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I’ve often wondered why the British accent sounds so refined. Maybe it’s because Brits talk from the front of their mouths and use the tip of the tongue?
I’ve noticed that when people speak from the back of the throat, it sounds harder and tougher.
https://youtu.be/XI5xFW5mRR4?t=1m28s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDdRHWHzwR4
But this sounds refined?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNSedcIKXWI
I think you may be reacting to the increasingly rare experience of hearing someone talking calmly in moderated tones and complete sentences.
Speaking of "British accents," does anyone know of an online source of someone singing "On Ilkla Moor" in a proper Yorkshire accent, cadence, and spirit? Damned if I can find one.
Bill Oddie doing it like Joe Cocker? Check.
Brian Blessed rapping it? Check, and he should have been murdered with a poisoned fig as a result.
A thousand people honking or screeching it--mhm. But not one good solid straight up version I can find of this dandy old marriage of Methodist hymn, Viking sartorial practicality, Anglo-Saxon sexual caution, and Indo-European/Buddhist samsara.
Another similar question, at least for me, is why do Australian accents sound good coming out of a man's mouth and bad coming out of a woman's? And why do Southern accents generally sound good coming out of a woman's mouth and bad coming out of a man's? The old BBC accent you are talking about sounds about equally good coming out of a man's or a woman's mouth to me.Replies: @Rob, @Sean, @Ivy
Other than the apeing of the Etonian Royal family form of speech, I think it’s less the accent than the use of whole grammatically correct sentences.
I am British and upper class Donald just doesn’t come off. He sounds like the talking baby from Family Guy. In the third clip, where he has a working class accent, it sounds really convincing.
As to his halting, simplified, repetitive delivery, it's simply the way businessmen talk to close a deal outside of Sillicon Valley.
Trump might not be a great orator but he's a great communicator, no doubt about it.
I'd like for somebody to do a spoof with a Scots accent, both Glaswegian (gasp!) and Edinburgh . Though I think the perfect fit for Trump’s personality would be a Geordie accent ( Newcastle).
Thanks, Steve, after a long day traveling through America’s airports (Washington Dulles, Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, and San Francisco), that was just the good larf I needed.
“We’re going to load it up with bad dudes.”
OT, but:
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/opinion/to-stop-trump-democrats-can-learn-from-the-tea-party.html
Thoughts on countermeasures? Nag your own representatives on immigration? Seems to me if they get 100 calls a day on tax cuts, global warming, Medicare, and Obamacare from liberals, and 500 on immigration from conservatives, they’ll realize immigration’s the one issue they can’t go back on.
Besides I don’t want tax cuts for the rich anyway. GOP gonna GOP. Make sure they don’t backslide on the one issue that’s important. 😉
Speaking of cartoon gorillas (or chimps in this case):
[go to the 14:40 mark]
There is just something about British accents and cartoon chimps/gorillas that equals sure fire chuckles.
I was always convinced Sponge-Bob would make an fine candidate for Congress....
A sponge would be perfect...
We do seem to prefer 'em brainless & spineless...
I've noticed that when people speak from the back of the throat, it sounds harder and tougher.Replies: @SFG, @Lot, @Olorin, @NickG, @Bill
A lot of it’s cultural; the upper classes tried for a long time to copy the Brits and were more often British in ancestry, whereas the lower classes were from all over Europe.
Is Ivanka Trump expected to be First Lady of the new KKKamelot?
You mean Stewey, right? I thought he was British this whole time. That’s the way you people talk, I’m pretty sure.
I like both the upper-class, educated, cultured British accent and the older-style British working class accent.
What I really can’t stand — and I’m not sure I know how to describe it correctly — is the much more recent, urban hipster British accent. It’s rather ubiquitous today among media and celebrity types and British white trash. It’s very grating and obnoxious, sort of the way that Brooklyn and Long Island accents are very grating to American Midwesterners and Southerners.
In my memory it happened about the same time the BBC decided that, to make the elitists who staff it look more like normal people, everybody had to say "beth" instead of "bath".
I think the worst accents tend to be those of the British hard left, esp young feminists like the vile Laurie Penny...has a screechy condescension & an abrasive pacing (and she encapsulates the suicidal brand of Blairism which seeks to destroy the UK as revenge for the 79-97 Tory years & their ethnic grievances).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EglaCh7h1gReplies: @Desiderius, @Lot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzFzdcc5GQQ#t=3m55sReplies: @22pp22, @Dr. X
With sassy Trump and Milo the Rs could make a late comeback in World War G.
Milo is not about getting gay votes, but selling Breitbart conservatism to college students by making the campus SJWs look like uncool censoring PC scolds. He is their cool gay friend that shows they are not prejudiced.
That’s called Received Pronunciation.
There are many different regional accents. You can get a nice variety on Downton Abbey.
This is non cockneys partially adopting the cockney accent because they do not want to sound stuck up.
Amazing news going on the past few days…
Check out the machine gunner from Reina nightclub attack:
Excellent photo heavy articles at daily mail as usual.
Let’s all practice, one, two, free, one, two, free…
I think what you’re describing is sometimes called Estuary English (after the Thames estuary)- and yes, it’s dreadful.
I've noticed that when people speak from the back of the throat, it sounds harder and tougher.Replies: @SFG, @Lot, @Olorin, @NickG, @Bill
If you want to hear an awful working class English accent from the 1950’s:
One wonders how far Squidward went in blazing that trail.
It’s really, really horrible. It’s like the old RP but without the beauty and masculinity. And for some reason it makes the men who use it talk at a pitch usually reserved for Japanese schoolgirls.
In my memory it happened about the same time the BBC decided that, to make the elitists who staff it look more like normal people, everybody had to say “beth” instead of “bath”.
Brits take speech more seriously than Americans do. Grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, enunciation, intonation, modulation, etc. And yes, it’s largely a perception thing, too; act refined, and your speech will be associated with refinement.
Jeremy Irons sounds like an American doing a tony British accent. Doesn’t he have an Oscar, or something?
Brits have so many accents because their population density is higher, and they built up their country long before social mobility became a thing, and long before rapid transit, so their accents had a long time to build up in place, without everyone moving away. They have more distinct accents there than we have in the whole of America.
My maternal grandparents sounded a lot like these folks:
https://youtu.be/03iwAY4KlIU?t=2m19s
Then there's a particular Virginia sub-regional variation that you can hear in NASCAR driver Ward Burton:
https://youtu.be/-5UIBa0j-u4?t=1m4s
My paternal grandmother was from Western Pennsylvania (Johnstown) and she had a particular accent that I don't really hear much anymore, but instead of "y'all" like my maternal side, she would say "you'ins" or "y'ins".
I live in the mid-Atlantic and the Baltimoreans have their own speech characteristics:
https://youtu.be/rlovVH2L8us?t=38s
Jolly good. Blimey. Absolutely Fabulous.
There is a nugget of truth in both vids 1 & 3 (tho I laughed so hard at vid 2, my head started to hurt..)
Trump should have a crack a mirroring Farage’s speaking style at least for cadence, and less repetition. Boris Johnson & Peter Hitchens are also decent on the stump, worth a listen.
Trump’s strength is that he comes off as authentic, and removes all the mealy mouthed PC prefacing so common in GOPe types.
The weakness Trump likely has is that he didn’t do stuff like debate club in high school, or toastmasters after college. Since he has power & status, a lot of his audiences probably deferred to him (starting decades ago), giving him a pass on speeches which are scattershot & meandering. Most of his debate time was hard to watch, better seen w/ close caption, volume off. His set piece speeches were better, maybe C+/B- for delivery.
Somebody please tell Stephen Miller to get Trump reading more, and working on his diction. It will work wonders for the SOTU speeches, and the 2020 campaign. It will help if he simply surrounds himself with folks who are articulate, forceful, and not caught up in PC pablum speak.
Funnily, I think #2 is, as well as being hilarious, the biggest improvement!* Most likely because it makes it a lot easier to tell his humorous or sarcastic asides apart from his serious pitch.
*Just in the narrow sense of sounding like he has a well-rounded understanding of what he's talking about; obviously if DJT had a voice like that in real life he wouldn't be elected POTUS.
Remember 2008, when everyone went ga-ga over Obama's alleged eloquence? "My God, that man can speak!"
Yeah, Obama could speak, or so it seemed. I've never had much use for empty platitudes, and I sure as hell wasn't taken in by his bullshit, but I did recognize that many folks were genuinely impressed by his above-average TelePrompTer-reading ability. But he never had anything to say, other than "Yes, we can!"
("Yes, we can" ... what? Drive up the crime rate in Chicago?)
I cut through the crap until I get to the bottom line. The bottom line is that unlimited immigration is a big issue for me. It's bad for me and my kind. Hillary was for it; Trump was against it. I supported Trump because he was able to convince me that he did, honestly, intend to do something about it. I was convinced not only of his veracity, but of his competence. Hopefully I wasn't fooled.
(Now, his position on immigration is not the only reason I voted for him, but it was one of the main ones. Rest assured that, even if I hadn't voted for Trump, I never would have voted for Hillary.)
Trump's articulateness or supposed lack thereof does not matter to me. I don't need to look up to my president as some kind of spiritual guru or intellectual leader. (Bill Clinton's preacher-in-chief routine never did anything for me.) I don't need to like my president, or even to respect him. I ask nothing from him other than that he make decisions that benefit me and my kind.
A president is nothing more than a glorified administrator. His success or failure is wholly dependent upon his ability to implement the policies that I (and all those who voted for him) want him to implement.
Certainly, an articulate man will be far more successful at inducing others to follow his lead than a non-articulate one. But if I already agree with the man, and believe that he is telling the truth about his motives and intentions, then I don't care how he sells his policies to the parties that must be convinced; all I care is that he does sell them, successfully.
For the record, I do like and respect Trump. But my feelings about him are immaterial. I'm interested only in results.
Even if I had loathed him personally, I would have supported him if I'd believed that he was more likely than another candidate to achieve the results that I desired.
I have American friends who express the thought that the less talking a President does, the better.Replies: @Percy Gryce
(2) Steve has been arguing for a while now that part of Trump's immunity to the Megaphone is his lack of verbal facility and his likely nonparticipation in activities like scholastic debate.
David Cameron is a good example of a bland accent w/ a splash of smarm. Not clear how ever rose to prominence, other than looking to be of good breeding, and being inoffensive.
I think the worst accents tend to be those of the British hard left, esp young feminists like the vile Laurie Penny…has a screechy condescension & an abrasive pacing (and she encapsulates the suicidal brand of Blairism which seeks to destroy the UK as revenge for the 79-97 Tory years & their ethnic grievances).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj9dA6E3fJwReplies: @CrunchybutRealistCon
I assume most of you guys have seen this…but in case you haven’t:
There is a nugget of truth in both vids 1 & 3 (tho I laughed so hard at vid 2, my head started to hurt..)
Trump should have a crack a mirroring Farage's speaking style at least for cadence, and less repetition. Boris Johnson & Peter Hitchens are also decent on the stump, worth a listen.
Trump's strength is that he comes off as authentic, and removes all the mealy mouthed PC prefacing so common in GOPe types.
The weakness Trump likely has is that he didn't do stuff like debate club in high school, or toastmasters after college. Since he has power & status, a lot of his audiences probably deferred to him (starting decades ago), giving him a pass on speeches which are scattershot & meandering. Most of his debate time was hard to watch, better seen w/ close caption, volume off. His set piece speeches were better, maybe C+/B- for delivery.
Somebody please tell Stephen Miller to get Trump reading more, and working on his diction. It will work wonders for the SOTU speeches, and the 2020 campaign. It will help if he simply surrounds himself with folks who are articulate, forceful, and not caught up in PC pablum speak.Replies: @snorlax, @Stan Adams, @Karl, @Percy Gryce
I think all three videos make his arguments seem much more cogent to my ear.
Funnily, I think #2 is, as well as being hilarious, the biggest improvement!* Most likely because it makes it a lot easier to tell his humorous or sarcastic asides apart from his serious pitch.
*Just in the narrow sense of sounding like he has a well-rounded understanding of what he’s talking about; obviously if DJT had a voice like that in real life he wouldn’t be elected POTUS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF1hV8ECJgU
[go to the 14:40 mark]
There is just something about British accents and cartoon chimps/gorillas that equals sure fire chuckles.Replies: @Thin-Skinned Masta-Beta
Thanks for sharing that bit of fun.
I was always convinced Sponge-Bob would make an fine candidate for Congress….
A sponge would be perfect…
We do seem to prefer ’em brainless & spineless…
Brits are also more into hierarchy. So they probably don’t tear people down for posh speech patterns, to the extent we would in America, if anyone tried them.
I’ve seen Brits charmed by Kentucky accents.
And, funnily enough, the Kentucky accent was about as close to studied intonation, etc., as I’ve heard Americans get.
Trump might do with more studied repetition, but repetition per se is good rhetoric. It offends smart people, but they’re a small minority. It works well on the rest of the population.
I think the worst accents tend to be those of the British hard left, esp young feminists like the vile Laurie Penny...has a screechy condescension & an abrasive pacing (and she encapsulates the suicidal brand of Blairism which seeks to destroy the UK as revenge for the 79-97 Tory years & their ethnic grievances).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EglaCh7h1gReplies: @Desiderius, @Lot
The ultimate Laurie Penny video:
Serafinowicz’s Trump is a big believer in getting rough on trade..
ISWYDT
I take it that this girl’s accent is somewhat déclassé:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzFzdcc5GQQ#t=3m55s
There is a nugget of truth in both vids 1 & 3 (tho I laughed so hard at vid 2, my head started to hurt..)
Trump should have a crack a mirroring Farage's speaking style at least for cadence, and less repetition. Boris Johnson & Peter Hitchens are also decent on the stump, worth a listen.
Trump's strength is that he comes off as authentic, and removes all the mealy mouthed PC prefacing so common in GOPe types.
The weakness Trump likely has is that he didn't do stuff like debate club in high school, or toastmasters after college. Since he has power & status, a lot of his audiences probably deferred to him (starting decades ago), giving him a pass on speeches which are scattershot & meandering. Most of his debate time was hard to watch, better seen w/ close caption, volume off. His set piece speeches were better, maybe C+/B- for delivery.
Somebody please tell Stephen Miller to get Trump reading more, and working on his diction. It will work wonders for the SOTU speeches, and the 2020 campaign. It will help if he simply surrounds himself with folks who are articulate, forceful, and not caught up in PC pablum speak.Replies: @snorlax, @Stan Adams, @Karl, @Percy Gryce
I’ll take an off-the-cuff truth-teller over an articulate lie-spewer any day of the week.
Remember 2008, when everyone went ga-ga over Obama’s alleged eloquence? “My God, that man can speak!”
Yeah, Obama could speak, or so it seemed. I’ve never had much use for empty platitudes, and I sure as hell wasn’t taken in by his bullshit, but I did recognize that many folks were genuinely impressed by his above-average TelePrompTer-reading ability. But he never had anything to say, other than “Yes, we can!”
(“Yes, we can” … what? Drive up the crime rate in Chicago?)
I cut through the crap until I get to the bottom line. The bottom line is that unlimited immigration is a big issue for me. It’s bad for me and my kind. Hillary was for it; Trump was against it. I supported Trump because he was able to convince me that he did, honestly, intend to do something about it. I was convinced not only of his veracity, but of his competence. Hopefully I wasn’t fooled.
(Now, his position on immigration is not the only reason I voted for him, but it was one of the main ones. Rest assured that, even if I hadn’t voted for Trump, I never would have voted for Hillary.)
Trump’s articulateness or supposed lack thereof does not matter to me. I don’t need to look up to my president as some kind of spiritual guru or intellectual leader. (Bill Clinton’s preacher-in-chief routine never did anything for me.) I don’t need to like my president, or even to respect him. I ask nothing from him other than that he make decisions that benefit me and my kind.
A president is nothing more than a glorified administrator. His success or failure is wholly dependent upon his ability to implement the policies that I (and all those who voted for him) want him to implement.
Certainly, an articulate man will be far more successful at inducing others to follow his lead than a non-articulate one. But if I already agree with the man, and believe that he is telling the truth about his motives and intentions, then I don’t care how he sells his policies to the parties that must be convinced; all I care is that he does sell them, successfully.
For the record, I do like and respect Trump. But my feelings about him are immaterial. I’m interested only in results.
Even if I had loathed him personally, I would have supported him if I’d believed that he was more likely than another candidate to achieve the results that I desired.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj9dA6E3fJwReplies: @CrunchybutRealistCon
Yeah, what a vile creature. A dirty, gum encrusted penny if ever there was. There are analogs of her in every English speaking country & in every university faculty…
A socio-linguist’s take on accent prejudice in US:
http://www.pbs.org/speak/speech/prejudice/attitudes/
For the younger unzers who may not be aware: there was a great comedy theater/movie in the 60’s
on England’s accent prejudices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Fair_Lady . You can watch it
This is brilliant.
Have Trump sound Mexican, Hindu, Arab, ghetto, and etc for different audiences.
Check out the neocon reboot for New Cold War here:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/putins-real-long-game-214589
The lady who wrote this article is a good writer with command of complex ideas. Too bad her core beliefs are so crazy. It’s the same old neocon warmongering nonsense.
Notice how it’s leftwing politico that is publishing this crap. These ideas won’t fly in on the right anymore with Trump as leader. So they migrate over to a new host and find a warm reception. Politico, Slate, Salon etc have found real common ground with Dick Cheney!
Americans doing a British accent is usually excruciating. Sorry to disappoint you, but Stewey’s accent isn’t typical. The working class accent is South London.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Princess_and_the_PeaReplies: @22pp22
I was trying to be funny (not humourous, but funny). I am not disappointed, but yeah, I did think the 2nd British one was supposed to be "Cockney" - is it anywhere close to that? For instance, I recall the Beatles talking like that - especially when you run the records backwards -
"Paul is bloody dead, gov'na!"
Anyway, I'm in agreement with lots of other Americans, that the accent of the 1st video makes anyone seem much more educated to us. Steve and others can come up with reasons why, but I just enjoy the videos. Is there gonna be a Hitler one soon?Replies: @22pp22
> Americans doing a British accent is usually excruciating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Princess_and_the_Pea
I think the worst accents tend to be those of the British hard left, esp young feminists like the vile Laurie Penny...has a screechy condescension & an abrasive pacing (and she encapsulates the suicidal brand of Blairism which seeks to destroy the UK as revenge for the 79-97 Tory years & their ethnic grievances).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EglaCh7h1gReplies: @Desiderius, @Lot
That is the worst up talking I’ve heard with an English accent.
I've noticed that when people speak from the back of the throat, it sounds harder and tougher.Replies: @SFG, @Lot, @Olorin, @NickG, @Bill
Not that there’s a “the British accent” any more than there’s a “Spanish” to teach in schools.
But this sounds refined?
I think you may be reacting to the increasingly rare experience of hearing someone talking calmly in moderated tones and complete sentences.
Speaking of “British accents,” does anyone know of an online source of someone singing “On Ilkla Moor” in a proper Yorkshire accent, cadence, and spirit? Damned if I can find one.
Bill Oddie doing it like Joe Cocker? Check.
Brian Blessed rapping it? Check, and he should have been murdered with a poisoned fig as a result.
A thousand people honking or screeching it–mhm. But not one good solid straight up version I can find of this dandy old marriage of Methodist hymn, Viking sartorial practicality, Anglo-Saxon sexual caution, and Indo-European/Buddhist samsara.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Princess_and_the_PeaReplies: @22pp22
I get the joke and it’s quite funny, but you should ask a Brit to speak American and you’ll see what I mean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzFzdcc5GQQ#t=3m55sReplies: @22pp22, @Dr. X
That a Northern skank. Estuarine is spoken in the South
I agree. And it makes sense as Trump sounds working class in his native NY Queens accent. Believe it or not, he owes a great deal of his electoral appeal to his manner of speaking.
As to his halting, simplified, repetitive delivery, it’s simply the way businessmen talk to close a deal outside of Sillicon Valley.
Trump might not be a great orator but he’s a great communicator, no doubt about it.
I’d like for somebody to do a spoof with a Scots accent, both Glaswegian (gasp!) and Edinburgh . Though I think the perfect fit for Trump’s personality would be a Geordie accent ( Newcastle).
22pp22:
I was trying to be funny (not humourous, but funny). I am not disappointed, but yeah, I did think the 2nd British one was supposed to be “Cockney” – is it anywhere close to that? For instance, I recall the Beatles talking like that – especially when you run the records backwards –
“Paul is bloody dead, gov’na!”
Anyway, I’m in agreement with lots of other Americans, that the accent of the 1st video makes anyone seem much more educated to us. Steve and others can come up with reasons why, but I just enjoy the videos. Is there gonna be a Hitler one soon?
There is a nugget of truth in both vids 1 & 3 (tho I laughed so hard at vid 2, my head started to hurt..)
Trump should have a crack a mirroring Farage's speaking style at least for cadence, and less repetition. Boris Johnson & Peter Hitchens are also decent on the stump, worth a listen.
Trump's strength is that he comes off as authentic, and removes all the mealy mouthed PC prefacing so common in GOPe types.
The weakness Trump likely has is that he didn't do stuff like debate club in high school, or toastmasters after college. Since he has power & status, a lot of his audiences probably deferred to him (starting decades ago), giving him a pass on speeches which are scattershot & meandering. Most of his debate time was hard to watch, better seen w/ close caption, volume off. His set piece speeches were better, maybe C+/B- for delivery.
Somebody please tell Stephen Miller to get Trump reading more, and working on his diction. It will work wonders for the SOTU speeches, and the 2020 campaign. It will help if he simply surrounds himself with folks who are articulate, forceful, and not caught up in PC pablum speak.Replies: @snorlax, @Stan Adams, @Karl, @Percy Gryce
> The weakness Trump likely has is that he didn’t do stuff like debate club
I have American friends who express the thought that the less talking a President does, the better.
I've noticed that when people speak from the back of the throat, it sounds harder and tougher.Replies: @SFG, @Lot, @Olorin, @NickG, @Bill
As an RP Englishman it’s clear most of them do not, many will be unintelligible to the bulk of those across the pond. Only the upper crust accents, RP and refined miss Jean Brodie type standard Scots.
A tour across UK regional accents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzFzdcc5GQQ#t=3m55sReplies: @22pp22, @Dr. X
My God.. that’s frightening. It’s a British version of Jerry Springer, without the blacks.
Little bit of background on Serafinowicz
In October 2007, Serafinowicz dropped his attempt to use the Human Rights Act to prevent the publication of details revealing his Belarusian grandfather as the first man in Britain to go on trial for Nazi war crimes under the War Crimes Act. Szymon Serafinowicz Sr. was charged with allegedly murdering three Jews while a police chief during the Nazi occupation of his native Belarus in World War II. He was found unfit for trial on grounds of dementia in 1997, and died later that year, aged 86.[18]
Maybe Donald J could do a bit leg pulling of his own?
One even hears the royal princes litter their speech with Esturine intonations and spatterings of mockney; it’s an Eton thing, no doubt started as an affectation to sound more egalitarian. Like many affectations, it becomes ingrained.
Kate Middleton – educated at the similarly high end Marlborough college – doesn’t do it, but then Kate is distinctly middle class. Her Mum is a former trolly-dolly – an air hostess/ flight attendant.
Brits have so many accents because their population density is higher, and they built up their country long before social mobility became a thing, and long before rapid transit, so their accents had a long time to build up in place, without everyone moving away. They have more distinct accents there than we have in the whole of America.Replies: @Captain Tripps
I’m not so sure about that. America has always been a kluge of many regional, even quite local cultures before mass transportation really kicked in with the automobile, and then national television networks somewhat homogenized us to standard network news anchor Midwest English. There were many dialects in the past; I’m most familiar with the “Southern” accents, but even in the northeast corridor there is a range of distinct diction from New York City to Boston to Maine to New Hampshire, etc.
My maternal grandparents sounded a lot like these folks:
Then there’s a particular Virginia sub-regional variation that you can hear in NASCAR driver Ward Burton:
My paternal grandmother was from Western Pennsylvania (Johnstown) and she had a particular accent that I don’t really hear much anymore, but instead of “y’all” like my maternal side, she would say “you’ins” or “y’ins”.
I live in the mid-Atlantic and the Baltimoreans have their own speech characteristics:
I've noticed that when people speak from the back of the throat, it sounds harder and tougher.Replies: @SFG, @Lot, @Olorin, @NickG, @Bill
Like Lot said, you mean upper class southern English accent—the accent one used to associate with the BBC. It’s a good question what makes it sound refined.
Another similar question, at least for me, is why do Australian accents sound good coming out of a man’s mouth and bad coming out of a woman’s? And why do Southern accents generally sound good coming out of a woman’s mouth and bad coming out of a man’s? The old BBC accent you are talking about sounds about equally good coming out of a man’s or a woman’s mouth to me.
This is a bugbear of mine because things which are distinctly English often get (ignorantly) labelled as British, while things which are Scottish, Welsh and Irish are usually identified as Scottish, Welsh and Irish.
Isn’t Boris Johnson sort of Trump with a RP accent?
Brits are better at the standard American accent than Americans are at what they call a “British accent” but still the Brits always add too much twang. I guess that’s because the twang is the most distinctive difference between the two countries. (Rhoticity is an obvious difference with most of England but the English are well aware that it is not unique to Americans).
Perhaps counter-intuitively, the Windsors have never been particularly well spoken, certainly in comparison with the average English aristocrat or member of the upper classes. I went to school and university with several dozen people who sounded “posher” (and I did go to university with Wills and Kate, as it happens). There are videos on how the Queen’s own diction has slid into mediocrity over the decades.
Another similar question, at least for me, is why do Australian accents sound good coming out of a man's mouth and bad coming out of a woman's? And why do Southern accents generally sound good coming out of a woman's mouth and bad coming out of a man's? The old BBC accent you are talking about sounds about equally good coming out of a man's or a woman's mouth to me.Replies: @Rob, @Sean, @Ivy
Point of order really, but most of the posts in this thread which refer to “British accents” (or even “the British accent”) are really referring to English accents. Scottish and Welsh (and (Northern) Irish) accents are all distinct – and in relative terms about as multitudinous as English ones.
This is a bugbear of mine because things which are distinctly English often get (ignorantly) labelled as British, while things which are Scottish, Welsh and Irish are usually identified as Scottish, Welsh and Irish.
One of the original BBC announcers was heavenly criticised for dropping his [H} aitches, but an experts defended him pointing out he was just talking upper class Edwardian english, which the Cockneys had copied. Listen to Winston Churchill’s accent and you get a flavour of how the truly posh talked in the 19th century.
Boris is far more articulate than The Donald, with a deep repository of rapidly accessible cultural references and a deeper, more cerebral wit.
Yet Boris doesn’t quite have The Donald’s brilliance as a communicator…sure he’s good but not as devistatingly effective as The Donald, nor does he have Trump’s brazen boldness, nor quite the degree of willingness to smash into shards the cherished received wisdoms of the day.
Few, if any others with Trump’s reach do.
I am open to this view being falsified, that is that I hold on to this view tentatively. I have suspected for a while – over a year – that Trump is precisely what he needs to be to smash through what Mencius Moldbug terms the Cathedral – flaws and all (confession, I wrote the linked ranking Urban Dictionary definition).
Nobody else but Trump could have done it.
My cousin sent her son to Eton, and her daughter to the girl’s equivalent and he sounds very posh, but she not quite so much.
Both Kate’s parents were flight attendants, that is where they met. Kate’s mother is of working class background, while father’s origins are upper middle class. Kate herself is certainly not anything below upper middle class.
Privileged Londoners affect Jamaican more than Esturine. The Royals are more isolated than other people but they watch TV, Princess Anne once told a reporter to “Naff off”. She had obviously got that from Porridge, and didn’t realise what it meant.
Another similar question, at least for me, is why do Australian accents sound good coming out of a man's mouth and bad coming out of a woman's? And why do Southern accents generally sound good coming out of a woman's mouth and bad coming out of a man's? The old BBC accent you are talking about sounds about equally good coming out of a man's or a woman's mouth to me.Replies: @Rob, @Sean, @Ivy
Australians speak out of the side of the mouth, like criminals the world over (as is well known crims made up a large proportion of Australia’s founding stock).
Another similar question, at least for me, is why do Australian accents sound good coming out of a man's mouth and bad coming out of a woman's? And why do Southern accents generally sound good coming out of a woman's mouth and bad coming out of a man's? The old BBC accent you are talking about sounds about equally good coming out of a man's or a woman's mouth to me.Replies: @Rob, @Sean, @Ivy
South African and Kiwi accents make me think of southern English drawls. They sound charming. Strine can be at times.
Alternatively, Bertrand Russell was as equally posh as Churchill, an earl and the grandson of a prime minister, and a couple of years older, and he spoke much more precisely, much less rumblingly.
Sort of like Obama switching between his white liberal Harvard accent to his black preacher/black jive artist accent when he speaks to a black audience?
In the first overdubbed clip of Trump speaking with an extremely posh, masterful accent, what public figure in England does the comedian most sound like?
Clip of interview.
He lays it on a tad more on the screen.Replies: @NickG
Russell may have been posher than Winston Chrchill the American author, but I meant the Winston Churchill, who was born in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blenheim_Palace
Boris is fundamentally, genetically, shallow but with polish. While DJT has vastly greater depth but with a vulgar exterior.
I get a real kick out of Sassy Trump. It works perfectly with Trump’s dramatic gestures.
It makes you realize that a man can be flamboyant without being gay.
In the early days of Family Guy I assumed that Rik Mayall was doing the voice:
Then, when it turned it not to be him, I then assumed Seth MacFarlane was riffing on Rik Mayall’s voice. Only to read on Wiki that Stewie’s voice was claimed to based on Rex Harrison. Which I find far-fetched frankly. The style may be that of Rex Harrison but Stewie still sounds like Rik. Like Rik Mayall doing a parody of Rex Harrison. Maybe MacFarlane doesn’t realise what he’s doing? Surely someone must have pointed it out over the years?
I have a friend who is good at voices, in the 80s he started doing an amusing JFK impression. Then I realised he wasn’t actually doing JFK, he was doing JFK as played by Martin Sheen in Kennedy (1983).
Here’s a bit of Oz.
Doesn’t that tradition go back to George I, if not William of Orange?
The female equivalent of Eton would be arguable either Cheltenham Ladies College or Roedean in Brighton.
For a while – back when God was a boy – I dated an ex Roedean head girl, she was upper crust Ulster Protestant. In my last year at a minor English public school I attended a 6th form dance at Roedean – like contemporary Etonions the girls in the main were not especially marble mouthed.
Those that were likely picked this up at home, think of Jacob Rees Mogg….enjoy.
That’s utter nonsense. U English dropped the g in ing endings but never h at the beginning of words.
As Evelyn Waugh once noted, upper class people in England are instantly recognisable to the ear whatever their accent, vocabulary or syntax.
I’m an Englishman and that clip bought to mind somewhat, the actor Charles Dance. It has Dance’s ever so slightly exaggerated thespian quality.
Clip of interview.
He lays it on a tad more on the screen.
Clip of interview.
He lays it on a tad more on the screen.Replies: @NickG
Here reading Kipling’s Road to Mandalay on the 70th anniversary of V-J day – Victory over Japan- 2015 on Horseguards Parade behind Downing St and near the underground Churchill War Rooms
I was trying to be funny (not humourous, but funny). I am not disappointed, but yeah, I did think the 2nd British one was supposed to be "Cockney" - is it anywhere close to that? For instance, I recall the Beatles talking like that - especially when you run the records backwards -
"Paul is bloody dead, gov'na!"
Anyway, I'm in agreement with lots of other Americans, that the accent of the 1st video makes anyone seem much more educated to us. Steve and others can come up with reasons why, but I just enjoy the videos. Is there gonna be a Hitler one soon?Replies: @22pp22
I understood your comment as humorous. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
I don’t know who you har(e), but whoever you har(e) you’re very hignorant”
“rough … trade”
ISWYDT
I have American friends who express the thought that the less talking a President does, the better.Replies: @Percy Gryce
Keep cool with Coolidge.
There is a nugget of truth in both vids 1 & 3 (tho I laughed so hard at vid 2, my head started to hurt..)
Trump should have a crack a mirroring Farage's speaking style at least for cadence, and less repetition. Boris Johnson & Peter Hitchens are also decent on the stump, worth a listen.
Trump's strength is that he comes off as authentic, and removes all the mealy mouthed PC prefacing so common in GOPe types.
The weakness Trump likely has is that he didn't do stuff like debate club in high school, or toastmasters after college. Since he has power & status, a lot of his audiences probably deferred to him (starting decades ago), giving him a pass on speeches which are scattershot & meandering. Most of his debate time was hard to watch, better seen w/ close caption, volume off. His set piece speeches were better, maybe C+/B- for delivery.
Somebody please tell Stephen Miller to get Trump reading more, and working on his diction. It will work wonders for the SOTU speeches, and the 2020 campaign. It will help if he simply surrounds himself with folks who are articulate, forceful, and not caught up in PC pablum speak.Replies: @snorlax, @Stan Adams, @Karl, @Percy Gryce
(1) The man is 70 years old. He’s not going to change.
(2) Steve has been arguing for a while now that part of Trump’s immunity to the Megaphone is his lack of verbal facility and his likely nonparticipation in activities like scholastic debate.