.
That's just because TV writers live in LA or NYC and pretty much everything else is an anonymous Anywhere, USA to them. They just like to name it after a real place.
For the most part writers just don't care. In That 70s Show people live in a Wisconsin where winter never really comes, everyone has a general American accent and you can work at some park call Six Flags. In Fringe people do multi hour drives through, what I can only assume is, the magic of teleportation around Massachusetts and environs, while plot lines hang on landmark bridges in landlocked towns with no rivers and locals can't correctly pronounce town names.
Actually, Six Flags is a real amusement park, located in northern Illinois right south of the border with Wisconsin - it really is quite close to Kenosha which, albeit, is sort of a suburb of Chicago these days. Of course, then, for the characters to work there, they would have to be willing to take quite far commutes each day or where That 70s Show is set must be pretty close to Kenosha; even the drive from Milwaukee to there is a good hour or so each way. But, of course, if it were that close to Six Flags, then there would be plenty of references made to Chicago which do not show up in the show...
I just meant that they called it Six Flags when I've never heard anyone refer to it as anything other than Great America. And yeah, Kenosha is actually a part of Chicago's MSA, which would officially make it a Chicago suburb, while Milwaukee's MSA begins at Racine.
Yeah, that is definitely true; I almost forgot that no one really calls it "Six Flags" here - heh.
''That's just because TV writers live in LA or NYC and pretty much everything else is an anonymous Anywhere, USA to them.
Yep. Chicago may be the 3rd largest city in the US, but when it comes to Hollywood it's more like 23rd. ''Married with Children '' was set in Chicago, yet all actors were cot/caught merged (being from California, except from Al Bundy who was also cc merged, but he was from eastern Ohio). The only word from Chicago they used was POP, but it was weird to hear Kelly Bundy (Christina Applegate) using a Valley girl accent and saying POP instead of SODA ;).
I would probably basically put it that anywhere in the US not set in one of New York City, New Jersey (which is treated as an extension of the former of sorts), Massachusetts, the South, or the West is treated on TV and in movies as if such were really in southern California, even if it is not supposed to be there.
The Wisconsin connection in the film "Love Actually" would mean nothing to British audiences, as you would expect...any more than the fact that "Trainspotting" was set in, but only partially filmed, here in Edinburgh.
Perhaps the majority of Brits ...or at least a fair number of them....would know it was an American state but that's all. Only a small minority would be able to locate it accurately on a map. I know without checking that it is roughly between the Mexican and the Candian border.....ok only joking......it's just a few blocks on from Chicago...third turning off on the left then second right just further on from McDonalds. In the film itself Kris Marshall boasted to his mate that he was "off to America...to a place called "Wis-con-sin".....carefully enunciating the three syllables as if they were separate words.
I'd be astonished if many Americans would be able to locate Edinburgh on an outline map of the UK.....that's if they can first locate the UK itself on an outline map of the world! ;-)
<<I'd be astonished if many Americans would be able to locate Edinburgh on an outline map of the UK.....that's if they can first locate the UK itself on an outline map of the world! ;-)>>
Prepare to be astonished, bud, because I can do both. :P
As for the so called British settings for films actually shot over in America....I have noticed some pretty glaring errors in a couple of the very old black and white films made in Hollywood during the 1940s...the sort of films we see on our movie channel here....one that shows only old films which can be really good for a laugh, which is why I watch them when I can.
The old b& w British films are funny even when they are meant to be serious....funny because of the really antiquated style of the actors' speech...a bit like our Queen in her very early broadcasts....very strained, very precise and ever so, ever so English English RP to the point of ludicrousness or simply painful to listen to. It leaves you asking whether people REALLY spoke that way in those days. Even the Cockney speech of the time now belongs to the British Museum.
As for the American films....the ones made over there but supposedly set over here. One such old film was "Mrs Miniver"....set in an English village just prior to, and during, the bombing raids and aerial attacks of WW2 - complete with a Lady of the Manor whose "say so" over-ruled everything and every one...she who had to be obeyed and deigned to at all times, the aristocrat personified, and the village was full of the dutiful plebeians forever touching their forelocks or signing "Merrie England....come derry, derry do....tra la la!" in the annual village fete at wich Her Ladyship always won first prize for the "Best Rose"....no matter what the standard of her "competitors". Sounds poisitiovely feudal to us now, but that's how it was apparently.
Anyway, what I found most interesting was the American interpretation of the "English scene" - from the shot of a busy street as Mrs Miniver attempted to catch a bus...it was so obviously American in character..from the lamp-posts lining the street and the way the people looked...they looked so American, even down to the lad riding his bike and who almost knocked Mrs Miniver for six...he looked so typically "All American clean cut college guy at Yale" and the shots of the so called English countryside showed nothing but dry looking scrubland...no trees and meadows as such....just dusty and rather desolate looking wasteland California style....absolutely nothing like the realEngland of rural Buckinghamshire or Surrey or wherever. At least they had all that traffic I mentioned keeping to the left side of the road! Give them a point for that at least!
Oh..and the train pulling out of the very American looking "railroad" station...meant to be the local English village train station on the English GWR (Great Western Railway) or the neighbouring SR (Southern Region) of Southern England....instead it looked much more like the Acheson, Topeka and the Santa Fe pulling out of Albuquerque....or wherever the A, T & SF operated.
Neverthess, it was an excellent films in spite of these shortcomings, and pretty much captured the stoicism and fearless determination of the British people during those highly dangerous and unpredictable times of full scale war on the British Home Front.
Most of the actors were actually American but managed to get away with their attenmpts to speak English English in which the Americanisms shone through at fairly regular intervals...often quite obviously, although Greer Garson was actualy English herself I see. Many of the other actors appeared to be Brits who had lived in America for years and their natural English accents betrayed the Americanisms that had crept into their speech during their time over there.
>>I was pretty surprised by the fact that so many Americans pronounce tomorrow as tomarrow. And even more surprised that it is the more common pronunciation. To my ears it sounds as horrible as "harrible". In the Northwest and in all of Canada, the tomorrow pronunciation is preferred. And of course we believe that our English is the only correct English. Are there other areas of the US that use our pronunciation?
I say "tuh-MAW-roh" [təmɔʁo:]. and yes, that's an UVULAR R there. Rs do funny things around back vowels in my dialect.