Philosophy Now Forum

Isn't it funny how you can tell when someone is English by their accent, even if you can't identify the exact region. Now I suppose we won't be allowed to say that someone has a Scottish or Irish accent either. How sad. I've always loved the Welsh accent. France has regional accents. America has regional accents, but they are still all American accents. Regional accents are quite hard to avoid.

I can't be around people with musical accents - Welsh, Scottish or Caribbean - for more than a day without picking it up myself. They might think I'm making fun of them, but I'm just a natural mimic.
In North America, what we identify as an English accent is probably not anyone's regional speech; it's BBC English: subdued, rational, modulated, civilized. In fact, some people who were not born that side of the ocean cultivate that accent to make themselves more attractive. It works, too - beats the hell out of American chirping (F) and grunting (M), or Canadian up-talk?

So you like your girls printed....

3D for choice...
No, it's not unseemly appetite. I'm generally interested in modes of self-presentation and body decorations are a fascinating aspect of fashion. I find that most young women (I would not broach the subject with a man I didn't know fairly well) are quite willing to discuss their choice of patterns, their motivation and the experience itself, if an old person makes a favourable remark. Well, tattoos are intended for display, so it's not rude to notice them - and maybe admiration is unexpected.

In the middle ages, or whenever I worked there, we had the odd tattoo show up in the laboratory, having been surgically removed. People got them during and after the Korean war, when it was a fad, and later were ashamed. Mostly names of then-lovers to which current spouses objected. Of course, removal of any area of skin was problematic; 'SW' would heal, but 'SWAN' might require a graft; 'SASKATCHEWAN'* was right out of the question and would have to be scoured and peeled off - a more lengthy and painful process than getting them in the first place - or else covered with a denser tattoo. I wonder what those Brazilian football players do when they lose their faith - have Jesus turned into Chiquita Banana?

(*Easy challenge: reconstruct the joke.)

Skip wrote:I can't be around people with musical accents - Welsh, Scottish or Caribbean - for more than a day without picking it up myself. They might think I'm making fun of them, but I'm just a natural mimic.

I went to Holland many years ago, where I met a bar tender with a Geordie accent. It's from an area so far north of England, Tyne and Wear, that it sits just below Northumberland, the region that borders Scotland. It's a strong accent that, when thick, is hard to understand. I asked him how long he had been away from home. He said he had never left Holland! It turned out he'd learned his English working alongside a Geordie bartender and that's why he spoke the way he did. His Geordie accent was faultless but he was Dutch.

Do you play an instrument? Or sing? I think being good at accents might have something to do with having a 'musical' ear. You're learning the 'music' of a language. It's also a fact that modulation in accents diminishes in city dialects. City accents are flatter, in tone, sometimes approaching monotone. I always say, where there are rolling hills, you'll get rolling accents, with more melodious notes to them, like with the standard Welsh accent. The Cardiff accent is different, flatter, being a city, and the North Welsh accent can start to sound more like the Liverpuddlian accent as you approach the border with England.

Skip wrote:In North America, what we identify as an English accent is probably not anyone's regional speech; it's BBC English: subdued, rational, modulated, civilized. In fact, some people who were not born that side of the ocean cultivate that accent to make themselves more attractive. It works, too - beats the hell out of American chirping (F) and grunting (M), or Canadian up-talk?

What's Canadian up-talk?

Here the clearest form of spoken English is RP, 'received pronunciation'. It was developed in the early years of BBC broadcast over 'the wireless', as the most easily understood form of spoken English, clear to understand the world over, particularly in the commonwealth countries, where the World Service broadcast.

It was 'developed' as, or took advantage of, a form of English spoken with the most open vowel sounds. It wasn't particularly the way posh people spoke, either. What common folk had in common with posh folk was that both 'strained' their vowel sounds. Take the word 'pound'. It contains one of the hardest vowel sounds (-the diphthong, 'ow') to pronounce correctly (-in a purist sense. Very few people can do it, according to a voice production teacher I worked with, years ago). It also happens to be the most open, round vowel sound. Posh people stretch it, to sound like 'pined', cockneys flatten it to sound like 'panned'... This would be so much easier if I could just be saying it, and you hearing it... But RP 'teaches' the sound to be open and round, as in the word 'round', funnily enough, or 'cow'. Actors can list RP as one of their accents/dialects and it was believed to help sell products, until the modern world caught up with regionality,

It's funny how in the early years of cinema, Hollywood heroes sounded English, now it's villains who tend to sound English. Change, the great dictator.

Skip wrote:I'm generally interested in modes of self-presentation and body decorations are a fascinating aspect of fashion. I find that most young women (I would not broach the subject with a man I didn't know fairly well) are quite willing to discuss their choice of patterns, their motivation and the experience itself, if an old person makes a favourable remark. Well, tattoos are intended for display, so it's not rude to notice them - and maybe admiration is unexpected.

My son wants a "tat". So the plan is to make him watch a series called "Tattoo Fixers", where stupid young things, who've had stupid dumb tattoos, or those who are older and inked, regretting their choice of design, visit the 'fixers' to have something new, and splendid, drawn over the top. It's a dicey move on my part: my intention to show him that whilst people change, it's harder with tattoos, and that he should wait until he is older, wiser and above all sure of what he wants, may be crushed under the weight of the fact that bigger, better tattoos can replace the ones you have misgivings about. He may come away thinking "I can always get a do-over."

ForCruxSake wrote: Do you play an instrument? Or sing?

Alas, no. I've tried several instruments but learning to master them was too much work. I can hear it and appreciate it - I can't reproduce it.

I think being good at accents might have something to do with having a 'musical' ear.

Yes. A cousin of mine came from Europe with his wife, a music teacher. For him, learning English was labouriously making vocabulary lists and studying grammar, embarrassed to open his mouth; she just picked it up out of the air.

It's also a fact that modulation in accents diminishes in city dialects.

Interesting. I suppose it's because people moving to cities need to make themselves understood (and not mocked) by all sorts, from other places. Also, the children will be taught all in one school, by teachers who went to an urban college. Rural regions used to be isolated; big cities are mixing bowls. Now, I imagine, everyone, city and country, is somewhat influenced by television.

What's Canadian up-talk?

Raising the ends of sentences, as in a question. V. annoying, though not so much as the way all young women seem to talk since they started whitening the hell out of their teeth, and stopped having to give complete sentence oral answers in classrooms. Mainly, I think, it's simply that children no longer expected to make any effort to be comprehensible; girls keep their baby voices into adulthood.
Of course, I have a very low annoyance threshold in matters linguistic - all the more so, since my auditory ossicles have begun falling prey to arthritis.
I understand maybe one word in ten of telephone communications with service personnel: all young people (not just the ones in India) speak very fast, very high, and run their words together, with no logic to the phrasing; no punctuation.
Sometimes I have to stop them and say: I...do...not...understand...you. Please...speak...slowly. And they try, usually, but it doesn't last.

Here the clearest form of spoken English is RP, 'received pronunciation'. It was developed in the early years of BBC broadcast over 'the wireless', as the most easily understood form of spoken English, clear to understand the world over, particularly in the commonwealth countries, where the World Service broadcast.

And we really, really appreciate it. They're the only television programs where we can actually follow the dialogue or narration. It doesn't hurt that the programme is usually about something I actually want to know. (Or baking. I never bake; just enjoy watching other people make things I can't eat.)
Some of the older Canadian actors also learned how to project to "the cheap seats", and are all the better for it.

Skip wrote:My son wants a "tat". So the plan is to make him watch a series called "Tattoo Fixers", where stupid young things, who've had stupid dumb tattoos, or those who are older and inked, regretting their choice of design, visit the 'fixers' to have something new, and splendid, drawn over the top. It's a dicey move on my part: my intention to show him that whilst people change, it's harder with tattoos, and that he should wait until he is older, wiser and above all sure of what he wants, may be crushed under the weight of the fact that bigger, better tattoos can replace the ones you have misgivings about. He may come away thinking "I can always get a do-over."

He's going to find out anyway; better he not hear it from the youthful ignorami who make light of the potential problems.
Do emphasize the pain and the risk of infection and disfigurement.
I suppose I would allow a small, neutral, unobtrusive one as a trial. Glad it didn't come up when my kids were 14: the arguments were about piercing.

Skip wrote:A cousin of mine came from Europe with his wife, a music teacher. For him, learning English was labouriously making vocabulary lists and studying grammar, embarrassed to open his mouth; she just picked it up out of the air.

He 'thought' language, she heard it.

Skip wrote:

ForCruxSake wrote:It's also a fact that modulation in accents diminishes in city dialects.

Interesting. I suppose it's because people moving to cities need to make themselves understood (and not mocked) by all sorts, from other places. Also, the children will be taught all in one school, by teachers who went to an urban college. Rural regions used to be isolated; big cities are mixing bowls. Now, I imagine, everyone, city and country, is somewhat influenced by television.

It was explained to me by the voice production teacher I worked with, a wonderful man called Arthur Cain, but I can't remember it in detail. It had something to do with the pace of city life and the mix of cultures. Flattening makes understanding easier, but it can depersonalise the voice, too. Reflecting that city living turns us into robots!

Skip wrote:

ForCruxSake wrote:What's Canadian up-talk?

Raising the ends of sentences, as in a question. V. annoying, though not so much as the way all young women seem to talk since they started whitening the hell out of their teeth, and stopped having to give complete sentence oral answers in classrooms. Mainly, I think, it's simply that children no longer expected to make any effort to be comprehensible; girls keep their baby voices into adulthood.

The Americans also inflect up at the end of sentences. I think you've developed that alongside them. I'm only just learning the subtle differences between Canadian and American (standard, whatever that means?!) accents. It's all based on the Toronto accent, though. My sister-in-law prononces 'about' similarly to the Scottish, 'aboot', that's one of the sounds that seems distinct between you and them.

Skip wrote:Of course, I have a very low annoyance threshold in matters linguistic - all the more so, since my auditory ossicles have begun falling prey to arthritis.
I understand maybe one word in ten of telephone communications with service personnel: all young people (not just the ones in India) speak very fast, very high, and run their words together, with no logic to the phrasing; no punctuation.
Sometimes I have to stop them and say: I...do...not...understand...you. Please...speak...slowly. And they try, usually, but it doesn't last.

Ahhhh aging. But it can bring with it arthritis of the ear???

There was a marvellous piece in The Guardian newspaper by the actress Miriam Margolyes, about aging with disgrace. She speaks of the toilet troubles that come with age, incontinence and loose bowels. One day, she says, she was so desperate to go to the 'loo' that she ended up walking up to a strangers house. She knocked on a door and I said, "I’m terribly sorry but I’m going to ask to have a shit in your toilet, is that all right?" The owner looked at her for a minute and then said: I think I recognise you, are you Miriam Margolyes? She replied," Yes, I am … does that make it better or worse?”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/201 ... are_btn_fb

It's a funny article... but it had me thinking consciously for the first time, as to what is happening to me now. My father died when I was very young, so I only have my mother to look at to see how I will age. I think that subconsciously I've been watching her for the last five years, to see what the hereditary disorders might be. I think so far I've narrowed it down to knee replacements and loud throat clearing, but not incontinence.

Skip wrote:

ForCruxSake wrote:Here the clearest form of spoken English is RP, 'received pronunciation'. It was developed in the early years of BBC broadcast over 'the wireless', as the most easily understood form of spoken English, clear to understand the world over, particularly in the commonwealth countries, where the World Service broadcast.

And we really, really appreciate it. They're the only television programs where we can actually follow the dialogue or narration. It doesn't hurt that the programme is usually about something I actually want to know. (Or baking. I never bake; just enjoy watching other people make things I can't eat.)

You're welcome

Skip wrote:Some of the older Canadian actors also learned how to project to "the cheap seats", and are all the better for it.

I grew up with old Hollywood movies, so different from all that was British, and so loved a bit of an American twang. Carry Grant's voice did my head in a little, but 'Arsenic and Old Lace' is still one of my all-time favourite movies.

Skip wrote:

ForCruxSake wrote: My son wants a "tat". So the plan is to make him watch a series called "Tattoo Fixers"...

He's going to find out anyway; better he not hear it from the youthful ignorami who make light of the potential problems.
Do emphasize the pain and the risk of infection and disfigurement. I suppose I would allow a small, neutral, unobtrusive one as a trial. Glad it didn't come up when my kids were 14: the arguments were about piercing.

I would have no problems with piercing, if done in sensible places. It's all so much more sophisticated than when I was young. He winds me up about having his tongue split! I tell him it might impede his chances of a career in law, because you can't hide that under the sleeve, or trouser leg, of the suit, or gown, you might be expected to wear.

M'lord speaks with forked tongue....

I suppose they're so desperate to stand out that they all blend in. Poor mites! In spite of the demands and commands, the political and social upheavals, it was easier to be young in the 50's and 60's. More fun, too, if their sullen little faces are anything to judge by. My generation both made and gobbled up the best time of the world.

I was kidding about the arthritis. Close enough, though: hearing loss in old age is generally due to calcification of those three tiny bones.
You may also look forward to cataracts and macular degeneration of the eyes, arthritis in hands and feet, flaking aorta and flabby veins, runny eyes and nose, colon and nose polyps, slow reflexes, falling-out teeth and hair, pain before you even get out of bed and do anything to deserve it, an interesting menu of carcinomas and this weird thing I now have where the grooves in my knuckle bones are worn down, so the tendons in the back some fingers pop out of their grooves and I can't move those fingers until I massage them back again.
Fortunately, one of the good things my generation did was send many of our kids to medical school and pay lots of tax to build hospitals.