Can British people pretend to speak like Americans?

Seattle doesn't have an accent? That's got to be weird - if they've got the power of speech then they have an accent I would have thought. I met two people - a young(ish) married couple - in the queue to enter the House of Commons a wee while back and they were instantly recognisable as Americans by their accent. They said they came from Seattle, but were based with the US military at Lakenheath, in Suffolk, England - an interesting couple to chat with, and we sat together in the public gallery to listen to a debate which interested them very much as it was their first ever visit to London let alone the public gallery of the House of Commons. It was really cool for me to tell them that the bloke up on his feet giving his Parliamentary spiel to the House as we took our seats on the benches was my own local MP John Barrett, speaking in his distinct Edinburgh accent. They had no difficulty at all understanding him or me as our accents are pretty much identical although he is 28 years older than I am.



Well, that's simply my impression. I don't notice any accent; however, I notice other Americans accents from other parts of the country such as the Floridian or Southern (I went to Atlanta in May) or the Midwest such as Wisconsin or Minnesota and definitely Boston - I noticed that when I was there!

I am glad you met some people from Seattle. I feel like those of us from the Pacific Northwest Seattle region are very friendly. I hope they were too! :)

Well, it's probably well after midnight over where you are at....I forget if you are 8 hours or 9 hours ahead? It's 5:23 PM here!

"Don't have an accent" is of course for domestic consumption only, as Vanessa knows; it means you speak bland GA without any obvious regional identifiers. It's found from coast to coast in many individuals.

Vanessa:

Aye - the couple from Seattle were very friendly - especially the lady - more chatty and smiley than the guy was. We were waiting in the queue (I think you call it "standing in line") outside the Palace of Westminster (ie the Parliament buildings) waiting to go through all the security checks to enter, when the lady first made contact by asking us whose statue it was over the other side of the wall on the green - we told her Oliver Cromwell, which was true. They both knew who he was which surprised me a little to be honest with you. I mean - how many Brits would know who Paul Revere was? Just a name that instantly came to mind here. Guess what - it was raining but not very much, and she said she loved it in England; I said: "What? With weather like this?" (jokey), and she said "Yes, even in the rain - we have plenty of that in Seattle anyway!" Is that true? If she said so then I guess it is.

Their accents were unmistakably American, much like that of every other American I hear. Unless its clearly a Deep Southern drawl, or a New York accent, all Americans sound exactly the same to me - accent wise any way - obviously voices are different - gender, age, etc., as with everywhere else.

Britain has a much wider range of accents all contained in a very tiny area compared with your massive country, and they vary so much, even in a shortdistance, so they are much more noticeable here. Living here all my life makes it easy for me to distinguish them, andthough they say the accents of North and South London are different, to me as a Scot they sound just the same to me! The more I hear the London accent the more I like my own. :-)

Time zones - British Summer Time (one hour ahead of the time shown in the Greenwich Mean Time (standard UK time) above is 8 hours ahead of you in Seattle, and 7 hours where Uriel lives. Right now it's coffee break time 10:54s BST (09:54s GMT).

So you liked the London transportation system? Hmmmmm....would you think the same way if you had to use it twice a day as a commuter in the rush hours? Somehow I don't think so, Vanessa! At least I don't have to suffer the crush on the Northern Line of the tube like last time but the District/Central lines are not that much better - I do like my fellow humans but not always in such close proximity and in such numbers. Not always nice to discover that someone had garlic in their dinner the night before.

Damian - Well, I did like the transportation system much better than here in Seattle! We have gridlock traffic with no subway system so we're stuck in traffic for a long time, wasting precious time and gas! And, I didn't have to rent a car in London, which was wonderful. Here in Seattle, if I were a tourist I would have to drive or pay for a taxi, which adds up. The bus system is terrible, confusing and not so good. So in my humble system, London's transportation system was much superior. However, I know you pay much more taxes than we do. We can't even make any decent road improvments because the taxpayers here vote it down so here we are stuck in traffic! So our perspectives are simply different I guess! :) That's OK though. It makes us all different and there is nothing wrong with that.

Yeah the accents do vary actually around the US. Perhaps you may not notice them from your perspective but the midwesterners sound different than we do on the west coast. The South have the drawl and if you live in the south of Texas near the Mexico border, you can hear the Mexican influence. We have some close friends who moved up from southern Texas and you can clearly hear the difference. They sound like Spanish speaking people who are talking in English but they are American born and English is their first language. However, if you are watching our news you will always hear the typical American English as they train their broadcasters to speak that way.

Yes the phrase we use is standing in line instead of queue...

Oh and Seattle weather is very similar to London weather. Cloudy, rainy, with sunbreaks. We were there in September 2006 and it was a bit humid (to me). I think the humidity is a bit higher in London than Seattle. But our weather is quite similar. I felt like I was "home", which was nice. It was a very nice city; very diverse. We hope to go back in 2008 or early 2009. We were only there for a week and then headed to Barcelona for a cruise along the Meditteranean.

Public transportation system – hee hee!!! As a Briton that sounds a bit geeky!!! Public transport - ahhh that's better!!!!

Blimey - I have just worked out what Vanessa meant by Subway system!! The post really confused me because a subway here in ole Blighty is simply a walkway that goes underground, allowing the pedestrian to walk under a busy road or such like, so I did not realise we had such a good network of those!!! After investigating (Google) I now realise you meant the 'Underground' or 'Tube' phew - that makes much more sense!!! Thinking about it, there are many subway signs doted around London and these must confuse American tourists no end. Saying that though, oddly enough many Underground Stations also serve as pedestrian Subways and so also carry a public subway sign underneath the Underground sign – so inadvertently this probably helps tourists find their way around the underground system. That’s a touch!!! Erm…what am I going on about????

Yep Uriel, I understand that they change the titles of some films due to perceived 'transatlantic differences' of the audience, but most of the changes seem pointless (to me anyway). I wonder who makes these decisions anyway because I'd like to meet him and give him a slap!! I mean we get films with titles such as 'RV' (I think 0.01% of the country will know what an RV is – I didn’t) and we get American spellings such as 'Stepmom' (mum) or ‘The Color Purple’ (colour) etc. In-fact the powers that be never change American spelling in the titles of any films released here (I'm not saying they have too, it doesn’t matter like (I bet BrE spelling of films are changed into AmE though!!!)). And yet they change a title of a film such as 'Live Free or Die Hard' to 'Die Hard 4.0' – I must be missing something because either one will be acceptable here. I remember when I was a lad growing up in the 80’s going to see a film called ‘A Night Out On The Town’- otherwise known to American audiences as ‘Adventures in Babysitting’, anyone that has seen the film knows what title is more appropriate. Sort it out film title people!!!!! Write no more posts on film titles for me!!

Oi Damien - keep up the good work mate. Your posts are well informative - share the knowledge geezer. Actually I have just cottoned on to the fact that ‘Damien in London E14’ is the same person as ‘Damien in Edinburgh’ – oh dear. Good boy, I knew you would come around - London THE GREATEST CITY IN THE WORLD. Good man – you know it makes sense!!!

Actually Damien, you seem a learned chap. You mention that you visited the palace of Westminster; did you by any chance get an opportunity to visit Westminster Abbey??? Mate I went there the other day and all I can say is BLIMEY!! I have a bit of a nerdy passion for religious buildings, especially gothic cathedrals and mate this one takes the biscuit. You may or may not be particularly religious but they hold a service each Saturday about 1pm. The setting coupled with the choir is amazing mate and is well worth going. The history of England (and much of Britain in-fact) is virtually encompassed in this building. I think it is even more beautiful than St Paul’s - and that is saying something!!!!

Okay ta ta!!!

That was meant to say 'right, no more posts on film titles for me'.

Oh quickly, you made a good point Damien, and leads me to ask “Why do American tourists sound the same”?? I realise America has a vast range of accents but this never seems to come across.

I took my little sister to the Essex town of Maldon (about 14 miles from where I live) and their were many American tourists there (my sister was amazed that Americans were on holiday in Essex – so was I thinking about it!!!! Maldon is quite nice but there are a million places better). The thing was, they sounded typically ‘American’, in the sense that if someone said to me “do an American accent” then this would be the accent I’d do. It is the same in London, all the tourists sound so similar – why??

Pub Lunch: He is Damian - he doesn't want to be a Damien. :-)

<<‘The Color Purple’>>

Have you seen the film? How did you like the African American Vernacular English? :-) (If we think of the same film - the epistolary by Alice Walker (I almost wrote Alice Cooper - LOL) and the film featuring Whoopy Goldberg.)

AARRGGHH!!!! Apologies Damian for spelling the name wrong mate - nice one Liz.

Liz - I have never read the book and vaguely remember the film. Was the film a good example of African American Vernacular English (Ebonics??) then??

I have read 'Beloved' by Toni Morrison and remember struggling with some of the words but I'm not sure if this was due to unfamiliarity with AAVE or AmE. I am not very knowledgeable regarding AAVE although I do realise many 'Black' American's have a distinctive dialect. Is AAVE applicable to all African American's or just African American's from the South of the US?? To be honest, It seems that 'Black speech' in America has a huge impact on Americans full stop. For example, a lot of slang that I would have associated with being spoken by African American's seems to be spoken by many 'White' American's as well or perhaps this is because of the effect of Hip Hop culture?? (I don't know why, but I always associate the dropping of the g in a word like nothing with the influence of AAVE).

I suppose the thing that might distinguish AAVE from AmE is its phonology rather than the written word, so in that case a film like 'The Colour Purple' may be a better example of AAVE than the book would be(maybe??). Then again how 'authentic' is the speech in the film?? I have no clue regarding phonology and I have no clue what I am talking about (as ever). Auf Wiederhoren!!!!!

Pub Lunch:

I'm not Damian, so I can't say "no probs". :-) :-) :-)

Yeah, the film and the book, too, are good examples of AAVE. You can hear the particular accent that speakers of AAVE have in the film, but the book is written in vernacular, too. It's a bit of a struggle to decipher what they want to say. The most striking difference between AAVE and GA (or other dialects) lies in the pronunciation, but it has a distinct grammatical structure as well. It is easier to notice in the book where you can see non-standard grammatical constructions and phonetic spellings here and there. I took a course in AAVE (in theory, it shouldn't have been an AAVE course but in fact it was - AAVE undercover or suchlike :-)) just before reading the book and seeing the film (it was mere coincidence), so I didn't pay much attention to the content but was preoccupied with the dialect! However, I am not an authority on judging the authenticity of the accents in the film. They seemed authentic to me, but I've never met an AAVE speaker in real life...only Cockney-turned-Jamaican Creole wannabes! :-)

You are right - rap songs are the most authentic contemporary sources of AAVE. (It's a good excuse for listening to "parental advisory: explicit lyrics" things. An English friend of mine was really and truly gobsmacked at hearing an Eminem (or D12 - all the same but I can't remember exactly) song from the loudspeakers of a Hungarian supermarket without the BLEEP BLEEPs, with all the f-s and mf-s in there. You know, we don't understand those texts *at all*. :-)

As you say, some white Americans really act like blacks...especially those who were raised in one of the full-on areas. They really do speak Queens English! :-) But some of the chavs do the same thing, don't they?

Auf Wiederlesen! (This form of saying goodbye doesn't exist yet but we were considering using it on a German-speaking thread of an English speaking forum since we don't see but read each other('s posts). Just like in the newer version of Cape Fear - someone commented on the character played by Robert De Niro: "Shall I look at this man or read him?" Because he had so many tattoos! :-)

>>AARRGGHH!!!! Apologies Damian for spelling the name wrong mate - nice one Liz.

Liz - I have never read the book and vaguely remember the film. Was the film a good example of African American Vernacular English (Ebonics??) then??<<

Some people pushed the name "Ebonics" a while back, but in linguistic contexts it is just "AAVE" today.

>>I have read 'Beloved' by Toni Morrison and remember struggling with some of the words but I'm not sure if this was due to unfamiliarity with AAVE or AmE. I am not very knowledgeable regarding AAVE although I do realise many 'Black' American's have a distinctive dialect. Is AAVE applicable to all African American's or just African American's from the South of the US??<<

AAVE is spoken throughout the US as a whole, aside from some areas with practically no black population, but not the entire black population speaks it. For instance, many speak General American with some sort of AAVE substratum, even though many more code-switch between that and AAVE based on social context. However, it seems to be rather rare for black people to really speak the non-AAVE dialect from the area in which they live; I can really only think of one example of such a person myself that I have known at all in Real Life.

>>To be honest, It seems that 'Black speech' in America has a huge impact on Americans full stop. For example, a lot of slang that I would have associated with being spoken by African American's seems to be spoken by many 'White' American's as well or perhaps this is because of the effect of Hip Hop culture?? (I don't know why, but I always associate the dropping of the g in a word like nothing with the influence of AAVE).<<

At least here, the non-AAVE dialect spoken here is *very* markedly distinct from the AAVE here, with there being extremely little crossover between the two. The only thing that the two truly have in common is that they both have Canadian Raising of some sort. There are some features that are superficially similar between the two, though. They both have l-vocalization and modification of interdental consonants, even though the patterns are distinctly different between the two and are most likely unrelated (and almost certainly unrelated in the latter case); the only real commonality between them that I can think of is that some speakers of the non-AAVE dialect here do sporadically realize /T/ as [f] both initially and medially).

I would really guess that a lot of what you observe is probably just due to hip hop culture and whatnot, and really is not all that common outside of AAVE. However, some of these are likely not really specifically AAVE features at all, such as realizing "nothing" with [n] and [N], which is found in very many English dialects through *at least* North American English as a whole.

>>I suppose the thing that might distinguish AAVE from AmE is its phonology rather than the written word, so in that case a film like 'The Colour Purple' may be a better example of AAVE than the book would be(maybe??). Then again how 'authentic' is the speech in the film?? I have no clue regarding phonology and I have no clue what I am talking about (as ever). Auf Wiederhoren!!!!!<<

There are significant syntactic and semantic diffences between AAVE and other NAE dialects, such as the use of the habitual "be"; the differences are in no way merely phonological.

As for the movie "The Color Purple", I've never seen it, so I cannot really say. Note though that the AAVE that you may hear in media content may differ significantly from that spoken in Real Life in places; for instance, AAVE in media content is infinitely more intelligible to me than the AAVE spoken here in Milwaukee, which sometimes verges upon being unintelligible for myself - and even when it isn't it very often feels like I really do not truly understand what is meant when listening to it. (I particularly remember a period during which I was working at this one food place here where I basically had trouble understanding most of my coworkers much of the time and often had to simply guess by context as to what they meant - I would have understood at least as well had they spoken German to me instead, for that matter.)

>>Speaking of r-s, I find it quite amusing that here in Germany lots of people tend to overgeneralise the intrusive r-s, i.e. they say for example "idear" instead of "idea", even if the word isn't followed by a vowel<<

That reminds me of a kind of BrE pronunciation which seems to be peculiar to the city of Bristol. If a word ends in an 'a', they add an 'l' to it. It took me a while to realise why, to the Bristolians, something would be 'a good ideal'.Likewise 'America' would be pronounced 'Americal', about which I heard someone comment that an American might be confused to hear that a Bristolian had been to a miracle lol

As I said, it appears to be a unique trait of the Bristol accent, as, although I grew up not far away, I have never heard it anywhere else.

''That reminds me of a kind of BrE pronunciation which seems to be peculiar to the city of Bristol. If a word ends in an 'a', they add an 'l' to it. ''

not only in an -a
but the name of the city Bristol is hiding the intrusive L too: it should be Bristo in RPese

Is Seattle rainy, Damian? Is the Pope Catholic? ;) They call themselves "webfoots" because the joke is that it's so wet there all the time that people grown webbing, like frogs, and they say that they're born with Goretex instead of skin!

You might be from Seattle if…
I saw this on-line and did not see a link here.

You have no concept of humidity without precipitation

You throw an aluminum can in the trash and feel guilty

You use the word “sun breaks”, and know what it means

You can’t wait for a day with “Showers and sun breaks”

You only turn on your windshield wipers to “intermittent”

You know more than 10 ways to order a cup of coffee

You complain about Californians as you sell your house to one for twice its value

You never go camping without waterproof matches and a poncho

You know the exact location of 15 drive-thru espresso stands in your neighborhood

You stand on a deserted street corner in the rain, waiting for the “Walk” signal

You know more people who own a boat than an air conditioner

You obey all traffic laws, except “Keep right, except to pass”

You let other drivers merge in front of you

You can taste the difference between Starbucks, Seattle’s Best Coffee, and Veneto’s

You consider swimming an indoor sport

You think that if it has no snow on it, or has not erupted recently, it’s not a real mountain

You can tell the difference between Japanese, Chinese, and Thai food

You understand what people mean when they say “pop”

You consider a floating bridge a pain in the butt, not an engineering marvel

You know what lutefisk is (visualize Ballard, ufdah)

You feel overdressed wearing a suit to a really fancy restaurant

You can point to at least two volcanoes, even if you can’t see through the cloud cover

You personally know someone from Alaska

You think people who use umbrellas are either wimps or tourists

You find a wallet with $500 and give it back to the owner

You know how to pronounce Sequim, Puyallup, Rainier, and Issaquah

You used to live somewhere else, but won’t admit it publicly

You know the difference between Chinook, Coho, and Sockeye salmon

You knew immediately that the view out Frazier’s window was fake

You are amazed at an accurate weather forecast

You switch to your sandals when it gets above 60 degrees, but keep your socks on

You have actually used your mountain bike on a mountain

You would be miffed if the store were out of your favorite brand of water

You have ever ordered a “half caff/decaf, nonfat mocha grande with raspberry whip” (or know what it is)

You put on your shorts when the temperature gets above 50 degrees, but still wear your hiking boots and parka

You feel you’ve grown up with Bill Gates and can’t figure out why people can be so mean to him

You know the difference between “Today’s Forecast: showers followed by rain”, and “Tomorrow’s Forecast: rain followed by showers”

In the winter, you go to work in the dark, come home in the dark, and yet only put in an 8-hour day

The bride & groom registered at REI (a sporting-goods store)

If someone ran your car off the freeway, you might drown

Half your friends work at Microsoft and Boeing

Fifteen blocks away is a good parking spot

You read the Stranger for the personal ads, even if you’d never answer one of them!

You try to read a book and drive at the same time

“Capitol Hill” doesn’t mean legislation, it means drag queens

If the temperature gets over 80 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s a “heat wave”

If the temperature goes below 20 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s “record cold.”

40 days and 40 nights of torrential rain doesn’t sound like Biblical floods - it sounds like a typical spring.

The guy in the $5000 suit is the vice president of the company. The company’s president is the guy in Dockers and a polo shirt.

When someone says he’s cruising for Dicks, you know he’s not soliciting you - just hungry.

If you know what “Acres of Clams” is

If you put an empty soda can in your purse to recycle it later

If summer begins with Folklife and ends with Bumbershoot

If you consider a beer list to be equal to the wine list.

Seven blocks of alternating one-way streets seems perfectly logical

Mmmmm...trying to get to grips with all that lot. I certainly relate to this one:

***In the winter, you go to work in the dark, come home in the dark, and yet only put in an 8-hour day*** In Edinburgh it could well be a 5 hour day....

Do you think they like Scotsmen in Seattle, Uriel? Do they have windy days there to go with the rain? How would they react to a Scot wearing his kilt in the traditional way on a windy day in Seattle? Nobody bats an eyelid back home.