Follow Us!
Subscribe to Blog via Email
-
Recent Posts
All-Time Most Popular
1. The Accents in Downton Abbey
2. The 5 Best Irish Accents on Film
3. Arrr, Matey! The Origins of the Pirate Accent
4. The 3 Types of Australian Accents
5. Canadian Raising: Nobody Says Aboot
6. South African or Kiwi or Aussie?
7. Top 10 American Accents by Non-Americans
8. Mom Mum Mam
9. When Did Americans Stop "Talking British?"
10. The Wild World of the English "r"Recent Comments
For the Uninitiated
Sites I Love
Categories
Archives
- April 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
Author Archives: Ben
The New England/East Anglia Connection
A commonly held assumption is that New England accents are cousins of East Anglian accents in the UK. It’s an impression shared even by non-linguists, as this interview with British actor Tom Wilkinson from some years back attests (he discussed hanging out with Maine … Continue reading
Bidder Budder Badder: The Extent of T-tapping
Americans like myself ‘tap’ the ‘t’ in between vowels. This means that the ‘t’ in ‘butter’ is pronounced not with a /t/ sound, but rather with the ‘r’ consonant in Spanish ‘pero.’ The common impression, though, is that ‘t’ becomes … Continue reading
Posted in English Phonetics Tagged Cockney, Estuary English, phonetics, Received Pronunciation (RP) 32 Comments
Auld Lang Syne FAQ
Last night was New Years’ Eve, which brings about the yearly revival of the song Auld Lang Syne. Originally penned by Robert Burns (the melody is traditional), the lyrics are in the Scots language (or dialect, depending on your point of … Continue reading
An Accent Myth? The East Asian L/R Mix-Up
A few days ago, I watched the American holiday classic A Christmas Story. At the end of the film, the family of the main character visits a Chinese restaurant. Being Christmas, the wait staff attempts to entertain their American patrons … Continue reading
Drunken Speech
Speech changes during intoxication. We slur, we stammer, we curse. Our normal, everyday speech patterns differ markedly from our drunken idiolects (the word’s similarity to ‘idiot’ never seemed as apt as it does in this context.) You may wonder, then, if … Continue reading
Happy Holidays!
Hey, all! Posting here has been a bit light due to the holidays. I’ll have a post up tomorrow. Till then, I’d like re-post something I had up here some time ago, this lovely ‘Night Before Christmas’ spoken in Jamaican … Continue reading
Pop vs. Soda
In my native New England, using ‘pop’ to refer to soft drinks is unthinkable. So midwestern! Having many relatives in the midwest, of course, I was often treated to this difference between our respective dialects. Which is why I’m enamored … Continue reading
Chicago [shi-KAW-go]
Some of the most intriguing dialect mysteries involve place names. One of the more peculiar of these head-scratchers is the local pronunciation of ‘Chicago.’ The Chicago accent, being affected by the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, pronounces ‘ah’ words with something … Continue reading
Leeds or Manchester?
Turning back to the world of accent minutiae, a reader emailed me with a conundrum regarding the difference between Leeds and Manchester accents. This concerns ‘punk poet’ John Cooper Clarke, from Salford in Greater Manchester: I like to think of … Continue reading
Posted in British English, Uncategorized Tagged celebrity accents, Northern English accents, phonetics 30 Comments
Accent of a Contrarian: Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens passed away yesterday. His controversial life is far beyond the purview of a blog about dialects, yet I can think of few people with an accent as inextricably linked with their personality. Here is a brief clip of … Continue reading