Someone gets very angry when all the different accents that are spoken in the United Kingdom are grouped together as 'British accents', spawning a long and furious discussion (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
293 ups - 92 downs = 201 votes
183 comments submitted at 15:13:51 on Dec 9, 2013 by RedExergy
I guess I'm going to be the only one who is going to defend the guy. There are different accents in America but the one you hear on TV is what the majority of Americans sound like. This isn't like the UK where you immediately recognize when someone is from Scotland for example. I can listen to someone from Austin, LA and New York and there is a good chance I won't be able to tell the difference.
> This isn't like the UK where you immediately recognize when someone is from Scotland for example.
I can immediately recognize when someone is from The South vs. The North.
Hell I could tell you if they were from Oklahoma or Texas. The post above yours is as ignorant as the OP in the link.
I'm not very good with southern accents since I've never spent much time down there, so I applaud your skills.
Don't feel bad. I was born and raised in the south and can't tell the region of southerner by accent.
I know plenty of people from both OK and Texas, but I guess I'm just ignorant.
If you can't tell the difference between someone from Austin, LA, or New York then ya I'd say you're ignorant (or deaf, if so I apologize).
Enlighten my idiotic mind. What makes it obvious that people Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Jake Gyllenhaal are from LA?
You mean two actors who have had speech training, which usually works to specifically reduce regionalisms?
The words they use, the way they are pronounced.
Like what?
Depends where you are in the world, though. I can easily distinguish Queens English from cockney from scottish from scouse and know roughly in the UK where they're from. Give me an American accent though and I have no flipping clue.
I'm from NZ but have had a very UK-centric upbringing (family that watches a lot of BBC, lots of family back in the UK etc.).
Could you tell that Brad Pitt was from Missourri and that Jennifer Lawrence is from Kentucky?
Actors go through voice and dialect training. This isn't a good example for your case. Try again.
So almost every single actor loses their accents? What a convenient answer. Why didn't Matthew Mcconaughey lose his accent then?
oh man, are you really going to keep denying that it's easy to tell southern accents and northern accents apart?
I don't even know who matthew mcconaughey is, but no, it can be a choice, obviously? People with strong or negatively-associated accents like southern or bronx or jersey or whatever who want to be news anchors or actors can purposefully train their accent away.
idk why this is such a difficult thing to comprehend for you?
I didn't say there wasn't a difference between southern accents and northern accents. The point is that not every person from the south has a recognizable southern accent. I should know since I'm actually from the south. When I give an example of someone from the south who doesn't have a noticable accent,(Selena Gomez is another btw) you just hand wave it.
Sometimes, but there a lot of Southerners who don't have a distinguishable accent, especially in cities.
I think there's a very distinguishable line between americans who live in cities vs. rural areas for multiple things (liberal vs. conservative, accents, etc) and a lot of southern-born americans who move north or to big cities do try and cover their accent. But the majority still have a southern accent, or a strong twang that gives it away easily. Even having "ya'll" as part of someone's vocabulary is a dead giveaway.
As a southerner, I don't really have too much of an accent (though it does get away from me at times, usually an extremely abrupt "how are you"), but the y'all (and ain't, if we get down to it) gives me away every time.
It's just such a useful word.
I have no excuse for ain't, though.
I think the widespread use of television and the like makes it easier to muddle or "lose" your accent.
Edit: By "much of", I meant Southern accent. Obviously I still have an accent.
Fix'n
Bless your heart.
That means 'fuck you' right?
Only on the internet. I've never heard it being used passive-aggressively in real life. Usually only used when a kid or cute animal does something stupid, like run into a door.
I'll pray for you is the douchy one that's an insult.
Good to know. Thanks.
I think this is probably because you're not from the US. Some cities do have more generic accents that cover large areas, and people often try to ditch their accent to sound more professional or blend in. But I can usually tell where someone is from in my region.
I'm bad at differentiating southern accents, but I can tell you whether someone is from LA, NY, Boston, Pittsburgh, Philly, Baltimore...etc. Sometimes within Philly, you can even tell what part of the city people are from if they still have their accent. This was even more true in my grandparent's day of course. People often get self-conscious of their accent, and so each generation makes some changes.
Interesting article on Philly accents...we're slowly losing some of our southern influences:
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-04-29/national/388951271accent-sounds-regional-dialects
Television is just awful with accents. It drives me nuts. They make everyone from the NE sound like they're from NY or Boston. Apparently those are the only accents that exist. Directors and actors just pick one if they want to sound more regional.
Rural areas just get a general midwestern accent or worse they make everyone uneducated or add a southern accent in a linguistically northern area.
Edit: the downvotes seem a bit harsh. It's an easy mistake to make if all you do is watch american media or hang out with professional urban populations that intentionally hide their accent.
Even southerners have a hard time telling the difference in southern accents, barring the French ones in Louisiana.
Well actually I'm from the US.
Whoops. Are you out West? I'm really surprised to hear that.
The South actually. Maybe it's just because of the area I live in but I don't know too many people who have a noticeable southern accent.
It is really, really hard to hear your own accent because it is so normalized. I certainly didn't think I had much of one until I moved some 400 miles west.