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The Boston accent was ranked as the most annoying in the U.S., according to a new survey, but it also ranked among the top 10 smartest and sexiest. Preply, a Brookline-based online language learning platform, took a survey of more than 1,700 people across the country on the most loved and hated accents. The Boston accent came out on top as the most annoying, followed by the Midwestern accent. When it comes to the sexiest accent, Boston ranked number six out of 10. The top spot was taken by the southern accent. Boston also came in sixth place for the...

The co-hosts of ABC's liberal daytime gabfest "The View," spent a portion of their Tuesday show criticizing U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson over his government's plans to end all coronavirus restrictions on the country, with two of the co-hosts using British accents to mock him.

JK Rowling has once again been criticised for her new novel, after she was accused of 'transliterating' one of the book's working class characters by spelling their dialect differently. Troubled Blood, written under Rowling's pseudonym Robert Galbraith, was released Tuesday and sees detective Cormoran Strike work out what happened to missing GP Margot Bamborough. The book originally came under fire for featuring a 'transvestite serial killer' called Dennis Creed, who murders his victims while wearing female clothing and a wig, sparking furious backlash online, amid accusations of transphobia against the author.

From a southern drawl to a Boston twang, there is no shortage of accents in the United States of America. But no accent is alike - and neither is their sex appeal. Now a new survey has ranked the sexiest and least sexiest accents in America, revealing whether the country prefers the sounds of Mark Wahlberg or the Jersey Shore cast. While Texas and Boston reigned supreme, the likes of Snooki and The Situation would be sad to learn that New Jersey accents ranked almost dead last in the survey by Big 7 Travel.

A French member of parliament has proposed that mockery of accents be outlawed, after an irate politician derided a journalist’s southwestern pronunciation before asking if anyone had a question in “understandable French”. Laetitia Avia of President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling party said she was proposing a bill that would classify such mockery with other forms of prohibited discrimination such as on grounds of sex or race.

Jodie Whittaker's home town of Huddersfield was renamed on an American talk show thanks to the 'valiant' efforts of a staffer in the captions department. The Doctor Who star, 36, who was making her first appearance on Late Show with Stephen Colbert while promoting the new series, was asked by the host where in Britain she is from. As she announced she was 'from Huddersfield in West Yorkshire', the subtitles popped up as 'Hoodezfield' - a gaffe that was quickly picked up by eagle-eyed viewers. A picture of the moment has gone viral on Twitter, with many joking about the...

VIDEO

When the sociolinguist Calvin Gidney saw The Lion King in theaters two decades ago, he was struck by the differences between Mufasa and Scar. The characters don’t have much in common: Mufasa is heroic and steadfast, while Scar is cynical and power-hungry. But what Gidney noticed most was how they each spoke: Mufasa has an American accent, while Scar, the lion of the dark side, roars in British English. In a climactic scene in which Scar accuses Simba of being the “murderer!” responsible for Mufasa’s death, the final “r” in his declaration floats up into a sky bursting with lightning,...

'People speak to machines differently than how they speak to people,' says language technology expert Alan Black. It was a simple enough question, at least in this part of the world. "How can we mosey on down to the rodeo?" my friend Ben Crook drawled, sat in a rocking chair on his front porch, a can of Lone Star beer in his left hand on a humid night in Houston. Only one thing jarred with this otherwise stereotypical Texas scene: Crook was asking Siri, the voice-activated digital personal assistant on his iPhone, rather than, say, a passing sheriff on horseback...

The other day, my son asked why there are such a variety of accents in the country. Why does a fellow from Mississippi have a twang that’s different from a fellow in Texas? Long ago, I asked my father a similar question. He pointed out that it isn’t just in America – a wide range of dialects and accents are common for French, Arabic, whatever. In recent days, some interesting pieces have appeared online. One in Slate has a list of the top slang terms from every state. Here’s what was included for the Mid-South: Arkansas: “tump” -- to tip...

I was born in Tennessee.And even though I’ve lived in New York City for the past decade, I still take my tea sweet, my chicken fried and my biscuits buttered. I’m proud to call myself a gun-toting, Bible-clinging Tennessee Volunteer.So you can imagine my befuddlement when I learned the Oak Ridge National Laboratory wanted to crack down on workers who have Southern accents by holding a “Southern Accent Reduction” course.In other words, them government folks want to learn us rednecks how to talk right. Bless their hearts.Read More…

What Kind of American Accent Do You Have?November 24, 2011 Xavier Kun To most Americans, an accent is something that only other people have, those other people usually being in New York, Boston, and the South. And of those other people, half of the ones you meet will swear they "don't have an accent." Well, strictly speaking, the only way to not have an accent is to not speak. If you're from anywhere in the USA you have an accent (which may or may not be the accent of the place you're from). Go through this short quiz and you'll...

The first thing theatergoers will notice about the revival of "A View of the Bridge," Arthur Miller's 1950s drama about a working-class Italian-American family in Red Hook, is that the characters are speaking a different language: Brooklynese. You got a problem with that!? You can hear the mellifluous — some might say grating — dialect being celebrated on Broadway by Scarlett Johansson and Liev Schreiber. But that may be the only place. Linguists say features of the classic accent are heard less and less in the city itself, especially among the younger generation. Mocked and stereotyped, the long o's and...

Top 10 worst Irish accents on film Julia Roberts and Sean Connery may have won Academy Awards, but that does not mean that they can pull off a believable Irish accent on screen. See who else made the list of worst movie attempts at an Irish accent, including two more Oscar winners. By Conn Corrigan , IrishCentral.com Staff Writer Published Monday, March 16, 2009, 7:14 PM Updated Monday, March 9, 2009, 10:00 PM Julia Roberts as Mary Reilly  The Irish accent, judging from some of Hollywood's attempts at it over the years, must surely be one of the most...

Some believe that the Southern drawl has expanded to the point where, arguably, more than half of all Americans now glide their diphthongs and hush their R's like modern-day Rhett Butlers. Some professionals who travel around even adopt different regional dialects as they go, knowing it's one of the best ways to get ahead. But other experts believe mass communications and urbanization are cutting away at the distinctiveness of the Southern voice, resulting in a more mono-pitch America.

The Southern Accent: We're Losing It By Rob Marus The Moose Is Loose Have you ever noticed that people in our generation seem to be losing their Southern accents? "Hold on," most of y'all are now thinking, "I haven't noticed any lack of Delta drawls or backwoods twangs here at Rhodes." But stop for a second and listen very closely to the inflections of your peers. Now compare their accents with, say, your father's (or, if you're from the North, your roommate's father's). See the difference? And his accent is even a little milder than your grandmother's, isn't it? She...

Many Brits make it in the US - not all keep their accents By Megan Lane BBC News Magazine A cut glass English accent can fool unsuspecting Americans into detecting a "brilliance that isn't there", says Stephen Fry. So is a British accent - of any variety - the route to success in the United States? "Gee, I just love your accent." Any Brit crossing the Atlantic will have heard that line many times. Like the rest of us, Americans are rarely immune to the charms of an accent different from their own. Go on, say "shagadelic"... There's the...

Cows also 'have regional accents' Cows moo with a regional twang Cow moo recordings(Click on site to hear) Cows have regional accents like humans, language specialists have suggested. They decided to examine the issue after dairy farmers noticed their cows had slightly different moos, depending on which herd they came from. John Wells, Professor of Phonetics at the University of London, said regional twangs had been seen before in birds. The farmers in Somerset who noticed the phenomenon said it may have been the result of the close bond between them and their animals. Farmer Lloyd Green, from Glastonbury, said:...

What is with the Brit accents popping up in the TV Ads and Shows? King Vanity is who watches the tv when we settle in for the evening while I am doing whatever and it has caught my attention with ads and shows all the Brit accents. Is there something in Pop Culture that I am not hip to? Is this a going Global Community melting pot thing? Anyone else notice?

'Strine' declines as Aussies lose twangBy Nick Squires in Sydney (Filed: 26/01/2005) Strewth, mate, it's enough to make a dinky di bloke choke on his pot of XXXX. The Aussie accent is losing its distinctive ''ocker'' twang. "Strine" is in decline as Australians soften the broad, stereotyped accent epitomised by the likes of the comedian Paul Hogan and Steve Irwin, a reptile-baiting television presenter known as the Crocodile Hunter. The nasal, flattened vowels familiar from the rants of Dame Edna Everage, the former prime minister, Bob Hawke, and from countless television commercials for Australian beer is making way for less...