Which accent is really more popular in the world?

"Damian:

The UK is our Mother Country.."-Jasper

Jasper, you traitor, lol.

No, England WAS our mother country. She was abusive, taxed us terribly and didn't care about us enough. I don't hate English people, of course, and I think of the UK as our "friend", but let's put the verb in the right tense. Take this with a smile.

I don't know about the "potato" in the mouth thing, but as far as the posh upper class type English English accent it's supposed to be a "plum" they have lodged in their gobs. Hence the expression "plummy accent"! :-) And it just HAS to be a Victoria plum at that.

Surely nobody refers to England (or Britain if you like) as the Mother Country any more do they? A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since the days of any kind of colonial sentiments, good or bad - hasn't it? Time has moved on has it not?

Nostalgia - I appreciate the reason why you took a lot of our place names with you to your new settlements across the seas.....one way of feeling "at home" when you live in newly established places with names plucked out of the map of the British Isles. I'd feel very at home in Tristan da Cunha, of all places. The wee settlement there posing as its capital city is Edinburgh! New Zealand has a Dunedin - which is actually a former name for Edinburgh.

As for Massachusetts, USA - its Cambridge, Plymouth (is it a town or just a rock?), Worcester, Leominster and Boston (among others) probably bear very little resemblance to the English originals! :-)

Guid nicht

"Surely nobody refers to England (or Britain if you like) as the Mother Country any more do they? A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since the days of any kind of colonial sentiments, good or bad - hasn't it? Time has moved on has it not?"

Actually, yes, there are people who refer to England as the Mother Country. There are a lot of Anglophiles (It makes me think they must be descendants of the redcoats, lol.) in the US.

So Jasper isn't unusual to refer to England in that way.

I have a friend who LOVES England. Just England. He wants to have his ashes scattered over the river Thames or something when he dies. I'm glad that he told me over the phone, so he couldn't see me rolling my eyes.

England is a great place for American tourists. It's exciting and familiar at the same time and y'know what? They speak English "real good" over there.

>>No, England WAS our mother country. She was abusive, taxed us terribly and didn't care about us enough. I don't hate English people, of course, and I think of the UK as our "friend", but let's put the verb in the right tense. Take this with a smile.<<

At least here in the Midwest, most of our ancestors settled here, and happened to find the dominant language amongst other European Americans here to be English (aside from some areas where other languages, particularly German, held its own temporarily); England never was our "mother country" in the first place. Even still, we kept our own languages and cultures for a while, even though they faded away over the years (and in cases, harshly persecuted). We still remember that we aren't originally from here, but we are no longer those who came across the ocean to here; we are no longer really German, Irish, Polish, Norwegian, Italian, and so on, despite our last names and what our grandparents may cook for us. But we aren't generic Anglo-Americans either; we have our own local and regional cultures and identities, which have been definitely influenced by those who have come here even though they are not anywhere near identical to those of where they came from.

***They speak English "real good" over there***

Ha! OK - for the sake of friendship and amicability I will agree but I reserve the right to have reservations big time! :-) Obviously you or your mate never went to Liverpool or Glasgow..... Alright, maybe I'm being a wee bit harsh and I know that good English IS spoken in those cities as well but taking the piss is a British pastime. Just don't assume that all of us over here speak "real good"! :-)

I take the point about the "Mother Country" thing - it's just that I thought it was all a wee bit anachronistic to still think that way but how would I know anyway as I don't live in an ex colony, an era long before my time anyway.

The common Language we all share is very much a dominant factor in all this but I also take the point Travis made that there are very many Americans who have no reason to feel any kind of sentimental affiliation towards England at all (seeing as it's England we seem to be mostly concerned with!) simply because their forebears came from elsewhere in the world, but again the fact that they, too, have English as their native Language does create some kind of bond I reckon.

So your friend only loves England? What have Scotland and Wales done to upset him? :-) I'll let you into a secret - in spite of my occasional anti-Sassenach comments for whatever reason (mainly historic and/or genetic!) I too love England, but I'll draw the line against having my ashes scattered over the Thames, not even from Richmond Bridge or from the top of the London Eye, much as I love them. I'll be happy to be cast into the winds from the middle of the Forth Bridge and be washed up all along the shores of the Firth or float across to Norway or Denmark....not that I've ever even considered the idea of dying anyway. I'm not that good.

As for American tourists - rest assured they don't confine themselves to England! Scotland, and Edinburgh in particular, sees very many of our Transatlantic cousins, especially in summer, so it's not only England's privilege!

>>The common Language we all share is very much a dominant factor in all this but I also take the point Travis made that there are very many Americans who have no reason to feel any kind of sentimental affiliation towards England at all (seeing as it's England we seem to be mostly concerned with!) simply because their forebears came from elsewhere in the world, but again the fact that they, too, have English as their native Language does create some kind of bond I reckon.<<

Well, there is the matter of having a common literature and, to a lesser extent, media, which is something associated with language as opposed to where we originally came from. For instance, everyone here still reads plenty of English literature in school despite where the general population of their area originally came from. Similarly, people here are more aware of English pop culture than the pop culture of probably any area outside North America. And one way or another, there are still plenty of Anglophiles out there here regardless of where their great-great-grandparents or like came from, even though they are still a small minority in reality.

Jeesh folks. Grow up!

I can't believe there are a group of seemingly well-educated people arguing over which stereotypes are more accurate. C'mon!




Jon

"Obviously you or your mate never went to Liverpool or Glasgow....."

I was joking about the "real good" part. Of course, some Americans DO think that way and idolize English speech (RP, I suppose)...My friend is of English descent, so that partially accounts for his "love" of England. I doubt seriously that he has been to Liverpool and being "English", no, Glasgow would not interest him. No indeed, it's Oxford and Cambridge and the like which interest him. I suppose he would like me to get excited about his occasional trips across the pond, but it's England, after all, not Tibet.
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Just to let you know, I have nothing against Scots or Welsh people. They seem like "real people" and I like that. As for the English, well, I've worked overseas with two English bosses and I got along extremely well with them, probably better than with Americans (who think I'm too reserved sometimes.)

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"And one way or another, there are still plenty of Anglophiles out there here regardless of where their great-great-grandparents or like came from, even though they are still a small minority in reality."-Travis

Why is it then, that I seem to know so many of them? ;)

<<This is where I am...the real Perth and not an Australian copy. Anyway, why did all you colonies (and ex-colonies in your case, American lady!) steal all our place names???? Couldn't you think up any new ones of your own?>>

Shoot, I didn't even know there was an "original" Perth -- the Australian one is the only one I've ever heard of!

As I live in New Mexico, have lived in New York, and have family in New England, I'm certainly not one to argue about a certain paucity of imagination on the part of ex-colonies.... save to point out that it's not just a Brit thang -- you can blame the Spanish for that "Nuevo Mexico" name. But actually, the funny thing about looking at maps of the East Coast is that early Americans seemed to like to alternate between the cozily familiar and the wildly indigenous, with the result that for every staid Cambridge and Staunton and Charlotte, there seems to also be a Skaneateles, Mattapoisett, and Okefenoke.....which I may have misspelled.

Around here, the placenames are also classifiable as boring (e.g. Greenfield, Shorewood, Glendale, Cedarburg), French (e.g. Fond du Lac, La Crosse, Prairie du Chien), or Germanic-inspired (e.g. New Berlin, Rhinelander, Kiel). Of all those, boring names are by far the most common, even though native placenames are also quite common.

Cedarburg doesn't sound too boring Mr Travis!!! Blimey - I never knew there was a "New Berlin"!!!!!

The REAL Perth is a beautiful place, I went there earlier this year and it never ceased to amaze me that no-one even here in England knew we had a Perth in Britain, they all assumed I was off to Oz (I've been to the 'new' Perth a few times - it's got nothing on the original. I also have to say that New York, as amazing as it is, does not quite hold a candle to the original York - a stunning place).

The amount of place names that were brought over to the states from England never ceases to amaze me. In England we REALLY do have an original California (Norfolk) a Washington, a Boston and I understand that even my home county of Essex is represented somewhere on the West Coast of America!!!

>>"Obviously you or your mate never went to Liverpool or Glasgow....."

I was joking about the "real good" part. Of course, some Americans DO think that way and idolize English speech (RP, I suppose)...My friend is of English descent, so that partially accounts for his "love" of England. I doubt seriously that he has been to Liverpool and being "English", no, Glasgow would not interest him. No indeed, it's Oxford and Cambridge and the like which interest him. I suppose he would like me to get excited about his occasional trips across the pond, but it's England, after all, not Tibet.<<

Mind you that what may seem very ordinary to you is not necessarily so to the average American... Of course, then, your average American has never been to England and knows no English people in Real Life.

>>Just to let you know, I have nothing against Scots or Welsh people. They seem like "real people" and I like that. As for the English, well, I've worked overseas with two English bosses and I got along extremely well with them, probably better than with Americans (who think I'm too reserved sometimes.)<<

Despite the Anglophilia that is quite present in some circles in the US, I have not heard of any anti-Scottish or anti-Welsh sentiments at all in the US. If anything, I have definitely heard of pro-Scottish sentiments in the US, even if the movie Braveheart was incredibly historically inaccurate...

>>"And one way or another, there are still plenty of Anglophiles out there here regardless of where their great-great-grandparents or like came from, even though they are still a small minority in reality."-Travis

Why is it then, that I seem to know so many of them? ;)<<

My guess is that it might be partly due to me being from the Upper Midwest, which is pretty Germanic as things get in the US - it's not the most Anglophilic part of the US overall, with serious Anglophilia here being limited primarily to English majors and their ilk and theatRE types. There are areas of the US which are definitely more English-influenced and, I would guess, Anglophilic than the Upper Midwest, such as New England and the coastal South.

>>Cedarburg doesn't sound too boring Mr Travis!!!<<

Oh, we have tons and tons of suburbs and towns here in Wisconsin with names like that. They are very commonly mundane (generally) Germanic words in English with some kind of suffix attached to them such as "-burg", "-dale", "-wood", "-field", and so on or two part compounds of similar words such as "Oak Creek" and like (which may or may not be separated with a space). (Yes, that's "-burg" - not "-borough", not "-burgh", but "-burg".)

>>Blimey - I never knew there was a "New Berlin"!!!!!<<

Yeah, it's within a relatively short driving distance of here in Milwaukee.

One note, though - they butchered the pronunciation of "New Berlin" at the time of WW1, as they shifted the stress in the "Berlin" part to the first syllable to make it not sound like Imperial Germany's capital's name. (Of course, WW1 was a disaster culturally and linguistically here in Wisconsin, but that is another story.)

<<The amount of place names that were brought over to the states from England never ceases to amaze me. In England we REALLY do have an original California (Norfolk) a Washington, a Boston and I understand that even my home county of Essex is represented somewhere on the West Coast of America!!!>>

The California in Norfolk is named after the American state, not the other way around. The Spanish invented the name "California".