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The English Language In Translation

Pinkie_Flamingo

Pinkie_Flamingo

American & Annoyed
I am enamored of all things UK and Australian, and among the most charming is your speech.

I watch crime shows from anywhere, but some of yours I need subtitles for, not that that detracts from my pleasure.

Where is "Vera" meant to be situated? Would a police detective who called members of the public "pet" and "love" not give enormous, career-ending offense?

Why don't the characters on "Shetland" sound like my Scottish grandparents, who were almost impossible to understand even 50 years after they emigrated to the U.S.?

I could listen to the characters on "Scott & Bailey" for days. Is that a "Geordie" accent?

I could probably triple my earning potential, if I could learn to speak like Amelia Bullmore. Do UK people like American accents?

(I am guessing not. We probably sound flat and nasally to your ears.)

And, most mysteriously; why do you all sound American when you sing? Even "Happy birthday"! Or is that just a tv trope?
 
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Vera is set in Northumberland. Pet and Love are part of everyday language and not considered offensive!

Shetland islanders have a particular accent. Other parts of Scotland have different accents!

Scott and Bailey is set in Manchester!

Errr.... I don't think we sound american when we sing Happy Birthday! But I suppose pop songs are sung in American accents. They'd sound weird with British accents.
 
One of the most amazing things about Britain is the diversity of accents, for such a small place. The accents can change very quickly between such small distances.

Basically, what ElizabethofYork said. 'Pet' and 'Love' are just everyday speak for Northumberland. 'Pet' in particular' is very well known for that area but less common outside of the north east, but 'Love' you'll find everywhere, especially up north.
 
Pinkie_Flamingo said:
As well they could, sir. I apologize if I am wasting bandwidth here.
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Not at all, my friend - the differences between the American dialect of English, and those extant in the British Isles, is a fascinating and worthy subject. And those of us who are not curious about such things are both too insular, and missing out on life's experiences. When I travelled around your beautiful country as a young teenager, I was fascinated by the difference of your speech patterns and word choices. :)
 
Leo2 said:
Not at all, my friend - the differences between the American dialect of English, and those extant in the British Isles, is a fascinating and worthy subject. And those of us who are not curious about such things are both too insular, and missing out on life's experiences. When I travelled around your beautiful country as a young teenager, I was fascinated by the difference of your speech patterns and word choices. :)
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There are no crime shows that display the lovely maple-syrupy Southern drawl (which actually is a 1,001 similar accents) but if you have seen "Southern Magnolias" that comes close. I think their voices sound musical.

Having grown up in New York, I sound like I am gargeling with broken glass, LOL.
 
Pinkie_Flamingo said:
Do UK people like American accents?

(I am guessing not. We probably sound flat and nasally to your ears.)

And, most mysteriously; why do you all sound American when you sing? Even "Happy birthday"! Or is that just a tv trope?
Click to expand...

I too love accents and dialect. Life would be so boring if we all spoke the same way.

I think one reason Brits have difficulty with American accents might be because Hollywood tends to go with a generic, easy to comprehend accent most of the time. We lack familiarity with the range.

I think I can spot a southern accent, but definitely can't tell if it's Savannah or Nawlins. The accents in the Fargo film and TV series were an ear opener, as was the quirky phrasing. Over here it took years to get used to the idea that Lloyd Grossman's patrician Bostonian wasn't a speech impediment.

If you're unsure about pet and love, you should perhaps stay away from Bristol in case some random stranger addresses you as "my lover." :eek: Or perhaps not.
 
Pinkie_Flamingo said:
Do UK people like American accents?

(I am guessing not. We probably sound flat and nasally to your ears.)
Click to expand...

That very much depends on the accent. For me, the Southern drawl, particularly on a lady, can be very attractive. Not living there, I can't distinguish the many sub-varieties of the accent, but it's a general thumbs-up from me.
 
The US has much less variation in accents than the UK, which makes sense when you think that the English-speaking population there is still very young and would originally have been made up of people from all over the place, so instead of a common starting point from which accents could diverge, it would have been a variety of disparate influences arriving at a sort of compromise. This may be why US accents can grate on other folks, as the sound of it is more artificial, less organically evolved than other dialects.

Australian English, an even younger dialect, is more grating still than American English so that supports my theory. Maybe.
 
Pinkie_Flamingo said:
Do UK people like American accents?
Click to expand...

Obviously you hear a lot of them on TV, and they don't usually bother me in that situation. But then the people on TV are obviously not a representative sample of the population. When you encounter Americans in real life the accent can sting the ears sometimes, although that could have more to do with volume than anything else. You lads have more space than us, and so you're able to stand further apart. It's only natural you should have learned to speak louder as a result :hmm:
 
SpookyFrank said:
Obviously you hear a lot of them on TV, and they don't usually bother me in that situation. But then the people on TV are obviously not a representative sample of the population. When you encounter Americans in real life the accent can sting the ears sometimes, although that could have more to do with volume than anything else. You lads have more space than us, and so you're able to stand further apart. It's only natural you should have learned to speak louder as a result :hmm:
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speak for yourself!
 
DotCommunist said:
nah, bust theory. The english spoken in america has a very wide range of influences itself. Cajun is an interesting one
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Yes there are lots of influences and some are still clearly detectable as with Cajun and the Scandinavian-inflected lilts of the far north, but there is ultimately less tonal variation in US english accents than in British accents. People have done studies. Which I will try and find in a minute.

In the meantime, here's an article about the Australian dialect as a slapdash compromise between the accents of various groups of settlers, lubriacted by alcohol:

G'day mate: 'Lazy' Australian accent caused by 'alcoholic slur' of heavy-drinking early settlers
 
This page: https://www.quora.com/How-many-accents-are-there-in-the-British-Isles-and-North-America

...claims that there 56 accents of English in the British Isles to only 42 in the US. But it also lumps all Westcountry accents besides Bristol into one group, which is just plain wrong. And if there's one single 'East Midlands' accent I've never heard it. If someone from Derby comes here to Nottingham you can easily tell, and not just from the shit on their shoes.
 
SpookyFrank said:
And if there's one single 'East Midlands' accent I've never heard it. If someone from Derby comes here to Nottingham you can easily tell, and not just from the shit on their shoes.
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I've lived in both places and can't tell the difference, but I'm sure it does exist because I've been told so by many natives, and I was just a Southern immigrant.
 
What they taught us at drama school is that with few exceptions, US accents have very little "tune". British accents use a constantly changing range of pitches and inflections to communicate non-verbal meaning (emphasis, attitude, subtext). Outside of the southern and south eastern states, there's much less tune. Emphasis is done with a combination of pace, pause and volume.
 
SpookyFrank said:
Obviously you hear a lot of them on TV, and they don't usually bother me in that situation. But then the people on TV are obviously not a representative sample of the population. When you encounter Americans in real life the accent can sting the ears sometimes, although that could have more to do with volume than anything else. You lads have more space than us, and so you're able to stand further apart. It's only natural you should have learned to speak louder as a result :hmm:
Click to expand...
TV’s tend to have a volume control. :p
 
Pinkie_Flamingo said:
Why don't the characters on "Shetland" sound like my Scottish grandparents, who were almost impossible to understand even 50 years after they emigrated to the U.S.?
Click to expand...
I'd guess that your grandparents weren't from Shetland if they didn't sound like they were from Shetland. I'm not sure what the puzzle is there.

Scotland, like most countries, has a range of regional accents. Just as my friend from Boston doesn't sound like Louis Armstrong, so my friend from Aberdeen doesn't sound like Billy Connolly.

Where were your grandparents from?
 
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