On 03 Apr 2008, Kate M Bunting wrote: > Dianne wrote: > > Point was simply that it would be harder for an American to distinguish > > between regional British accents, as it would be hard for someone from > > England to distinguish between say, Michigan and Ohio. > > and Susan Carroll-Clark replied : > > >Those states in particular are a really good case in point. There isn't > >an Ohio accent--there are three or four, at least. There's the > >Cleveland/Northern accent (fairly nasal, somewhat akin to the typical > >Michigan accent), the Appalachian accent (SE part of the state, akin to > >West Virginia and eastern Kentucky), and two Midwestern accents --one a > >little more generic than the other (which involves people saying "warsh" > >for wash and "crick" for creek). > > So are there several varieties of Yorkshire accent, as it's a large county > (my mother came from East Yorks.). My original point was that Northern > English speech in general is very different from Cockney (working-class > London) speech. Even I can tell the difference between a New York and a Deep > South accent!
I may not be able to tell a Tennessee accent from a Kentucky accent, but I also know better than to call something a Kentucky accent when I can't tell the difference. I've noticed a disturbing tendency among some Americans to call all british accents "Cockney", which bothers me no end. I've even heard the "pirate accent" (which is descended from Robert Newton's Cornish accent in Treasure Island) described as "Cockney".... -- Chris Bertani www.goblinrevolution.org/costumes _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
