Did Americans in 1776 have British accents? (Suprising answer)

Nick Patrick blog via Fark.com ^ | 10/09/2010 | Nick Patrick

[JimRed]

And we have the recordings to prove it???

;^)

[Vaquero]

So Bawney Fronk would've been Barney Frank had he been born in Iowa

I thought it was Bawney Fwank??? .....in either case, Barney Frank would have been a bone smuggling, turd burgling Marxist no mater where he was born

[bboop]

Don’t forget, tho — usually the ‘colonies’ have kept some of the old word/ old wayss. It’s true in Spanish, anyway.

[Sioux-san]

Arrrhh, Matie!

[Ransomed]

Don’t forget “earl” as in “I’m going to change my car’s earl”.

Frrrrreegarrrrrds

[achilles2000]

If something like that happens, it will be a mark of a lower class person, much like “Ebonics” today. I don’t see any movement toward “Spanglish” in the SW. Those who speak it are recent immigrants.

[EternalVigilance]

Interesting.

[JimRed]

...the American accent.

Which one? If you put a Maine lobsterman in the same room with an Alabama sharecropper you'd have difficulty believing they are speaking the same language.

[SoftwareEngineer]

...and they had much better, whiter and straighter teeth than our cousins across the pond!

The Original GW made a deal with God. He said “I will wear wooden teeth if the rest of America can have great teeth”

So, today as a nation, we have the best smiles.....EVER!

True, there are random hot chicks worldwide that have hot smiles.... but as a rule.. Americans rock!!!!

:)

(and we have better haircuts too than our cousins!)

[cripplecreek]

Which one?

That question came to mind when I made my comment but I think various American accents are converging to some extent. The southern accent seems to be merging with the midwestern accent in my area.

[muawiyah]

Or Orl, as in Orl Well!

[FrankR]

Let me try to help...it's called a TYPO...a simple, common TYPO, made by millions of typists and bloggers everyday.

ONE THEORY: The "a" key is right next to the "s" key on the typical QWERTY keyboard and it is very easy to strike the wrong key.

Another factor could be interruptions of the typist, like screaming kids, or the boss walking up behind them, maybe the person has some handicap, like missing fingers; or a malady like arthritis...there are simply lots and lots of reasons for typing errors. Sometimes it's even just a simple mistake.

People type seated in recliners, lying in bed, and even in McDonalds. The "prone" position for proper typing that I learned in 1962 in Mrs. Johnson's typing class using a manual Underwood typwriter no longer applies in this modern world of computers; we don't even use carbon paper anymore. My typing course lasted the entire school year, these days most students get maybe one quarter of typing instruction, if that.

Luckily, most intelligent readers on blogs and discussion boards can pretty much figure out what the typist was trying to say, or type, and look for the content of the message, and not the typing errors.

Others just look for typing and grammatical errors when they have nothing more relvant to contribute to the discussion or thread, but just want their name to appear somewhere on the page. These same people would probably never be so rude as to correct one's grammer or pronunciation if they were in an actual, live, conversation with another person or persons.

The good news is, the world will not stop turning and this board will continue to thrive even with the devastating misspelling of "ancestor".

My computer understood it just fine.

[darkwing104]

(Rhotic speakers pronounce the ‘R’ sound in the word “hard.” Non-rhotic speakers do not.)

As my lovely Southern Belle wife would remind me..."Y'all talk like a Yankee..

[muawiyah]

The settlers were not "separated" ~ the Brits continued to ship people into American EVEN while the Revolution was taking place!

Many Americans were proud to hear their children speaking perfect (for the time) English. For instance the earliest settlers of New Sweden didn't even speak Swedish ~ except for the 5 officers.

Their kids went straight from Sa'ami to English in three generations. That's probably why the "r" coloring is strongest today ~ right where the Sa'ami settled as they moved inland from the coast and its hurricanes.

[ThomasThomas]

You can’t use Disney films. My Fair Lady was much better.

The rine in spine sties minely in the pline.

Rex Harrison plays a professor of phonetics Henry Higgins in the movie. We can always relay on actors that play roles for expert advice. Especially when they play the role of a expert.

[dr_who]

This is all a bit oversimplified. Visit different parts of the UK, and you’ll find that pronunciation and accent vary by region and always have. Not everyone who immigrated the US or Canada came from the west end of London. It’s probably quite rare to find any 3rd generation or greater American who doesn’t have an Irish, Scottish, German ...or Scottish by way of Ireland, or French, or (name a nationality)... ancestor. The “standard” American accent is supposedly a Midwestern accent, but it’s “standard” in name only. Your accent has everything to do with where in the US you came from, who your parents were, and how much TV you watch.

[Vendome]

and there is fanger and wuhtuhr.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

I have often thought, and I do still believe, we got into our American accents by being taught to read phonetically…the one room schoolhouse as one advanced westward, etc. Hence, we became Rhotic speakers.

I think I will stick with that belief.

But an interesting article never the less. Thank you.

[dr_who]

What many Americans think of as “the British accent” is the standardized Received Pronunciation, also known as “BBC English.”

...which I doubt is "enforced" in any way. Listen to any streaming BBC service and marvel at the way different announcers talk.

[JohnG45]

A side note.

With the dramatic advancement of technology over the past two decades, regional centers have sprung up to handle calls from consumers with respect to different issues involving different products.

When I have need to call a service center for a particular product, I have enjoyed hearing the varied accents from different regions of our country. On many an occasion, I have complimented the individual on the beauty of their accent only to hear a polite, “thank you” in response.

Not once have I heard, “I don’t have an accent, you do”.