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“ditto- re Jamaican accents. Me too- I could listen for hours.”
Likewise, hardly matters what they’re talking about…lulls me into a calm stupor!
hooray for the welsh but they have their own language so don’t expect to speak english the way english do. I’ve been to wales and my grandparents came from there. It is very sing/songy sound when speaking english….very pleasant to ear.
I think all new UK immigrants to the US should be handed a list as to how to pronounce Missouri, New Orleans, and Oregon. I learned the comical way.
In DC, water is pronounced warter.
Glaswegian is a thing in itself – a piece in the Guardian last week showed an ad for someone who could translate it. And, Ditto, that would be, “I dinna ken ’em.”
I don’t think many Americans even knew about Cockney accents until My Fair Lady, Oliver, and Michael Caine hit the boards in the early 1960’s. I know people who are so infatuated with any kind of British accent they can’t distinguish between a twee BBC accent, Paul McCartney, and a barmaid from the East End. I have a pretty good ear for accents, and have always wondered how I would do at a job interview if I faked a basic BBC accent, and claimed English West Indian parentage, and years abroad. Being black with an English accent always impresses. Those jobs might start rolling in!
Montrose, thats interesting you say it is soft. To my ear it is sometimes completely missing in “water”, the pronounciation seems to take a left turn in the middle of the word without getting involved with the T. When it is there, its a D. It may be because I didn’t hear the sound at a young age that I can’t actually hear the subtlety of it at all. Are you saying the non-word “wader” (to rhyme with water, not as in boots) would be pronounced differently from “water”?
ditto- re Jamaican accents. Me too- I could listen for hours.
Most Americans pronounce a soft “t” in words like water, later, etc, very similar to the soft “t” in Italian. Making it a hard “t”, is overpronouncing, akin to what many American actors do when reciting Shakespeare, especially when not trying to fake a pseudo British accent, but speaking “correct” Standard American English.
Well, this is weird then.. Despite the classic Bronx upbringing I never dropped the t in water, or udder for utter. It seems somehow my sister and myself wound up with midwestern accents. I don’t say Longiland either. I knew it. I’m strange :-b
Did someone say cats?