I do not approve of Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

I'm afraid not.

That explains why you like Lily Allen's voice.

Is it a fake accent or something?

Yes and no. Her accent is typical of a particular group of "working class" people in London and its surrounding area (especially Essex, which is a strange place made infamous by its very high proportion of blonde women). That accent is associated with lack of culture, bad parenting, teenage gangs etc. However, Lily Allen is from a wealthy family and I get the impression that she puts the accent on (God knows why, although if Americans find it attractive then maybe she has a reason ).

Accents have always been important in this country, and you do get judged on the basis of how you speak (though not to the ridiculous extent seen in Britain's past). A person from Birmingham with a strong local accent visiting London, for example, might be discriminated against in an application for a good job because the Birmingham accent is rather distinctive and can make the speaker sound stupid and slow. There's a great deal of regional variety in accent and dialect in Britain despite its tiny size compared with the US.

The only "standard" accent in the UK is known as Received Pronunciation (RP). In its purest form, it's basically the way the Queen speaks, but there are different degrees of RP which share one common feature - they all lack regional character. I speak RP, as does Sophie Ellis-Bextor. It's considered a more employable accent but it can elicit negative reactions from certain people who associate it with the rich or elitism. I certainly prefer RP in women to regional accents.

It usually amuses me that Americans have trouble telling accents apart but it's probably because they're not so attuned to listening for differences in how people sound. It's a little bit annoying that nearly all Americans I've spoken to confuse English accents with Australian or South African accents - they really couldn't sound more different.

Record your voice.

THIS. =) please?

On that note, I found a recording of Yoshi's voice on my harddrive. lol

You can hear Yoshi's voice in the youtube video for his "Dodge the Nukes" map, Kame.

My recording predates that...it cracked me up when I found it.


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...OMG ITS YOU, ISN'T IT.
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I think the only person here who has heard my voice is TZ, because I did some voice work for one of his mods during a rather slow week last summer.

I may record something, but that's not the purpose of this thread.

I learned a little bit about regional variations in voices when reading about Doctor Who, but I didn't have any idea you guys ALL pay attention to that sort of thing. I thought it was just something defined for actors when playing different roles It's interesting to think about, because off the top of my head, I can only think of three (mainly two, really) accents within the US. Northern, Southern, and Western (this one less so), or some combination. I, for instance, have a mild southern accent (which bothers me to no end, actually).


He also made a video tutorial a long time ago.

Edit:


I listened to the song you were talking about, with the 'fairly posh English accent' I actually heard what you were talking about in terms of the difference in accents, though I'm sure I'm still missing a lot. You made a comment about speaking RP earlier which made me wonder, from the way you worded it, do you choose your accent?

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on May 16 2010, 8:03 pm by NerdyTerdy.

I seriously had no idea there was this much depth to accents.

Oh there's a lot of depth to accents in England especially. Perhaps Americans in general don't travel far enough from "home" to experience a lot of different accents - the distances between different accents in the US are very large compared with the UK, where you only have to travel 30 miles or so to experience a noticeable difference. There's a big change in the same geographical area if you move from a town to the countryside as well.

@NerdyTerdy

That song was popular back in 2000 or whenever it was made. Sounds very odd now but at least it shows her accent quite well. And yes you are quite right that speaking RP is often a choice, or rather it tells you something different about a person other than where they grew up: it tells you how they grew up.

There's a very good explanation here. Even the bit at the end about younger speakers of RP selectively incorporating parts of regional accents into their voice in order to disguise their background is true of me. I work somewhere where a pure RP accent would be unwelcome.

Here is a very basic map of English accent and dialect groups (note that each county will have a slightly different accent, and sometimes regions within counties will also be different!). Cities with a very distinctive accent are marked.

Interesting. So, what I'm seeing here (correct me if I'm wrong), is that the elite tend to speak RP, while the rest have regional accents.. but in the more recent generations, people may combine the two, to fit the company they are around.

Edit: I was thinking about it, and our level of formality, such as the language we use, our body language, or our clothing, changes based on what situation we're in, or who we're around, and just who we are in general. I think the changing accents might be just another aspect of how formal/informal of a person you are. For example, a doctor would be more likely to speak RP than a construction worker. Does that sound right?

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on May 16 2010, 9:28 pm by NerdyTerdy.

Sounds about right.

RP is a sign of being respectable and "middle-class". Most people have some degree of regional accent though.

Not only that, but on his youtube channel where he puts up his LPs (Let's Play) videos he has 1105 uploads, where he talks in maybe all but a few.

I don't know if I should say this. I know my culture has its own shortcomings. But damn...talk about elitist. :\

You're correct. It's not as bad as it was say 60 years ago, when your accent defined you, but it's still important for a lot of people.

In retrospect, I think accents have a larger social impact down south, in Alabama and such. I might just be lucky for being in Colorado. I guess Colorado accents don't have any flare one way or the other. At least that's what I've been told. ;p

I live in Colorado too. I've also heard that we don't really have any accents.