English accents

This thread should have been longer.

I was trying to turn an English (living in the US) friend on to Dizzee Rascal, and turns out he can't stand him because of his accent (which sounds goofy and interesting to me). Said Dizzee sounds like an irritating thug, or something to that effect, which I don't hear at all. Not a class/race thing as best I can tell...I mean, I hate Ani Difranco's accent and don't think it's a class race/thing.

Was trying to figure out what other UK singers who I like sound annoying at home, and vice versa. I gather that there was some issue about that during the blur/Oasis thing. Or maybe my friend is just weird.

England's always had a North vs. South thing, so that might explain Blur/Oasis to an extent, but there's also a Manc vs. Scouse thing and countless other rivalries (Lancs vs. Yorks f'ristance) partly staked out via accent and then other signifiers.

I'm trying to think of Scots who do this too. The Proclaimers, obv. And in a funny way, the Cocteaus too - I think part of the reason Liz Fraser can be incomprehensible is the way she'll phrase things and her accent is all over what she's singing.

Al Jourgensen

Hahahaha

"I'm just an EFF-I-GY..."

I hate Ani Difranco's accent

What accent does she have? I don't know her stuff that well but from what I've heard, the accent sounds pretty neutral and definitely not typically Buffalonian.

Oi music to thread.

Isn't the Manc vs. Scouse thing mainly about football?

Other Scots who do this: Aiden Moffat. Stuart Murdoch/Stevie Jackson. There was a thread somewhere about regional accents in music.

It wasn't a very long thread.

english/uk/british accents in 'proper' pop music...

xpost Re: Ani Difranco's accent

Regionally I don't know, but I'd locate it somewhere around Sophmore year right after you cut your long hair.

As for Dizzee, it just weirded me out because he sounds so upbeat and non-threatening (to my ears) and was striking my English friend in a totally different way. I guess it felt like being told (by someone from the UK) that the Stephen Merritt sounds like a gangsta.

I guess I'm curious: when people from England hear Dizzee, what does he sound like? It's very hard for me to hear his voice as threatening, even when he's making threats. Actually his videos sort of surprised me as they were very different from what I was expecting...

growing up in scotland in the 80s it seemed that every scottish band had to sing in with a transatlantic accent and hide any trace of their own eg simple minds, jamc, hue & cry, love & money ("this songs called Cheeseburger"), all those billy sloan type bands. i can remember when peter easton started to play the proclaimers early demos on his radio show, and how odd it was hearing people sing like they spoke.

I've just watched this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UgpfSp2t6k&feature=fvw
Now, I'm not a native Anglophone so I can't comment, but I'd really to know what you guys think about it. Is she getting all the accents right? Which ones are better, etc.

Also, lol at 1:55.

Just realized maybe this wasn't the right thread/board to post this...

Amy Walker you might be. But you are sure as hell not 25.

What about non-English (or British) singers affecting English accents, that's always amusing, the Eurovision Song contest winner this year, for instance.

Cockney will always rule as being the best sounding English accent. Particularly for somewhat nutty uptempo songs.

Her opening English accent is awful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESgD49roX0I

Amy Walker's Irish accents (both Dublin and Belfast) were pretty poor as well.

Nick Drake is a singer whose accent (very posh English) sometimes puts me off a little. but it is key to his identity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFKBorVwi0I

^^^mandatory viewing for our American audience

I love Roots Manuva's accent, half Sarf London boy, half crazy rasta prophet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzquCGpuIsQ

LOL at AMy Walker's South Carolina accent

Kersal Massive poll

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nI8L_kiXz0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEoAuu_ZuFI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQw6y96bJpo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On4ZR9cuZqw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhyEMZkfLMo

why does PJ Harvey pronounce "plants" with an English accent and "rags" with an American? or do Britishers usually pronounce "rags" with a nasal "a"?

What about non-English (or British) singers affecting English accents, that's always amusing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3OUUl9ttTM

(That one is often considered the best music video pre-"Take On Me")

(Best Norwegian one, I mean)

why does PJ Harvey pronounce "plants" with an English accent and "rags" with an American? or do Britishers usually pronounce "rags" with a nasal "a"?

Think you answered your own question there?

you do?

English sack scents

I don't hear a nasal / American accent on the word "rag" here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM8Fxwjd_qc

I hate it when English singers pronounce 'love' as 'luuurve'.

I meant (without listening to the song to check how she sings it) that British people do pronounce rag with a short A, if that's what you mean by a nasal American A.

She definitely pronounces it with an English accent on that (studio) recording.

ok thanks

wait so Col Poo are you saying Brits pronounce the vowel in plants and rags the same way? cause neither are long vowels.

No, well with plants it depends on what regional accent, but iirc Peej pronounces plants plahnts, i.e. a long A.

Wait, were you expecting English people to pronounce 'rags' as 'rarrrrghs' or something? Because that's just crazy.

(Also note that multiple variations on the pronounciation of 'plants' or 'bath' or 'grass' are English accents, so there is no chance she's pronouncing it 'the English way'.)

(Amy Walker's French and Canadian accents are not bad but not amazing. [I mean, that's better than my French accent.] I'm guessing, though, that this video is meant more to demonstrate "If you hire me for an acting/voice gig, I can build on what I do here with a bit of research and practice"?)

Actually that's a pretty shit 'Toronto accent' tbh. I'm not sure exactly what region that seems to suggest. Plus, she used an American "sorry".

(xpost: re 'plants and rags') Just to clarify, these are two distinct sounds in English English:

/æ/ is the sound used in 'man', 'cat', 'rag'

/ɑ:/ is the sound used in 'father', 'start', 'car'

If you're from the south of England you pronounce words like 'last', 'pass', and 'plants' with the /ɑ:/ sound, if you're from the north you're more likely to use the /æ/ sound. PJ Harvey is from the south so she uses /ɑ:/ for 'plants', but /æ/ for 'rags'. Nobody, but nobody, would ever pronounce 'rags' with a /ɑ:/ sound.

There are (at least) two ways to pronounce words like "rag" or "bag" in North America. I pronounce them like PJ does. (This sound is a bit different from the short-a vowel in "cat", something closer to "rayg"). My girlfriend from Syracuse NY uses roughly the same vowel in "bag" or "rag" that I would use in "cat". I'm guessing that Granny Dainger might have expected the English to use the second pronunciation?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvPuj4f5CKw

Also note that multiple variations on the pronounciation of 'plants' or 'bath' or 'grass' are English accents, so there is no chance she's pronouncing it 'the English way'

She is very most certainly pronouncing it *an* English way. And very most certainly not an American way.

No I think we've concluded she's prounouncing it in a way that is both English and American?

I know what you mean. But I can't help see it this (perhaps silly) way: there may be very similar, if not identical ways of pronouncing the word "rag" in the USA. But PJ Harvey sings that song, including the word 'rag' in an English way.

Without getting too boring and nerdy on this one, at a phonemic level the /æ/ sound in 'cat' and in 'rag' are considered identical. At a phonetic level they are slightly different, because short vowels get lengthened before voiced consonants, so the /æ/ sound in 'rags' (or in words like 'man', 'sad' and 'jazz') is a bit longer than the /æ/ sound in 'cat' (or 'sat', 'pack' and 'cap').

But the vowel sound I use in "rag" is quite different from the vowel I use in "man" or "jazz"!

OK. But for PJ it wouldn't be, and her prounouciation of 'rags' is definitely not an American affectation.

Really? Her pronunciation of "man" in that song is pretty close to mine and that vowel sounds different from the vowel in "rag".

Not trying to be difficult. I'm actually interested in this.

i'm surprised there isn't voice transcription software that converts speech to IPA -- i figure it'd be easier or an intermediate step to converting to text.

It's a great song anyway.

man, rag, jazz all get their "a" pronounced the same way by Midwestern US me.

Learn some Scottish (Glaswegian actually) here in this instructional video by Stanley Baxter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0rgETg2Hoo

the irish voices on BBC world service sound american to me if I'm sleepy.

now that I've thought about it more, it's obv that Brits use more than one short "a" pronunciation (I would never think a Brit would pronounce "cat" as "caht", for instance). The two words being so near one another in lyrics just happened to bring it to light for me.

^ Thanks for the parliamo glasgow sketch

my pleasure, would love a dvd of all those sketches. Stanley Baxter is a genius.

OK, going by an Internet search, the difference I'm talking about is just that a tenser allophone of æ is used before "g" in some accents. I think this is actually different from what GD was asking about though.

It's a great song anyway.

OTM

for Granny Dainger : http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/regional-voices/phonological-variation/

is Eccleston the only Dr. Who w/ northern accent? To be honest the only difference I could detect was trilling the Rs on "rrrrRose Tyler."

Seriously?

Yeah he's got a proper Northern accent. McCoy is the only other one who didn't use RP, and that was only a very mild Scottish burr.

Most of the Doctors had middle class RP accents (except David Tennant, who was Scottish, but putting on a slightly weird semi-London accent), Ecclestone sounded quite different to the rest of the them. The two most obvious differences between RP and his accent would be:
a) he would use the /æ/ vowel sound in 'bat' and 'bath', whereas RP would use /æ/ in 'bat' and /ɑ:/ in 'bath'
b) he would use the /ʊ/ vowel sound in 'push' and 'cup', whereas RP would use /ʊ/ in 'push' and /ʌ/ in 'cup'
(but there are lots of other differences)

These are the groupings in my head accent-wise:

Patrick Stewart/Eccleston
Mitchell/Webb/Gervais/Branagh
Stephen Merchant/Sheep herder from Monty Python

how off the mark are they?

You've pretty much nailed the entire variety of English accents there.

I have a separate filing for English accents in LOTR, but Frodo is problematic

You will lead us to the blaaack gaaate.

Elijah's accent isn't great. I find Sean Astin's more convincing, but he's attempting a thick West Country accent and I'm not from there so have less of an ear for it. Viggo's isn't bad either, he's trying a slight West thing I think.

Mitchell, Webb and Branagh's aren't dissimilar. Gervais is closer to Stephen Merchant than those three.

Is it West Country that's Merchant's accent as well? It just sounds really rural, with extra r's everywhere.
"I bourt a quart of milrk, and warnt to drink it nowr."

Yeah, the farmer accent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpu6kjrsvk0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBiLNN1NhQ

"Lazy Sunday" was the 1st one I thought of..

Yeah but you hear interviews of them at the time and they're(small faces) very well spoken, that kinda put me off their music

Yeah but you hear interviews of them at the time and they're(small faces) very well spoken, that kinda put me off their music

First of all, the Cockney accent in "Lazy Sunday" is supposed to be ridiculous.

Secondly, I can only assume that was not the Small Faces you heard being interviewed, they were certainly not "very well spoken"!

Is it West Country that's Merchant's accent as well?

PJ Harvey is also from the West Country!

The guy out of Italian psych-pop band Jennifer Gentle does a surprisingly convincing estuary accent, similar to Syd Barret or Robert Wyatt.

Coming back to the whole PJ Harvey pronunciation of the 'a' in 'plants' and 'rags' thing: I was listening to 'Big Exit' yesterday and she definitely is putting on an American accent for the 'ha-and' and 'la-and' bits.

When I was doing some sociolinguistics 20 years ago we were taught that RP had more or less disappeared. It was how the upperclasses spoke in the 50s, and that not even the Queen speaks that way now. Maybe Brian Sewell does.
SSE (Southern Standard English) was the label used to describe middle class, southern, "BBC" English.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8mzWkuOxz8

I know, I know, Irish Scots and Welsh are not English accents, but this seemed like the best thread to post this on.

not really convinced by his Liverpudlian tbh

Oh shit this is on ILM.

Yeah he doesn't really sound committed to the Scouse.

dunno what kind of dublin accent that was either. scouse is easy enough to imitate. i find it hard to do a geordie accent though.