Stuffy English

Vytenis   Tuesday, March 15, 2005, 19:33 GMT
Has anyone heard Rob Englis's reading of "Lord of the Rings" audiobook. What kind of accent is it? Is it a XIX century queen Victoria accent? I cannot listen to this audiobook, it sounds sooooooo stuffy... I cannot find another word...
Fredrik from Norway   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 00:24 GMT
"I cannot find another word... ":
- Snobbish?
- Queer?
- Prudish?

The scary thing is that this accent is taught in school when we foreigners learn English. I could have murdered for a cozy Scottish or even Australian accent!
Travis   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 01:19 GMT
One wouldn't use "queer" or "prudish" due to the connotations that such have today, because such connotations (homosexual in the case of "queer", and Victorian with respect to attitudes towards sexuality in the case of "prudish"). "Snobbish" doesn't sound quite right either, as you'd probably only use that if someone was being deliberately very formal for the sake of raising their perceived position over others. I'd say that simply "overly formal" or "overly conservative" would probably be more applicable overall in this case.
Travis   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 01:21 GMT
Whoops, make that "'prudish') are not applicable or appropriate in this given case.".
Vytenis   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 12:49 GMT
I much more enjoyed Jim Dale reading Harry Potter books. And this reader is like pain in the... Shame, for LOTR is such a superb book!
Damian   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 14:00 GMT
Some....and I stress "some".....English people are insufferably stuffy.....I know, I've met them but mostly they are older generation anyway.....I guess it's an age thing as "class" structures are supposed to be dead in the water....thank goodness.

You "foreigners" should update your audio tapes for the English Language learning process....get fluent in Estuary, or better still transfer to Scottish...now you're talking.....no need to commit murder, Fredrik.
Vytenis   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 19:30 GMT
What's Estuary?
Fredrik from Norway   Friday, March 18, 2005, 00:39 GMT
Travis:
I know those can be offensive words... But sometimes some stuffy people speak so conservative that you can just imagine that they are some really inbred aristocrats with a typically Anglo-Saxon fetish for nanny's enemas and lusting after handsome choir boys at an all-boys public school and at the same time being very moral and unfamiliar with modern concepts and likely to say: "In the good old days you could just shag a chap and no decent fellow would insist on you joining some ghastly pink pride parade!"

They are the guys only England could produce. You gotta like them for that. But it can be a bit annoying to listen to them for a very long time...
american nic   Friday, March 18, 2005, 01:13 GMT
I know this is a radical idea, but why not just learn General American English? It's spoken by far more people than any British dialect, and is understood by almost any English speaker on Earth.
Fredrik from Norway   Friday, March 18, 2005, 01:26 GMT
american nic:
Good question! But American English sounds so gross in Norwegian ears! In our minds we connect it with farmers in the Midwest, because we tend to over-emphazise the American -r! And Britain is much closer... I had a girl in my high school class who spoke with a very nice American English accent after an exchange year in the US. Every time she was reading in class I had to think of apple pie, rocking chairs on the front porch, "Mum, I'm home!", yellow school busses, decent people going to town with baseball capses, outrageously cute teenage romance, sweetly naïve religiousity - the whole wholesome American dream...

But as you understand, only stuffy old traditions stop us from following your proposal...
JunJun   Friday, March 18, 2005, 01:30 GMT
Learn scouse.
Travis   Friday, March 18, 2005, 01:35 GMT
american nic, well, I'd say that many people /can/ speak it, but I would not say that most people, at least here (in Wisconsin), really speak it per se, primarily because I associate it with the formal, "correct", heavily enunciated spoken analogue to written American English, not with what most here speak on an everyday basis. It does not tend towards cliticization and elision, as well as other phonological changes, unlike speech here, and also it tends towards using different modal constructions as well. As for myself, well, I'd say that I /can/ speak it, but iI /really/ don't like doing so, as it requires a good amount of (usually unnecessary) effort overall for me.
JunJun   Friday, March 18, 2005, 01:37 GMT
When Norwegians speak English they sound pretty cool in my opinion, they sound similar to other Scandinavian countries. I don't know what English you learn. But it sounds a very good standard of English and clear. The Dutch and Danish sound alright too when they speak English.

some Norwegians actually sound similar to Geordies, but I suppose that's not a surprise since Geordies in England have kept Norwegians words in their dialect what the rest of the English ignorantly call slang. While I've heared some Spanish sounding similar to my own accent "scouse" when they speak English.
JunJun   Friday, March 18, 2005, 01:44 GMT
Geordie English
"gannin yem" (I'm going home)
Fredrik from Norway   Friday, March 18, 2005, 01:55 GMT
JunJun:
Cool!
Geordie: yem
Danish: hjem
Norwegian: heim
Scottish: hame