Posted on 06/04/2026 9:49:12 PM PDT by Cronos
You might think that early Americans sounded like Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren, and that the American accent developed after independence. It was probably the other way around. Up until the early 1800s, you couldn’t tell whether a person was British or American from their accents. When naval officers tried to free sailors who had been shanghaied into service in the War of 1812, they said they couldn’t tell for sure who was American or British by the way they spoke.
The hallmark of the British accent — pronouncing words like “path” and “fast” as “pahth” and “fahst” or “fah” for “far.” — developed only at the end of the 18th century. English in the United States and Canada sound so much alike because their language started as British English in the 1700s. Australian English sounds much like today’s British English because by the time British people were sent there after the 1820s, what we know as a British accent had emerged.
All of this allows some informed guesses on what the American language will be like in the future. Plenty of words are teetering into new meanings, the way “sensible,” which once meant “sensitive,” now means “having good sense.” Usages that were once derided as misimpressions become so common that we come to accept them and admit that the horse is out of the barn. For Americans in 2076, the first meaning of “aesthetic” that comes to mind may well be “attractive,” the way many young people use it today. Any sense that “nonplussed” means “perplexed” will be forgotten in favor of the common impression today that it means “unimpressed.” And the most intuitive meaning of “swipe” will relate to computer screens rather than stealing or a movement of the hand.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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Yeah, I despise that “I’m good” crapola too. And all the other examples you gave.
For me, the most annoying trend these days is every young person starting a sentence with the word “so”.
Iirc the western mountains of Maine and New Hampshire had the purest settler accents and words even 30 years ago.
The latest New International Version of Scripture turned the normal use of “he” to “he or she,” but even more egregiously, turned the individual use of “he/he or she” to corporate “they” - for no other reason than to be counted politically correct (while being unashamedly grammatically incorrect). The world is being dumbed down in so many ways; language is one facet of that.
We notice it, but can we stop it?
That would be Vermont. (;
And saying, “of course”, or, “no problem” instead of “you’re welcome” when responding to a “thank you”.
Or “like.”
Eventually all black people will talk like Idris Elba.
Why have the letter “R” if you’re not going to use it?
I have one or two of Krugman’s early journal articles on economics. While I am not an economist, I have done quite a bit of work on urban environments. Krugman’s work from back then is often cited in that field.
Fabulous, fellow Freeper!
Me too. Sentences are supposed to start with "Hey..." Unless I'm asking a favor, and then it's "Say..."
I remember that some of the movie stars of the mid-century, like Katharine Hepburn, had more british-sounding English than we do today. My presumption was that the upper classes in the eastern cities took longer to lose the British accents than the rest of us did.
Sometimes the British tendency to add the ‘fah’ sound makes listening almost impossible. There is a chick on the Formula One broadcasts that adds so much ‘..ah’ sound to her vocabulary as to make her vocalizations nearly unintelligible.
I’m glad we don’t sound like the nutless cowardly retarded Brits now. What they let happen to their country is disgraceful. I can’t even listen to a British accent on TV anymore.
Not finding any explication of the ebonic language spoken by the natives of Massachusetts.
Like, how are you handling it now? ;-D
“The latest New International Version of Scripture turned the normal use of “he” to “he or she,” but even more egregiously, turned the individual use of “he/he or she” to corporate “they”
Our pastor calls that the “Not Inspired Version”.
And don’t even get me started on how they say “zed” instead of Z. Glacier, aluminum, garage, advertisement, vitamin, controversy, and many others. Stop it!
You’d be correct.
Both my NH Grandmother and my Prom date of 1961 used “cahn” and “cahn’t”. Grammy also used “shahn’t”. (shall/should not).
Then there’s “twenny”. (20).
And “Bea’ulls”, British singers with funny haircuts from the 60s.
Don’t rely on Vermont’s Senator (I-VT) for a Vermont accent.
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