wdolson -> RE: Valkyrie any good? (1/3/2009 1:19:16 PM)
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ORIGINAL: wdolson Yet Americans are also conditioned to find British accents classy from two generations of the best of the BBC showing up on American PBS television. quote:
ORIGINAL: Doggie Showing your youth there. The idea that a British accent is "sophisticated" predates PBS. It's a leftover from the age of bluebloods in the northeastern United States. A true sophisticate could show his proper breeding by his bloodline, traced back generations to proper English stock, with no Irish riff raff polluting the gene pool. Having been to England, as well as New England I can assure you that an accent is no indication of intelligence. There are plenty of simpletons with an Oxford accent. I'm familiar with the phenomenon you talk about, but I haven't experienced it, having lived my whole life on the left coast. I think there is an East Coast/West Coast split there. The West Coast aristocracy never took on the British accent. I went to school with a Bay Area blue blood and there was a haughty tone in her accent that was unique to the Bay Area and her socio economic class, but it wasn't British. The Anglophila was there among some Northeasterners before PBS, but it's PBS that made it a national phenomenon. quote:
He said that in the UK, he couldn't get a date to save his life, but when he moved to the US, women found him interesting and exotic because of the accent. quote:
It works just as well for Americans in Europe. I know from experience that Euro babes love them some southern fried G.I.s. That too. I have a friend from Israel who came to the US for the first time last year. She was born in Russia, moved to Israel when she was 5 or 6, and her parents don't speak a word of English. She taught herself English and she is such a natural linquist that she has two accents she does, one is an upper middle class London accent and the other is a sort of generic New York City accent. She goes into them like switching a channel and it's flawless. The Americans who met her couldn't believe she had never been to the US before. She said when she's in London, she usually uses her American accent because she found people treat her better. She once met up with a cousin in London who had lived in England most of her life and my friend felt silly speaking with her American accent so she closed her eyes for a second and switched to her London accent. quote:
(more than half of the population in this country can't tell the difference between an Australian and British accent). quote:
Sure you can. Australians are English hillbillies. It's easy to tell them apart, especially the sheilas. Australian women can cuss for twenty minutes and never repeat themselves. They got your back in a bar brawl as well. The working class Aussies are easy to spot, but you have to be aware of more subtleties to spot the educated Australian accent. It's much more British. I'm pretty good with accents and I can spot it (when I was in college, I could tell what part of California people came from by their accents, something that usually shocked my classmates), but most Americans couldn't tell the difference. Bill
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