Now That was a Bit of a Laugh

Quite by accident while cruising around on you tube, I discovered that there seems to be an infatuation (particularly amongst young Brits) with the "American" accent. It was rather amusing watching them run through this muddled mess of California Valley Girl, New York Piason, and some of the most painful "southern" English (which they dubbed "Redneck"). Seeing all this, a few things came to mind.

1. Having spent a bit of time in the UK, I must admit the British accent sounds very precise, careful, polite and gentile. Unlike American English, British English seems much more formal, (Cockney dialect notwithstanding). In Cambridge one evening I struck up a conversation with a college kid at a pub. He said, I sounded like Andy Griffith and invited his mates over to marvel at my Mayberry accent. They all had a good laugh and seemed very entertained. I think I even heard the term "bloody colonial" bandied about.

2. I was quite intrigued by the term "American" accent. Truth is, there's only a small percentage of us who speak the non-regional American English that would be anywhere close to being the generic "American" accent. Speakers of this non-regional American English are generally, but not always, midwesterners. I've heard it spoken in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois but I've also heard folks from Ohio and Indiana with an almost Applachian or Kentucky twang as well. Folks from Chicago, certainly have a distinct accent as do Wisconsans, Minnesotans and some folks from Pennsylvania. The non-regional dialect can also be found out west in places like Washington, Oregon, Montana and Idaho.

3. Nearly as intriguing as the term "American" accent, is one that many of my own countrymen use, "Southern" accent. The question again becomes, which Southern accent? West Virginia sounds different than Texas, the Carolinas different than Florida, Georgia, Alabama or Mississippi, etc. The Cajun accent is of course a horse of a completely different color. Where the British kid got Andy Griffith is beyond me, no Carolina dialect here. It was likely the most pronounced "Southern" accent he had ever heard so (for him at least) it was an easy comparison.

4. For even more linguistic fun, there's this odd use of the term Redneck to describe their strained attempt at a southern accent. The term has never really had anything to do with either language or geography. Originally, redneck was used to describe rural farm folks. They worked in the fields a lot and typically had sunburned necks (see also, farmer tan.) Today, for some reason, the term is very closely associated with the southern U.S. but in the broader sense it's typically someone (male or female) with (in the words of Jeff Foxworthy) "a glorious lack of sophistication." Using this definition, any American will tell you that Rednecks are just as common in Minnesota or even Canada, as they are in Mississippi. In fact, I'll bet a dime to a donut that there's even a few British rednecks.
Good Night Fellas!

Ha ha, there are definately British rednecks. There are rednecks everywhere in my opinion. There certainly were where I grew up in Canada. Nothing wrong with that either.

Having lived in England for the last 13 years I haven't noticed any infatuation with American accents myself. There are obviously many local accents and dialects here as you know. Newcastle 'Geordies' sound very different from Scottish people not at all far away. The Geordies sound very different to the Brummies, the Brummies sound different to Londoners, the cockney Londoners sound different to people from Cornwall and Somerset and so on. Even where I live there's a distinct accent that doesn't fit with anything else, 20 miles up the road in Corby people have thick Scottish accents even though thesedays most of them were born in Corby not Scotland. A bun is a roll in Northampton, it's a cob where my wife comes from, it's a bap in some places and anywhere you go you'll get funny looks when you ask for the wrong one. That's what keeps it interesting to me.

I love hearing the Northampton accent or any accent for that matter. People here say Ta da instead of good bye, 'Me duck' and 'sausage' is an affectionate name to call people. The sad thing is it's more and more the older people you hear with broad accents thesedays. Younger people are adapting a more universal accent thesedays, it's a more street sound than traditional I'd say. An 18 year old from London won't sound that different to an 18 year old in Northampton now as they tend to generally use the same slang. Words like 'innit' and saying 'yeah' a lot for no reason similar to valley girls saying 'like' and 'whatever'. It's more an Ali G approach to language here thesedays, even my 7 year old lad is sounding more street each day due to hearing his mates at school. Shame really as I enjoy all the diversity here when it comes to accents.

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It's kind of going this way with the youth here, not entirely but with the world getting smaller and smaller I think people's accents everywhere will be less broad in years to come. Fortunately there will always be different accents though and I'm glad for it.

I love the way Jeff Bridges sounds in the remake of True Grit for some reason. Great acting in my opinion. There's nothing worse than an American actor putting on an British accent though!

Oh, da Yoopers in Michigan are wanna-be Canadians.
Ever notice that in all the old WW2 films the Germans spoke with an English accent?

Although I understand that you'd say there is no "american" accent.....

I'd have to disagree with you. There are certain ways that certain sounds in the English language are pronounced that are done virtually universally the same way by all Americans. I understand that there are differences between the different areas but there are similarities as well.

It is no different in Dutch, or in British English or (I suspect) in Australian English.

When I moved to GA from NW NJ I would go out and order food or get cigaettes etc and people would just stare at me. My wife (GA born) had to tell me to slow down when I spoke. There is definite differences amongst us Americans.

In the NYC area, there are over-the-air stations that broadcast in a variety of languages, from French to Chinese to Korean to Indian to whatever.
One of the most interesting things I ever saw was a western comic (unknown if he was US or European) telling jokes in Chinese in a variety of Chinese dialects. You could hear the difference in the pronunciation without understanding the language. The Chinese audience was loving it.

It's funny. I'm from the SE part if Ohio(Appalachia) and have always told people who ask about the accent that SE Ohio is basically Kentucky Lite.:)

While the so called "farm folks" may have had red necks, the term also goes back to the beginnings of the unions in the coal country of Appalachia.

Quote:

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The United Mine Workers of America (UMW) and rival miners' unions appropriated both the term redneck and its literal manifestation, the red bandana, in order to build multiracial unions of white, black, and immigrant miners in the strike-ridden coalfields of northern and central Appalachia between 1912 and 1936. The origin of redneck to mean "a union man" or "a striker" remains uncertain, but according to linguist David W. Maurer, the former definition of the word probably dates at least to the 1910s, if not earlier. The use of redneck to designate "a union member" was especially popular during the 1920s and 1930s in the coal-producing regions of southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, and western Pennsylvania, where the word came to be specifically applied to a miner who belonged to a union.
The term can be found throughout McAllister Coleman and Stephen Raushenbush's 1936 socialist proletarian novel, Red Neck, which recounts the story of a charismatic union leader named Dave Houston and an unsuccessful strike by his fellow union miners in the fictional coalfield town of Laurel, Pennsylvania. The word's varied usage can be seen in the following two examples from the book. "I'm not much to be proud of," Houston admits to his admiring girlfriend Madge in one scene. "I'm just a red necked miner like the rest." In another scene, a police captain curses Houston as a "God-damned red neck" during a fruitless jailhouse interrogation, before savagely beating him with a sawed-off chair-leg.
The earliest printed uses of the word red-neck in a coal-mining context date from the 1912-1913 Paint and Cabin Creeks strike in southern West Virginia and from the 1913-1914 Trinidad District strike in southern Colorado. It is not known where the term originated. It originated as a negative epithet. Apparently, coal operators, company guards, non-union miners, and strikebreakers were among the first to use the term "redneck" in a labor context when they derided union miners with the slur. According to industrial folklorist George Korson, non-union miners derisively called strikers "rednecks" in the Appalachian coalfields. The best explanation of redneck to mean "union man" is that the word refers to the red handkerchiefs that striking union coal miners in both southern West Virginia and southern Colorado often wore around their necks or arms as a part of their informal uniform.[15]

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redneck

:)