Best of British (British accents in the USA).

BBC ^ | Wednesday, March 21, 2007

[cloud8]

> if [Americans] heard an RP accent next to Glaswegian,

yes

>Geordie,

yes

I nah I'm a Geordie, God
'An made of stronger stuff
me shoulders canna tek the weigth
its gittin ower tough

> Cornish and Welsh they'd be well aware of how different each was.

No idea what Cornish and Welsh accents are like. Can you point to a source?

[Trailerpark Badass]

So THAT'S why they always have some Brit pimping the latest wonderproduct in those infomercials! Funny.

[Trailerpark Badass]

So THAT'S why they always have some Brit pimping the latest wonderproduct in those infomercials! Funny.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Personally suspect that the BBC blacklists. Have tried many, many times to post comments on Have Your Say, and comments on articles such as this one, where there is a place to send comments. And yet no comment has been posted. Have tried emailing them about it (early on, on HYS, for a while sent four of the same messages so that one of them could actually make it onto the forum; after reading the house rules and seeing that this probably is spamming, stopped, but haven't gotten a comment through in some time).

[VOA]

I like most of the version of accents from the UK.

But I did know a professor at Purdue who would occassionally say
"If you're in academia in the USA and have a British accent...
...you're automatically credited with an extra 50 I.Q. points."

[Nea Wood]

What does "give it a bit of welly" mean?

[britemp]

'No idea what Cornish and Welsh accents are like. Can you point to a source?'

Well of course as well as being accents to the English language, both Cornish and Welsh are languages in their own right:

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/cornish.htm

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/welsh.htm

As for the respective accents - a Cornish accent is probably best described as the way pirates speak in movies and a Welsh accent generally has a soft, gutteral element to it. Try finding Richard Burton reading Dylan Thomas's 'Under Milk Wood' and you will hear a soft, slightly anglicised welsh accent. They range from there right up to really quite throaty and somewhat impenetrable accents of North and Mid-Wales where the Welsh langauge is still prevalent as a first language. It is no coincidence that the Welsh make the best choral singers in the world!

[britemp]

'What does "give it a bit of welly" mean?

Basically it means try harder - give it some gas, put your back into it, exert yourself, a welly of course being a wellington boot. :)

[uksupport1]

If you think UK accents are gay mate you've been watching too many dodgy American action movies! ;-) Firstly, we're not all master villains. With regards to horrendous ROMCOM films, not all Brits speak like hugh grant. Only hugh grant speaks like hugh grant. Secondly, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy has been aired on UK TV. Perhaps I should judge the American accent as used by Carson Cresley or whatever that bloke's name is? I think lots of American tourists come to the UK expecting to find a scene from the film Nottinghill. Unfortunately, they're more likely to find drunken football supporters fighting!:-)

[CholeraJoe]

Easy, mate. I lived in the UK for 3 years. (Newbury, Berks) It's only some of the "Upper Class Twit" accents that sound gay to us Yanks. I hardly think Vinnie Jones or Robbie Coltrane sound gay.

I used to party with some former soccer hooligans in the RAF Regiment. They made horrible fun of the British officers.

[uksupport1]

Oh no problem mate. I wasn't criticizing you, just trying to right the wrong impression that some Americans have of the British male :-) I have some mates who were introduced to some American girls recently arrived in-country. Cue swooning from the girls until the blokes have begun to speak. The look of shocked bemusement on the Americans faces was apparently priceless :-)

[Heatseeker]

Personally suspect that the BBC blacklists. Have tried many, many times to post comments on Have Your Say, and comments on articles such as this one, where there is a place to send comments. And yet no comment has been posted.

That doesn't seem surprising given the Beeb's obvious bias. They are probably allowing in comments which we are to believe are "representative" of general opinion. Newspapers have done it for ages.

[wazoo1031]

I agree, I'm a Southerner who has been in Enland for 3 yrs. now, and I'm always getting marriage proposals (the men fall at your feet as well) and "say something else!" whenever I say "y'all" and "darlin'" or "honey", and when I go to NYC I get "are you British?" HA HA HA, I crack up at that all the time!

[wurzul]

Stephen Fry is a great actor, but his comments are way off the mark. Americans are as capable of recognising a bad British actor`s perfomance as Brits are of spotting an American turkey. Ridiculous to suggest otherwise.