Idk where to ask this, but you know how in early English films for the US and UK, the actors spoke in a weird accent so both audiences could understand without accent barriers
Has there been a Spanish equivalent?
I know that it’s supposed to be a mix of a British and American accent but why take the time to learn it and use it for radio shows, sports commentating, movies, music etc.
Who ever decided it was the proper way to speak in the U.S. to sound a little British but not really?
What's a good way to learn a transatlantic/midatlantic accent? I haven't been able to find anything on the interwebs yet but I'm sure I just haven't looked hard enough.
Like genuinely has grown up speaking it or something?
Edit: i screwed up, it was trans-atlantic
Kelsey Grammar found fame in the 1980's, so he doesn't count and neither does David Hyde Pierce for similar reasons. Is there anyone contemporary though?
If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH2DKZ-2m74
There seems to be this consensus that the Mid-Altantic accent wasn't a real American accent, but just an artificial posh accent that blended American and British accents used on stage. But that doesn't really sound right. That sounds like something that someone who doesn't understand linguistics would say to explain why people had weird accents in old movies. Languages do change over time. Maybe American English really did sound like that at the turn of the last century. It's not radically different from how Americans speak now, just enough to be noticeable. Like how you would expect a language to evolve naturally within 100 years.
Don't some modern American accents actually do sound a lot like the Mid-Atlantic accent? For example, Kelsey Grammer's accent has that vaguely British feel to it.
Edit: I'm pretty sure I remember a lot of non-actors speaking like that, e.g. FDR.
I've lived in the D.C. suburbs (MD) my whole life, and I've never heard anything of the sort. Actually, we have no "discern-able" accent whatsoever, because of the amount of "transplants" in the area.
Anyway, it should just be called a "trans-atlantic" accent as it is sometimes referred to, and the name "mid-atlantic" accent should die off becuase it's a total misnomer - real "Mid-Atlantic" citizens ("Mid-Atlantans", lol ???) have no real accent.
My understanding is that this accent was common at the time for upper-class folks from the Northeast of the United States. If it still exists, it's exceptionally rare.
Why did it disappear? HOW did it disappear? Have other regional accents gone away in recent years? Conversely, are some regional accents we think of as normal relatively new?
So, he went and bought a scuba air tank, and the rest is history.
It's that accent you hear a lot in those old, classic Hollywood movies.
Anyone agrees? Clear, concise approach to complicated topics, and finding a way to beatifully visualize everything. If you don't know the sort of the videos that I am talking about, just type "US Auto Industry" on the YouTube search bar.
Wondering if there are any female narrators who can do a passable (or even good!) mid-Atlantic accent. I usually narrate my own stories but I just can’t do that voice.
So we're bringing it back right?
This has been irritating me for decades and I've gotten pretty sick of it. Right now I'm watching Password Plus, on Buzzr, a game show from 1984. The contestants are mostly around 35 years old, and they simply sound different from how the average American talked in the mid 90s, when I was growing up, and ever since then.
Just listening to them, you can tell it's not the same. Personally, I think there was a time when diphthongs placed more emphasis and length a the first syllable. Also, the "a" as in cat vowel involved much wider opening of one's mouth. And that, in general, our vowels appear to be a lot more relaxed.
For example, the sentence "I said that I had nice biceps", sounds more like "I sid that I 'id nice baicips. While back then, it would be more like "AAe seehd that aah-e Hay-ad naaa-ees baahe- seehps.
Go back and watch sitcoms from the 70s. They're fucking filled with ordinary people who didn't start in snazzy razzle dazzle hollywood, but they all have the same oversized vowels. If you consider yourself a linguistics expert and this is just a bullshit theory, I dare you to watch random game show clips from 1975-2005 and tell me that there's nothing valid about about this hypothesis. There's a change that happens sometime in the late 80s.
Some people might look at this guess, and see it as something to do with a "de-britishization" of American English. Or that maybe, our general American voice has become more urban, or closer to that of certain immigrated communities, or perhaps more Californian, or something like that.
But all I'm asking is for somebody to actually do a study to get to the bottom of this. I know that linguistics is an incredibly brilliant field of study, but whenever somebody points out the way the "American sound" has metamorphosed, the response is some circlejerk about old timey announcers. But that's asinine and doesn't nearly match the potential that linguistic studies can do. I refuse to believe that people "sounding different" in early 80s game shows versus early 90s game shows is some sort of weird placebo. Somebody make their thesis on this, please.
Do you really think the case is closed on this topic, or that we've really failed to delve into how our vowels have shifted?
We live in California and my boy is not yet two years of age. I have been told my whole life that I have a unique accent. Some say I have a surfer speech pattern. Some say I sound like I grew up around cholos (which is partially true.) Whatever it is, I dislike it and I really don't want my boy to inherit it. What do I do??
Hi! Like the title says--looking for a male voice actor who can do that old-school Hollywood style mid-atlantic/trans-atlantic accent. Sort of like how these people are talking in Dial M For Murder Also, like every Cary Grant movie.
Sample line from script (altered to avoid spoilers): "We appreciate your interest in The Odessa. Formally established in 1652, the club boasts traditions that date back to Ancient Sparta. Our members include heads of industry, politicians, and other brave men who drive progress."
The final use is for an indie horror/thriller film. It will be played over a scene where the characters are being forced awake for long hours and made to listen to this pseudo-propaganda on repeat, describing the history of a very elite social club. Final audio will be designed to sound like it's coming out of an antique speaker.
- Looking to pay $30 for the final audio file.
- You will also get credit in the film's end credits/IMDb page.
- The whole recording is about 5-6 sentences in length. About 100-120 words.
Timeline: to be completed within two weeks.
To submit for consideration, please record the sample script line above and post it in a comment or PM! Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!
I don't know if "mid-Atlantic accent" is the correct term. I'm not talking about the Maryland/Philadelphia accent. I'm talking about the FDR accent.
I'm watching a doc on Netflix about the 1968 debates between William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal. You just never hear anyone with these types of accents anymore. But this wasn't that long ago, only 50 years. How can an accent disappear so quickly and so (seemingly) completely?
Don't want to talk about the debate in this thread, but I was kind of captivated by the way Williamson talks. She's got some long videos on her channel but long videos about god/spirituality are really not my cup of tea.
I can't really tell what region that accent is from, I've seen it called "mid-Atlantic" once but I'm not sure if that's accurate. Are there any ASMRists from that region as well?
