Accents

[Sylph]

I forgot to mention that another bizarro world occurence is when people say <span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode;">/nəˌgəʊ.siˈeɪ.ʃən/</span> instead of <span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode;">/nəˌgəʊ.ʃiˈeɪ.ʃən/</span> , something I've noticed on BBC, and stuff like <span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode;">/ˈɪs.juː/</span> , which is quite legitimate and correct, except that it kind of goes against the current of dying-out pronunciations like <span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode;">/ˈtɪs.juː/</span> . Oh, well, I guess they're not dying out as some would like to point out.

[SFK]

Yeah, many of the sounds you mentioned that have a distinctly "affected" ring to them to the average American are still taught as part of Standard American Speech for the stage. Specifically, for the purpose of performing classical texts, even more specifically, Shakespeare. For instnace, the "liquid u" as you pointed out in words like issue and tissue (and yes, we use a "s" and not a "sh", so for anyone else reading this thread other than you and I who is not familiar with IPA, we get issue=issyoo, tissue=tissyoo, Tuesday=Tyoozdih).

And yes, learning the IPA was a part of our speech curriculum, we had written tests and pop quizzes on it and all that. I have PLENTY of faults so I'll be kind enough to pat myself on the back for my good ear, I did quite well with accent work. Something I should practice more often though, I've learned that you can easily lose it not only when you're rusty but when you're nervous.

"I also found it amusing that RADA still teaches /hw/ as a distinct sound, even though today's RP does not have the so-called wine–whine distinction. But it does differentiate between foot and strut, it's still non-rhotic, has the broad a, Mary–marry–merry are all quite distinct as well as nearer and mirror and so on."

Yes, hw is still taught in SAS ("Hwy, hwat would you?/Hwither hwich way?"). It's a very light sound though, they overdo it on TV when they're making fun of it, but it's supposed to be like you're softly blowing out a candle. They also still teach, "Very merry Mary married hairy Harry Harris from Harrisburg." (veh-rih meh-rih mare-y ma[like the a in hat]-rid hare-y ha-rih ha-ris from ha-risbirg). The sound "ear" in "nearer" is its own vowel and "mirror" doesn't rhyme like "meer-er" but is "mih-ruh". I do not get the foot/strut thing, what's that about?

"What was once /ɪ/ (kit, mirror, rabbit) in the conservative RP, today turned into /i/, in words such as happy or valley. The weak /ɪ/ turned into to /ə/ in words such as countless or problem. The /ɔː/ of cough, salt, off, austere turned into /ɑ/. The word square is differently pronounced, too."

Yes, the crisp, bright "diamond ɪ (ih)", the i of "kit" or "chicken" gave way to the schwa in many cases where it's an unstressed syllable. So a very prrrrim and proper high RP Brit may have said 'eh-mih-lih for Emily where now we'd schwa out that middle syllable for 'eh-muh-lih. Suffix y's and other words are still properly ɪ, like the days of the week ('sun-dih, 'mon-dih), 'can-dih (candy), 'chel-sih (Chelsea)... As for the ɔː sound, the word "off" is actually not an ɔː word in the states, but an ɒ word in SAS (off, copper, pot, top, et cetera). It's very rare in everyday English, usually bastardized as aw as in claw (like the Brits) or ah as in father. But it's in actuality a very short round sound, like you're about to say "aw" but you quickly jab your uvula with your toothbrush before you get it all out.

[quartermainefan]

I lived in England, and I can only recall one person who said "issyuu" and "tissyuu" for issue and tissue. Admittedly he had a posh accent, was older, and clearly from the right side of the tracks. The Hw sound in what or where was somehwhat more common and occasionally one still slips into my speech. The aw sound in off is sort of a cousin to the aw sound in NY english. I don't even know if I could spell how they sound, England was Cohfee, NY is more Cawfee. This is compared to the way say coffee in California or wherever, Cahfee.

[Sylph]

OMG, I too thought I went overboard and that no one was reading!

Thank you for that very detailed reply, I love it. I didn't know that even the SAS teaches <span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode;">/hw/</span>! It would be nice to examine the differences between SAS today and the accent which quartermainefan called the "1940s radio accent", which is called Mid-Atlantic English (or trans-Atlantic): http://en.wikipedia....tlantic_English, a sort of a mixture between British and American speeches.

I think it's also starting to become something else in the contemporary RP, too, the <span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode;">/ɔː/</span> sound. The BL web page above illustrates the shifts. Which brings me to this: how can the <span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode;">/ɔː/</span> be bastardized as aw in claw when it really is pronounced as <span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode;">/klɔː/</span>? Perhaps I got something wrong. Copper is pronounced as <span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode;">/ˈkɒp.ə/</span> and so is pot, though someone should check whether that shifted from <span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode;">/ɔː/</span> too. For example, to me it would make sense to pronounce the word for a police officer that way, but not the name of the metal, which would retain the <span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode;">/ɔː/</span>. LOL.

The foot–strut split is here:

http://en.wikipedia....oot-strut_split

And IPA for English, if anyone at all is interested, can be found here, though it kind of leans towards American English, I think:

http://en.wikipedia....IPA_for_English

British is here:

http://dictionary.ca.../phonetics.html

That Clive Upton guy really made a mess, he introduced certain symbols into one of the Oxford dictionaries in the early 1990s and all we ended up is more confusion:

http://en.wikipedia....iki/Clive_Upton

So, given all the above, quartermainefan, I think you mean: British – <span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode;">/ˈkɒf.i/</span>, American – <span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode;">/ˈkɔːfi/</span> or <span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode;">/ˈkɑːfi/</span>.

[Sylph]

Note also the lovely <span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode;">/eɪ/</span> sound of that elderly lady, who is a conservative RP speaker, in that link above I gave: I think the beach is still a lovely place to play, with lots of, lots of space and, uh, beautiful surroundings.

[Sylph]

[Sylph]

How about "ultra mega super posh RP in extremis accent" of the art critic Brian Sewell? Anybody else finding it fascinating?

[quartermainefan]

The greatest accent of this sort is Anthony Blanche from Brideshead. He stutters, but the accent is perfect.

Please register in order to view this content

[Sylph]

Hm... His r's aren't really perfect, are they?

[quartermainefan]

I have no idea, but he certainly is great to listen to.

[Sylph]

I've noticed at least three or four instances when the r is uvular (as in French). In RP r is usually an alveolar approximant and once also used to be an alveolar tap in intervocalic positions after an accented syllable, meaning words like spirit, very, sorry etc.

To hear the difference, go and check TheRoyalChannel on YouTube and the Queen's latest Christmas message – when she says spirit and very, it's an alveolar tap, but Christmas, recovery and inherited all have r as an alveolar approximant, another sign of how the Queen's English has changed quite a bit during the last decades.

[marceline]

I can actually do most of those accents. Although, they do get a bit muddled if I try to do them in rapid succession. Most of the friends of my youth have long been used to my switching off dialects for no reason. I even had a chance to do it for an (employed, working) actor once. I told him to name an accent and I'd do it. He stumped me on Scottish.

There was an story on This American Life a LONG time ago about southern accents in film and how bad they are. (The difference between life and "lahf" or time and "tahm". I consider English/British and American Southern to be the most closely related in sheer variety and geographical tells.

ETA: One accent I've never been able to tackle in spite of the fact I lived with a native speaker for years is Swedish. I just don't understand how they make those sounds.

[Sylph]

Observe Noël Coward's r's, for example in the words such as four, during, flagrant – those are taps:

Please register in order to view this content

Or Surrey:

[Sylph]

Well, marceline, if you're a boss where at your current work place, you should order people what to do in that 'appalling', cut-glass Etonian accent! That should raise some hairs!

[Sylph]

.