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You are right, they do go overboard, and I find it as annoying as you seem to do.
Absolutely. Even worse, they make it difficult in the real world for people with a Southern accent. My profession places me before large groups of people. Though my accent isn't particularly strong, people often try to make something of it, or prejudge me. One of my favorite ways of setting the record straight is to say, "Contrary to popular belief, people from the South are not all characters from The Dukes of Hazzard!"
It gets a laugh every time, along with a few sheepish looks.
Absolutely. Even worse, they make it difficult in the real world for people with a Southern accent. My profession places me before large groups of people. Though my accent isn't particularly strong, people often try to make something of it, or prejudge me. One of my favorite ways of setting the record straight is to say, "Contrary to popular belief, people from the South are not all characters from The Dukes of Hazzard!"
It gets a laugh every time, along with a few sheepish looks.
-- Nighteyes
Authentic Southern accents are often delightful. Kentucky born Harry Dean Stanton, and Arkansas born Billy Bob Thornton, probably both owe their careers to having the type of low key Southern accent which makes them come across as instantly sincere and likable. It means that you can lie with your audience finding you charming.
...the type of low key Southern accent which makes them come across as instantly sincere and likable. It means that you can lie with your audience finding you charming.
Hey, now...
My low-key accent also helps me to pull off what I call "The Columbo Approach". Hearing my accent, people often make the mistake of underestimating me. Bad idea...
When you watch film clips from the 50's and 60's, Americans spoke with a disctinct style and accent. Walter Cronkite, Cary Grant, and Jackie Kennedy spoke this way. Actually, this style of speech probably goes further back than the 50's. Where does this accent come from and why don't we hear it anymore today?
W@ell it was a time when the local accent including children were less influence by hearing voice o the televison set for one thing. Then often the chanracters on radio were always steroeotyped mostly depending on the setting.
Those tv clips and movies you see on tv from the 50s and 60s don't represent the way ordinary people talked. I think in those days anyone who was going to announce on the radio or tv or be an actor took speech lessons.
I can remember even in the 50s' that it sounded strange to us. Definitely I remember the word "new" being pronounced "nyew" on radio and tv and we may have even been told to say it that way in school.
The announcers and actors sound very formal and stilted to me today--back in the day they sounded very formal and stilted too, but we expected them to speak that way because they were speaking in public and they were trained. Ordinary people never talked that way!
I do not know how well the accents of film actors accurately represent the entire culture. These folks are performing, not conversing, and the manner in which they spoke represented the trademarks of many of them. Edward G. Robinson had his New York snarl, Broderick Crawford's came out as a bark, Spencer Tracy a middle America slow certitude, Jimmy Stewart had the Great Plains corn fed drawl, Bette Davis the disapproving Eastern aristocrat tone, Gary Cooper sounded like he was reading from a teleprompter which kept sticking on him, Errol Flynn was rapid and clipped....did these folks talk like that at home?
Flynn was Australian but self-identified as Irish as his dad was Irish (granted a HUGE percentage of people born Down Under in the early 20th century would've had an Irish parent ; otoh his mother was descended from the First Fleet convicts). As an educated Aussie (his father was one of the most reknowned marine biologists in the world) he probably was taught to speak in a more neutral accent at least in public rather than the typical Strine accent.As for how he spoke at home, don't know. He died in '59 before I was born.
However - one distinctly '60s accent was the '60s "hot chick" accent, as demonstrated by Sharon Tate:
American actresses don't seem to speak in that semi-British "hot chick" accent anymore, in the '80s the "valley girl" accent seemed to replace that accent.
American actresses don't seem to speak in that semi-British "hot chick" accent anymore, in the '80s the "valley girl" accent seemed to replace that accent.
Good catch. In the video we also got to hear Roman Polanski demonstrating another common accent from the '60's.....stoned.
And Flynn's Australian origins make for further reason to distrust films as reflective of common speech. He certainly didn't sound Australian, in fact, I always thought that no matter what he was saying, he sounded like a football coach addressing his team at halftime when they were down by three touchdowns to Big Bad High.
When you watch film clips from the 50's and 60's, Americans spoke with a disctinct style and accent. Walter Cronkite, Cary Grant, and Jackie Kennedy spoke this way. Actually, this style of speech probably goes further back than the 50's. Where does this accent come from and why don't we hear it anymore today?
I know what you mean. The accent gradually changed but even in the 70's it was still a bit differernt than Today. I remember growing up when young people begin to speak with a more "pronounced" accent after the early 80's a la "valley girl" style etc. If you look at film featuring young people from the seventies you can see their accent is noticably different from most young people today.
You're wrong. I'm fluent in Spanish. It IS pronounced with a hard "g".
Like this: Los AHNG-uh-laze. And make sure the "o" in "Los" is long, as in rope.
Wrong the G is pronounced like an H sound "Los Anheless"
"Los Anguleez" comes from people ignorantly applying English vowel sounds to Spanish..pronouncing the Spanish E as "EE" when it should be "Eh". The current pronounciation is closer to Spanish pronounciation.
Wrong the G is pronounced like an H sound "Los Anheless"
"Los Anguleez" comes from people ignorantly applying English vowel sounds to Spanish..pronouncing the Spanish E as "EE" when it should be "Eh". The current pronounciation is closer to Spanish pronounciation.
You are fighting a losing battle, my friend, much as did your namesake.
First, the Spanish term Angel is pronounced with a hard G, not as an H. Second, and speaking as one who actually lives and does business in the Los Angeles area (which I often intentionally misspell as "Lost Angeles"), the two most common pronunciations are "Los AN-juleez" (soft G) and "Los ANG-uleez" (hard G).
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