The Canadian accent is not nasal in the slightest in comparison with any American accent. It’s rather bizarre that you would say this, though I might understand such a comment coming from a Briton.
North America’s nose-speakers live around the Great Lakes below the border, notably Buffalo, Detroit and Chicago. They are the heirs of the “Northern Cities Vowel Shift,” wherein hot and hat have become hat and hayat, respectively. Bill Murray has a classic NCVS accent, though he toned it down a bit for “Lost in Translation.” Watch him in “Mad Dog and Glory” for the full effect.
I remember watching Apted’s ‘Seven Up’, where he interviews a spectrum of British children at the age of seven and then follows up every seven years. I still remember this little boy with an accent so posh it just amazed me - he was saying something about ‘his mama buying him a pony’ and it was just so perfect ‘Prince Charles’. I assume some people really do talk like that - he was too young to be terribly affected I thought.
Oh, and Canadians and Americans sound exactly the same to me - I’ve been told that Canadians tend to say ‘aboot’ and ‘eh’ a lot and I assume there’s some kind of an accent difference but it’s too subtle for me!
Not that I’m British, but I would tend to use “firstly” - it just sounds right to me. Wouldn’t use the others, but they don’t sound archaic to me, just ‘posh’.
Well whatever, but just as long as you realise it was a personal observation and not intended as a derogatory comment - if I were going to slag people at random I’d really try not to leave the British and Kiwis out of it Oh, and I believe the Cantonese are damn loud and proud of it.
“Jive Turkey”, your post is amusing , but left me with a bit of a pain in the arse/ass/butt/bottom, too.
[quote=“Jive Turkey”]
When I hear RP, it seems so fucking contrived to me. I’m sure there are people who speak with an RP accent “naturally,” but most RP accented speakers really get up my nose. They always seem to be the same pretentious gits who go to great pains to avoid using a prepostion at the end of any sentence, no matter how cumbersome or silly it sounds to do so. Just my observation.[/quote]
If one (you?) was taught RP then that’s the way one speaks. Period/full stop. Sure it gets up some people’s noses, but it’s hardly the speaker’s fault. Sure, some people affect the accent, but then most of us switch between formal and informal varieties depending on the location and the company we are keeping anyway
Is it really that difficult to understand English spoken with an accent other than one’s own? I’ve not had a problem, but I’m perfectly willing to clarify when I don’t quite catch something, and could care less that someone speaks with an accent different from my own. In fact, I quite relish the differences in accents among my multinational group of friends and acquaintances.
The discussion I’m having with someone, and the relationship for that matter, is far more important to me than stuffy notions of which accents sound better. Certain accents aren’t pleasing? Jesus Christ .
I can’t understand the mindset of someone petty enough to actually care about what accent someone speaks English with, other than to appreciate it.
“Received Pronunciation” - I believe it’s the way the bloke who does the BBC news speaks. I’ve also heard it’s taught at RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) - it’s the ‘standard of standards’ for British English.
Edited to add - oh, way too slow, as usual
Tomas, it’s nice that you couldn’t give a damn about accents. I find them actively interesting, and have no problem with the concept that some people find some accents more pleasant than others. It’s like a discussion on hair colour, where some people like brown hair and others blonde - it’s a preference, not a judgment on the person (well, unless one is blonde… kidding! kidding! )
[quote=“joesax”]Jive Turkey wrote:
This usage of whilst, firstly and query seems so archaic to me. What do you Brits think?
None of those terms are archaic if they’re in common current use. I think what you are implying is that they are fussy and unnecessary. [/quote]
But of course the word “archaic” depends on context. In the U.S., words like whilst, firstly and query would be considered archaic since we don’t really use them anymore. Would the American “have gotten” (as opposed to have got) be considered archaic in Britain? Maybe it has been out of use for so long that Brits don’t even recognize it as anything other than an Americanism. Most of the Brits I’ve known don’t even know that it was commonly used in England a couple of hundred years ago. Should I say “archaic in American English?” I don’t know. I’ve known some Brits who also considered words like whilst, firstly and query archaic. Or maybe, as you say, they just find them unnecessary and want to put the big, bad archaic label on them.
You wouldn’t be Canadian, would you? As I read your post, I can just hear the muscles of your nasal cavity clenching every syllable.
I think they do the “aboat” and “eh” thing just to sound different from us Americans.
[quote=“E-clectic”]If one (you?) was taught RP then that’s the way one speaks. Period/full stop. Sure it gets up some people’s noses, but it’s hardly the speaker’s fault. …Wasn
Let me clarify. I don’t claim to understand each and every work spoken to me in English. I am not above that. I do recognize that there are ocassionally some difficulties that arise from hearing and becoming used to different accents.
What I meant to write is that I simply find the attitude of claiming that one accent is less attractive to the ear than another pretentious.
I think they do the “aboat” and “eh” thing just to sound different from us Americans. [/quote]
It’s called “Canadian Raising.” It’s not really aboat, that’s just caricature made in fun.
My anecdotal experience has been that Americans are the worst for not adjusting accent and speaking more slowly or clearly for non-locals/foreigners/non-native speakers of English. Like the crew greeted by a local in Isla Mujeres Mexico who asked where they were from. Instead of “the United States” or “America,” they said “Lanna Gawgia.” Needless to say, he didn’t have a clue, though I could tell he’d guessed they were American.
Or this one, which I swear is true, though it’s not specifically concerning accent, but more an awareness of one’s position in relation to people who are, shock, not Americans: A guy just off the plane and into our bushiban sat in on one of my kids’ classes. I thought I’d show off their English ability by having one of them ask where he was from.
I think it’s worth stating that, as far as I aware, absolutely nobody in Britain recognises RP as a term with any currency these days. It’s been quietly dropped in the last 20 or 30 years because of its class basis. That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of people that still have an accent similar to say a 1950s RP speaker, but as someone above said, the public arena is now filled with people with toned-down variants of their local accents, and this is a good thing in my opinion. Scots and Northern English, for example, have a much better claim to be closer to the speech of our ancestors than anything in the South East. Why should they not also be considered legitimate? This goes some way to explain why we don’t spend a lot of time arguing about while/whilst and so on. Also I think I am correct in saying that in Britain, American spellings are now officially accepted on a par with British ones. I’ll try and find a source for that.
Although the boundary between the working and lower middle class has virtually disintegrated, there is still an undeniable class division between the lower and upper middle classes, and the remnants of RP appear to live on in the upper middle and upper classes. But as this is a completely unrepresentative view of the way most people speak in Britain, I get a bit annoyed that Hugh Grant and the luvvies (self-congratulating acting fraternity) are our main representatives on the world stage.
The only accents I say really grate me are the thick East Coast Boston-NYC-Joisey-Phillie-Baltimore accents. It’s as if they’re designed to be intentionally annoying. It sounds pushy. And rude. And extremely nasal. Think Travis Brickle in Taxi Driver, “Whaddaya looking at?” Mafioso. Kennedys. (yeah, I know, same difference) Crazy Jewish grandmothers creating neurotic guilt-obsessed Woody Allens. Blue collar Springsteen/Bon Jovi fans swilling beer with their Jersey girls in tacky jeans & gobs of cheap makeup. Archie Bunker. Those horrid grease-monkey white people Spike Lee loves to vilify in all of his films. Morton Downey, Jr.
Give me any other North American accent any day. Even California Valley Girl/Dude speak. There’s just something about lower class East Coast culture that just…disturbs me.
Oh, and I believe the Cantonese are damn loud and proud of it.
, but left me with a bit of a pain in the arse/ass/butt/bottom, too. 
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