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Latest comment: 7 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
I grew up in Italy with American mother and went to a British school. In the US I am told I have a British accent in in the UK I am told I have an american one. Would this no be a mid-atlantic accent come by naturally, as opposed to an affectation? I know many other TCKs with similar accents. Pearl2525 (talk) 14:55, 20 May 2012 (UTC)Reply
Mid-Atlantic accents are certainly not all affectations. Many fluent non-native English speakers have a slightly odd mixture of AE and BE pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. Dutch people invariably sound mid-Atlantic to BE speakers, for example. --Ef80 (talk) 18:24, 31 August 2012 (UTC)Reply
Further, many North Americans who live for decades in the UK, and Britons who have lived for decades here, innocently acquire a mid-Atlantic accent from simple immersion. As a linguist I've reached a point where I can reliably identify these individuals. (Interestingly, it's not the same accent; counter-immersion effects Britons differently from North Americans.)
I'm also the product of a Scottish family, who has consumed a great deal of British media all my life but was raised in North America, and my own accent drifts dramatically depending on context. I often deliver one-liners in Scotified English; every so often I'll drop a comment in full-on Scots; and when angry I can go either Scot-wards or American redneck, depending on what/who has nettled me. Etc.
My point is, this fate can befall an individual organically. Mid-Atlantic speech isn't uniquely a product of pretense. Laodah21:48, 2 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
This is a paragraph from an older version of this article, shouldn't we reinstate some of the names of notable people which are no longer included? Some of them seem eligible while others don't.
With the evolution of talkies in the late 1920s, voice was first heard in motion pictures. It was then that the majority of audiences first heard Hollywood actors speaking predominantly in Mid-Atlantic English. Some had been raised with it, many adopted it starting out in the theatre, and others simply affected it to help their careers. Among those from Hollywood's Golden Era of the 1930s associated with the accent are British-born Cary Grant,[3] and Americans Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Joan Crawford and Irene Dunne.
British expatriates John Houseman, Henry Daniell, Anthony Hopkins, Elizabeth Taylor, Camilla Luddington, and Angela Cartwright exemplified the accent,[citation needed] as did Americans Eleanor Parker, Grace Kelly, Jane Wyatt, Eartha Kitt, Agnes Moorehead, Patrick McGoohan, William Daniels, Vincent Price, Clifton Webb, John McGiver, Jonathan Harris, Roscoe Lee Browne,[4] and Richard Chamberlain, and Canadians Christopher Plummer, John Vernon, Norma Shearer, and Lorne Greene.
Orson Welles notably spoke in a mid-Atlantic accent in the 1941 film Citizen Kane, as did many of his co-stars, such as Joseph Cotten.[citation needed]
Figures outside the entertainment industry known for speaking Mid-Atlantic English include William F. Buckley, Jr.,[5] Gore Vidal, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George Plimpton,[6][7] Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Wallis Simpson, Norman Mailer,[8] Diana Vreeland,[9] Maria Callas, Cornelius Vanderbilt IV,[10] and Brad Friedel.[11] The monologuist Ruth Draper's recorded "The Italian Lesson" gives an example of this East Coast American upper class diction of the 1940s.
I can tell for sure that Grace Kelly spoke with a Mid-Atlantic accent both in To catch a Thief and Dial M for Murder. Agnes Moorehead used the accent on-stage, notably as Endora in Bewitched, but also off-stage as is the case with Clifton Webb. I think they should be reinstated, even though a printed reference can't be found.
The matter becomes more difficult for Crawford, for instance, who didn't use the accent for Baby Jane, but did she use it in some other film? Also Fairbanks Jr seemed to be losing it later in life, some of the rs at the end of words making a come back (compare the two interviews: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbbUJvE4OQw, you can hear the accent clearly as he recites Kipling but also in his casual conversation; and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt5avAEDE7c). Elizabeth Taylor used it for Cleopatra but never seemed to use it in real life, at least from the 1970s onward, you can tell from her many interviews and the same goes for Jane Wyatt.
Should we reinstate some of them, citing some films where they can be heard using the accent, or should we just leave them out?
Hopkins is British and was too old to be a case comparable to Cary Grant, so it's only right he was dropped out of the list.
Furthermore, can someone find some reference for some of them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.48.29.175 (talk) 11:27, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 8 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Would it be frivolous to discuss how this type of accent has, more recently, been used as a parody or as part of a charicature of affected status? I'm thinking, for instance, of a character from Family Guy with the jutting jaw and an almost incomprehensible ivy league accent... And on The Simpsons--it was perhaps Sideshow Bob's first starring role--when Bob went to prison he was greeted by someone in That Accent asking him to join the prison rowing team "against the Harvard Alums." PurpleChez (talk) 14:13, 17 February 2013 (UTC)Reply
"I'm thinking, for instance, of a character from Family Guy with the jutting jaw and an almost incomprehensible ivy league accent". That would be James William Bottomtooth III. Sideshow Bob is also a good example.
Latest comment: 8 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
This article cannot make up its mind whether Mid-Atlantic English is an accent or a dialect, two very different things - it seems to think it is both sometimes - and is woolly about whether it is alive or dead. I am not qualified to do it, but someone needs to rewrite this article, clarifying these points. I have rewritten clumsy passages here and there to make them read better, but have limited my edits to that. --P123cat1 (talk) 13:55, 5 May 2014 (UTC)Reply
This is a cultivated accent: a particular learned "sound system." The word dialect implies not just sound, but other differentiating language features like grammatical structure, vocabulary, etc. I've moved the article to reflect this in its name. Wolfdog (talk) 15:13, 8 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
By “cultivated” do you mean in the socially refined/ upper-crust sense, or that it is an accent cultivated by the speaker, e.g. through elocution? In any case, the description might apply to American speakers, but not the other way; as mentioned before, British pop/ rock stars often speak/ sing in an affected “Americanized” accent, described as “mid-Atlantic”,but it has no sense of heightened status or upper class attached to it by British listeners, and may actually be seen as striking against status - Mick Jagger was brought up to speak with an RP accent (there is footage of him on TV as a teenager with his father, and h used it in later debates on music and morality, etc.), but first adopted a “Cockney”-tinged accent to appear more working class, to which was added American cadences, in emulation of the U.S. artists and music he admired. In an interesting twist, it is perfectly exemplified by the characters of the band in “Spinal Tap”, who have uncannily synthesized the “Cockney”/ “American” idiom of so many British performers over the years. Jock123 (talk) 17:15, 19 January 2016 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 8 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion
The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the move request was: No consensus to move after over two weeks and a relisting. I will make sure disambiguation hat notes are in place to handle any confusion. Cúchullaint/c14:51, 23 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
Mid-Atlantic accent → Transatlantic accent – "Mid-Atlantic accent" is obviously one common name for this variety of English, but it is too easily conflated with Mid-Atlantic American English, which the academic literature most commonly (and so confusingly, relative to this page) calls the "Mid-Atlantic dialect". Even more to the point, "Transatlantic accent" gets 47,300 Google hits, while "Mid(-)atlantic accent", with or without a hyphen, gets only 15,900 hits. The name "Transatlantic accent" is clear, prevalent, and unambiguous. Wolfdog (talk) 12:58, 5 December 2015 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 12:57, 14 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
Where is the evidence of the use of this alternative name? If anything, "Middle Atlantic" still seems to refer to "Mid-Atlantic American English." See [1], [2]. Wolfdog (talk) 00:45, 8 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
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Latest comment: 5 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Hello - I do not agree that the mid-atlantic accent is always consciously acquired. Before I moved from the American Midwest to England at the age of 29, the letter "t" was soft, more like a "d" sound. I hadn't known that about myself but gradually I amended my speech to make myself better understood. A perfect example would be that sometimes people thought I was saying "kiddies" instead of "kitties." Ten years on, my speech is as neutral as possible, partly by conditioning but mostly that I'm picking things up from the English people around me. To say consciously acquired would be to suggest that I wanted to talk this way.
So, I did read somewhere this is common for people who have lived in at least two different Anglophone countries for a long period of time. As soon as I find it, I'm deleting the phrase from this entry.
The "soft" 't' you are referring to is an unaspirated 't' which can sound like a 'd' to people who are not use to distinguishing an aspirated 't' from an unaspirated 't'. It is also called a "tenuis t" or a "plain t". The confusion between how to spell "Tao" ("Dao" or "Tao") is due to Chinese distinguishing the two 't' sounds as separate, with the word "Tao" happening to be using the unaspirated sound (it is neither a 'd' nor an English 't', but an unaspirated 't').
Aspiration has a longer unvoiced duration (the time between the consonant being pronounced and the beginning of the hum of the vowel that follows it; this very short quiet space has a sound similar to a breathy 'h') than a unaspirated consonant.
Unaspirated 't's are becoming increasingly common in American English. Like you, many English speakers who use a lot of unaspirated 't's in their speech will often consciously aspirate it in an attempt to make their speech clearer. Mid-Atlantic accent does the same by consciously aspirating all 't' sounds. — al-Shimoni (talk) 23:30, 31 May 2016 (UTC)Reply
Just because you live in England and unconsciously changed your speech patterns does not mean you have a mid-Atlantic accent nor does it mean that all mid-Atlantics are not consciously acquired.Griessinthewood (talk) 01:09, 21 August 2016 (UTC)Reply
Are you really trying to claim that no one ever grew up hearing this spoken in their homes and learned it naturally? What if one is a grandparent that already "acquired" it--Does that mean that one's children and grandchildren have to consciously re-acquire it with each generation even if they grew up hearing it every day? That seems a bit absurd. 2606:A000:8948:A100:8DB7:F8B6:2A4B:4A2 (talk) 04:11, 9 February 2019 (UTC)Reply
Merger thoughts regarding Locust Valley lockjaw, Boston Brahmin accent, and American Theater Standard
Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion
At (admittedly) quick glance, this page can easily merge with a few other articles that all appear to discuss cultivated (i.e. artificial or learned) accents of American English associated generally with theatre, wealth, and/or higher education in the early 1900s (all now moribund), and all involving a quite similar pronunciation system that blends perceived American and British speech features. I'd like to go through these various pages' references in the next few days and determine whether the sources in fact show any real connections. I'm wondering whether these relatively small (and not super citation-laden) articles could simply be combined, each having sections on a single page. As these articles currently stand, their similarities seem stronger than than their distinctions. Do others share my sentiments? Wolfdog (talk) 02:24, 1 June 2016 (UTC)Reply
Looking through the different articles and their sources, I see that they all claim many of the same speakers (William F. Buckley and Katharine Hepburn, for example, come up again and again) with little distinction made between the accents in terms of actual phonology. They are likely different regional names for a similar upper-class affected standard throughout the Northeast. The most information (though still scant) seems to be on the mid-Atlantic accent, where I will begin merging the other pages soon. Wolfdog (talk) 01:49, 3 June 2016 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 8 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
I hate to slap an 'internationalise' tag on this, but the term, mid or trans Atlantic was just as much used in UK as in the US. The term in the UK, especially of people in broadcasting or entertainment, was used to describe a sometimes seemingly conscious adoption of US sounds, intonation etc., though people with 'a foot in each camp', appeared to come by it more naturally. Just as mid-Atl might have sounded 'classier' to US listeners, the UK form sounded livelier to UK ears than RP.
The article at the moment seems pretty cruel to US users, while I am sure this accent is unlike any US regional accent (and of course unlike any British one), was it not the accent of a conscious social elite, probably absorbed in nursery, private school and club. It is still the case today in the UK that the aristocacry, inc some royals, speak in an accent of their own making, which wouldn't get them a job reading the weather. Just out of interest would Jackie Kennedy have been considered as being a mid-Atl speaker? Pincrete (talk) 20:13, 12 June 2016 (UTC)Reply
@Pincrete: Interesting observations. Do you know of any sources that confirm this UK perspective? Certainly the UK royal accent is more RP than Mid-Atlantic, right? I can't imagine the queen being described as using more conscious US features in her speech than the average English citizen. As for Jackie Kennedy, the article indeed cites a source that describes her accent as mid-Atlantic. Wolfdog (talk) 17:22, 7 September 2016 (UTC)Reply
@Wolfdog:, only source is my own memory! I think the term, and accent is less common now in UK. In the early days of TV into late '60s, popular programmes were often hosted by mid-Atlanticers, some natural, some conscious. Her Majesty certainly isn't mid-Atlantic, the only reason I think I mentioned 'nobility', is that ruling elites sometimes develop their own distinctive speech, in the UK this is a sort of 'swallowed' not very clear English all of their own, (think Charles rather than Liz!). Jackie Kennedy may have been the US-equiv, a style of speech that conveys class origins, rather than regional origins. Pincrete (talk) 18:12, 7 September 2016 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
The article as written seems to be mixing some concepts, or at least not clarifying them. There is an implication that if an American speaks with a non-rhotic accent, then it is a Mid-Atlantic accent. This is, of course, wholly false. Many of the regional accents that developed across the eastern seaboard and nearly the entire south (east of Texas) during the later 19th century were non-rhotic. And despite the regression over the course of the 20th century to rhotic accents, non-rhotic accents persist in many areas, particularly the Northeastern seaboard. But all of these are distinct from the artificially developed Mid-Atlantic accent (though one could argue this artificial accent probably influenced some of the native accents to a degree).
I agree that the differentiation may not be clear enough. This might simply be a matter of better wording. I will try to make some adjustments. Wolfdog (talk) 17:22, 7 September 2016 (UTC)Reply
I took the liberty of correcting "non-rhotic accept" to "non-rhotic accent" when I couldn't find any linguistic "accepts!" Also, (so I might net some karma from taking time to look it up) one has a rhotic accent if they pronounce the /r/ in butter and hard, and non-rhotic if they don't (with some exceptions). See Rhoticity in English for more info. Peacedance (talk) 21:52, 15 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 8 years ago12 comments8 people in discussion
The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the move request was: Not moved. Consensus is that there is no problem with the current page, it follows common usage, and a hatnote can lead people to the article on the mid-Atlantic region of America. — Amakuru (talk) 22:06, 20 September 2016 (UTC)Reply
Mid-Atlantic accent → Transatlantic accent – I'm interested in a fuller discussion on this topic. I acknowledge that both names are somewhat common, but "Transatlantic accent" gets 86,300 Google hits, while "Mid-Atlantic accent" gets only 16,800 hits. Even if this were not true, we are advised that when there are multiple common names and "the most common has problems, it is perfectly reasonable to choose one of the others". My major concern is that someone coming upon "Mid-Atlantic accent" could be easily be confused, looking for what Wikipedia fully calls Mid-Atlantic American English. I feel a hatnote alone is not helpful. (The hatnote currently reads "For the mid-Atlantic dialect of American English, see..." which for lay readers and linguists alike hardly clarifies the two ideas. Both are arguably "dialects of American English".)
Within the USA, the term "Mid-Atlantic" generally refers to a section of the country on the Eastern Coast about halfway between the North and South: the Mid-Atlantic states. Both articles, by the way, have strong national ties to the USA, so there is good reason to keep this possibility for misinterpretation in mind. To mean specifically "across the Atlantic Ocean", the term "Transatlantic" is clearer and already prevalent; this is how the word is already used in both proper names and common phrases like Transatlantic Pictures, Transatlantic Records, Transatlantic crossing, Transatlantic flight, Transatlantic relations, etc. etc. Transatlantic accent as a term is now even backed by some of the sources currently on the WP page. Wolfdog (talk) 21:03, 13 September 2016 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. I don't support this move. There are various accent pages for the various accents in the northeast. Mid-atlantic American English has it's own wikipedia page. Mid-Atlantic is a wide used term for this accent. It should stay as is. Jeremykcarter (talk) 21:16, 13 September 2016 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. I've always heard it referred to as the Mid-Atlantic accent in the UK. "Transatlantic" means "across the Atlantic" (i.e. American, as far as we Brits are concerned). "Mid-Atlantic" means somewhere in between, which is exactly what it is. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:49, 14 September 2016 (UTC)Reply
I disagree with your last sentence (especially from a U.S. viewpoint), and I think you're only confirming my understanding that "Transatlantic" can mean "sounding somewhat British to American ears" OR "sounding somewhat American to British ears." However, if Mid-Atlantic is the most popular term in the UK (any sources to confirm this?), then I can't argue with that. Wolfdog (talk) 21:55, 15 September 2016 (UTC)Reply
The main problem is probably that the article is trying to deal with two separate accents: American with British overtones (apparently referred to as either Transatlantic or Mid-Atlantic) and British with American overtones (in my experience referred to pretty much exclusively as Mid-Atlantic). -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:00, 16 September 2016 (UTC)Reply
OK, but, reading above, you can see that I believe the hatnote does not effectively deal with ambiguities. I give my reason why that proposed solution is inadequate. Wolfdog (talk) 21:49, 15 September 2016 (UTC)Reply
Weak oppose (somewhat per Necrothesp): The current title does a better job of conveying the notion that the primary topic of the article is not an accent that exists in natural reality. A person can have a bi-continental background and thus exhibit some characteristics of both British and American accents, but that is not what this article is (primarily) about. This article is about the accent of a fictional mid-Atlantic location. As the article says, the topic is an accent that is "not a vernacular American accent native to any location, but an affected set of speech patterns whose 'chief quality was that no Americans actually spoke it unless educated to do so.'" —BarrelProof (talk) 16:35, 16 September 2016 (UTC)Reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
A classic Mid-Atlantic accent in film was the "lockjaw" speech pattern affected by Joanna Barnes in her portrayal of anti-Semitic, pretentious, spoiled rich socialite, Gloria Upson in the 1958 film, Auntie Mame. Barnes' entertaining parody earned her a Golden Globe nomination for "New Star of the Year." As a stockbroker's daughter born and raised in a Boston socialite family, as well as educated at Milton Academy and then a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Smith College. Barnes was naturally familiar with the accent which she assumed for many of her film and television roles.
One of the classic Mid-Atlantic accents on television was the "lockjaw" speech pattern affected by Jim Backus in his portrayal of millionaire Thurston Howell III on the situation comedy Gilligan's Island.
In 1983's film, Trading Places, Dan Aykroyd's character Louis Winthorpe III affected a Mid-Atlantic accent as he said of Eddie Murphy's Billy Ray Valentine, "He was wearing my Harvard tie--can you believe it? My Harvard Tie! Like, oh sure, HE went to Harvard!"
David Tench (played by Drew Forsythe), who was a fictional animated Australian TV host from David Tench Tonight, often used a transatlantic accent. Although, most of the time, he had a cultivated Australian accent which vacillated into the transatlantic accent.
Harry Shearer's vocal portrayal of Mr. Burns, Kelsey Grammer's vocal portrayal of Sideshow Bob, and Dan Castellaneta's vocal portrayal of Sideshow Mel in The Simpsons.
Jon Lovitz spoke in a highly theatrical Mid-Atlantic accent for his character Master Thespian on Saturday Night Live.
Tabitha St. Germain uses a Mid-Atlantic accent for the voice of Rarity in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
For her role as Amelia Earhart, Amy Adams spoke with a Mid-Atlantic accent in Night at the Museum 2 (2009), probably to give the character a confident air but would otherwise seem an odd choice for a portrayal of the famous flier who was a "midwesterner" - born (and spent her first twelve years) in Aitchison, Kansas, next five years in Des Moines, Iowa, and high school in Chicago, Illinois. Film clips of the real "tomboy" Earhart reveal a midwestern accent.
Dodo Bellacourt in the series Another Period speaks with an exaggerated Mid-Atlantic accent.
Asian films dubbed into English in Hong Kong often use Mid-Atlantic accents, most notably the English-dubbed versions of many entries of the Godzilla series, numerous films produced by Shaw Brothers and most of Bruce Lee's filmography. The accent was used in a somewhat utilitarian fashion as the dubbing casts featured English-speaking ex-pats living in Hong Kong from many different countries including Britain, the U.S. and Australia, and the dubs themselves were meant for all English-speaking territories so a neutral accent was preferred.
Evan Peters employs a Mid-Atlantic accent on American Horror Story: Hotel (as James Patrick March, a ghostly serial killer from the 1920s), as does Mare Winningham (as March's accomplice, Miss Evers).
In the 2015 film The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Henry Cavill speaks with a Mid-Atlantic accent for his character Napoleon Solo.
In the 1994 Coen Brothers comedy, The Hudsucker Proxy, Amy Archer, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, is a brassy Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Manhattan Argus who employs (to comedic effect) a Mid-Atlantic accent."
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
The sound files used for the "Pronuncation of T" section is not mid-Atlantic. That's just a standard US accent. Why is it being used for that section? Zekkertx (talk) 13:04, 8 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 years ago24 comments3 people in discussion
I will state that I don't know a thing about the trans-Atlantic accent. So, I am confused. Currently, the article says that in this accent, "cot" and "cloth" have the same vowels; i.e. there is no lot–cloth split. However, at the time that trans-Atlantic English was developed, the lot–cloth split was a feature of Received Pronunciation. I can't find a source to support either side. Could anybody verify? Thank you.LakeKayak (talk) 03:50, 15 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
Both Edith Skinner's "Speak with Distinction" and Patricia Fletcher's "Classically Speaking" (considered the Bibles of American theatre speech) have "cloth" with [ɒ]. XSAMPA (talk) 22:12, 16 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
These sources are probably accurate. However, that still leaves the question of why did the "developers," per se, choose to use the lot vowel over of the thought vowel for the cloth set. The vowels used are the ones used in RP at the time the dialect was developed. And at that time, the cloth set typically uses the lot vowel in RP. After doing some research, I am only left to assume that it was a variable feature in RP at the time.LakeKayak (talk) 03:06, 17 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
It's possible that it's for the same reason that they chose [a] instead of [ɑ:] for the "bath" vowel--its sound is halfway between General American and regional British [æ] and RP [ɑ:]. RP has the same vowel in "bath" and father/palm. Using the [ɑ:] vowel for the broad "A" in bath, can't, etc. is extremely salient--it's one of the most noticeable differences that Americans notice when hearing RP. [a] on the other hand goes unremarked--in fact people from Canada and the Western US will sometimes pronounce /æ/ as [a] (Canadian shift and California vowel shift). (Conservative) General American pronounces the cloth/caught vowel /ɔ/ as [ɒ]. Far Western American English uses [ɑ] and [ɒ] interchangeably on bother/father/cot/caught, so the Mid-Atlantic spa [ɑ:], father [ɑ:], cot [ɒ] and cloth [ɒ] are all perfectly within acceptable parameters and would not sound accented. Caught, which uses [ɔː] may or may not be noticed. If "cloth" were pronounced as [ɔː] it might stick out a little bit (but not as much as say a New York [ɔə]. Midwestern Americans that speak a non-cot-caught merged dialect with no Northern cities vowel shift normally pronounce "cot" /kɑt/ as [ˈkɑt], cloth /klɔθ/ as [ˈklɒθ], and caught /kɔt/ as [ˈkɒt], so again only the THOUGHT words would be slightly accented. The developers also chose [oʊ] and explicitly say not to use the British [əʊ]. XSAMPA (talk) 04:44, 17 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
I can explain the use [oʊ] instead of [əʊ]. At the time, the British /oʊ/ was actually pronounced as [oʊ]. The fronted /oʊ/ is a phenomenon that occurred in the 20th century.
Also, to my knowledge, the General American vowel in "caught" is traditionally a higher vowel, closer to [ɔː] than [ɒ]. However, it seems that you and I may come from two different areas of the country which made lead to different areas of the country, which may lead to different understandings of "General American."LakeKayak (talk) 16:48, 17 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
@XSAMPA: If the two vowels were not distinguished from each other, why are they regarded as separate lexical sets? The section "from-rum distinction" reads the following:
In the Mid-Atlantic accent, instead of using the vowel in "strut", the "cloth" vowel is used in was, of, from, one, what, everybody, nobody, somebody, anybody.
Also, "Ah, short o and aw vowels" reads as follows:
Words in the cloth set are followed by the fricatives /f/, /θ/ and /s/.
As lexical set says, "[a] lexical set is a group of words that share a similar feature". What words that belong to the CLOTH set have in common is that in some accents, they belong to the THOUGHT set, but in other accents, they belong to the LOT set. Lexical sets are an invention of John Wells that have little to do with any particular accent, let alone an artificial, non-native one like the Mid-Atlantic accent. Mr KEBAB (talk) 06:04, 20 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Mr KEBAB: However, if the two lexical sets are not distinguished in the trans-Atlantic accent, why are we regarding them as separate vowel classes for this page in particular?LakeKayak (talk) 14:44, 20 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
@LakeKayak: Most likely because the LOT-CLOTH split is a feature of at least some speakers of General American; it's also a feature of conservative RP. It's relevant. Mr KEBAB (talk) 16:05, 20 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Mr KEBAB: I have no objection to mentioning the absence of the lot-cloth split. However, we could possibly change some instances where "cloth" appears to "cot".
For example, the following could be change:
In the Mid-Atlantic accent, instead of using the vowel in "strut", the "cloth" vowel is used in was, of, from, one, what, everybody, nobody, somebody, anybody.
It's true that some Northeasterners and Southerners realized the CLOTH vowel as something else, but accents close to General American (Western, Canadian, and Northern) have realize /ɔ/ as [ɑ] or [ɒ]. On the other hand the "cot" vowel is realized as:
Advanced Western US and Candian accent: [ɒ] (cot-caught merger combined with the Canadian shift which also affects the Western US and California vowel shift)
Boston accent: [ɒ] or [ɑ]
Modern RP: [ɒ]
If someone from those areas read the article, and saw that the "cloth" vowel is used for "cot" ['kʰɒt], cloth ['kʰlɒθ], watch ['wɒt͡ʃ], was ['wɒz], and ['noʊbɒdɪ] most would be thinking of the correct vowel: [ɒ]. But a Midwesterner seeing that the "cot" vowel is used for "watch" would mispronounce it in their head as ['wɑt͡ʃ], or even worse as ['wat͡ʃ]. A Westerner or Canadian would of course be indifferent to "cot", "cloth" because both are pronounced sometimes as [ɑ] and sometimes as [ɒ] ("watch" especially would be more often than not pronounced with [ɒ] by a Westerner.)
So in my opinion, it's much better to use the CLOTH example rather than the COT example. And it's just as correct, since in Mid-Atlantic
[ɒ] is used in cot/cloth/watch/was/nobody
[ɑ:] in father and palm
and [a] in dance and ask.
It's true that in some American accents, the "cloth" vowel is pronounced differently such as Southern and NYC but those accents are very far away from General American. Also note that phonemically the CLOTH/CAUGHT vowel is transcribed as /ɔ(:)/ for American English, but phonetically it is not pronounced like that. The old article (see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mid-Atlantic_accent&oldid=748202470 ) was clearer in my opinion, but people complained that it was being compared to too many other accents, so I had to removed those sections. It was as follows:
Mid-Atlantic distinguishes the vowels in "cot" and "caught", and merges the "cloth" set with "cot", rather than "caught"[1]. This is the same as in contemporary RP[2]. Most American dialects that distinguish the vowels in cot and caught, on the other hand use the "caught" vowel for the "cloth" set. Approximately half of all Americans can neither produce nor perceive a distinction between these vowels[3].
1 GA here refers to conservative General American speakers who do not have the cot-caught merger or any chain vowel shifts.2[ɔː] is only used by speakers of conservative varieties of Received Pronunciation such as Queen Elizabeth. Most modern day RP speakers use [ɒ].contribs) 02:29, 22 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
Are you sure? I'm pretty sure that Longman Pronunciation Dictionary prescribes /ɔː/ alongside /ɑː/ for the CLOTH words in General American. I don't have it with me at the moment, so I can't check myself... Mr KEBAB (talk) 02:40, 22 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
Note the LOT/PALM as well as the THOUGHT vowel in CLOTH words are considered General American pronunciations by the LPD, not just regionalisms. At least as far as I can remember, as I said I don't have access to the LPD right now, maybe you can check that.
When it comes to my personal opinion, I don't have one. The variety of General American I'm being taught to speak by my teacher has the cot-caught merger, and I can't always hear the distinction in General American. Compare that with RP/Estuary/Australian/New Zealand English, in which the difference is extremely audible (open(-mid), relatively short, weakly rounded vs. (close-)mid, relatively long, strongly rounded). Mr KEBAB (talk) 03:22, 22 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
What I meant was, that whereas the vowel is transcribed as /ɔː/ (notice the / / notation) phonemically, the phonetic realization for the American vowel in the Western and Northern US is not [ɔː] in America. [ɔː] would sound like the British pronunciation of CAUGHT, which is not how it is pronounced in America. In America, the phoneme /ɔː/ is pronounced phonetically (notice the [ ] notation), as [ɒ] or [ɑ]. An exception would be for NYC and the South and a few other areas which do not have a dialect close to General American. However, when transcribing it phonemically, it would be transcribed as /ɔː/ (and dictionaries use phonemic transcription.) If a Midwesterner with the Northern cities vowel shift reads that "watch" is pronounced with the "COT" vowel, they will think to themselves [a]. If they see "CLOTH", they will think [ɒ] (or [ɑ] if they have either the Northern cities vowel shift or the cot-caught merger. Even this is preferable to [a]. [ɑ] is much closer to [ɒ] than [a] is.) XSAMPA (talk) 03:45, 22 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
Maybe we're misunderstanding each other. Wells's CLOTH set (see lexical set) consists of words that are pronounced with /ɒ/ by many speakers and /ɔː/ by some other speakers. That's what I'm talking about. For instance, the word 'cloth' itself is pronounced /klɔːθ/ (with the THOUGHT vowel) by speakers with the LOT-CLOTH split and /klɒθ/ (with the LOT vowel) by speakers without the split. And, according to the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (written also by Wells), the /ɔː/ variant in CLOTH words (such as cloth, off, etc.), is a part of General American.
By the way, the contemporary standard British pronunciation of /ɔː/ is not at all [ɔː] but [ɔ̹˔ː] or even [oː] (a vowel that is more rounded and higher than the cardinal [ɔ]), and that has been the case for many decades. Mr KEBAB (talk) 04:31, 22 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
@XSAMPA: I can't hear the difference between the two audio files except for vowel length. Also, to my knowledge, the term "General American" is vague. Speakers of "General American" can still vary in phonological features. Also, I don't really know of [ɒ] is used in General American as the vowel in "cloth." For one, [ɒ] is not a stable vowel. In RP, /ɒ/ can be pronounced as high as [ɔ̝ː].LakeKayak (talk) 13:50, 22 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
@LakeKayak: "In RP, /ɒ/ can be pronounced as high as [ɔ̝ː]" - no, it can't. The RP /ɒ/ is [ɒ~ɑ] for older speakers and [ɔ] for younger speakers. It's the RP /ɔː/ that is rarely more open and less rounded than [ɔ̝ː]. Mr KEBAB (talk) 15:01, 22 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Where should information about the "Classical American accent" (Fletcher) or "Western Standard" (Skinner) be put? Lots of the examples of a "Mid-Atlantic" accent are actually the Classical American accent, such as Fraiser or "The Guiding Light". The "Classical American accent" is a rhotic or partially rhotic variety and sounds more American than the Mid-Atlantic/Eastern standard accent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by XSAMPA (talk • contribs) 23:17, 22 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
I don't think either term should be used. It only complicates the article for laymen. It would be easier to identify them as different varieties of the same accent.LakeKayak (talk) 17:29, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion
Why does this page, but virtually no other dialect page, have section after section of phonological explanation? Why does every split or merger merit its own section? Can't this all be compiled neatly under a single "Phonology" section? I'm also wondering why so much careful attention has been given to phonology (which is great, of course), and yet still no one can add a single citation here that shows the British perspective on the term "Mid-Atlantic accent", though Britons ensure me that the phrase is used in their own country to mean a British accent with American features. Wolfdog (talk) 12:56, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Wolfdog: I have replaced some of the sections with bullet points. Unfortunately, I was only able to do the vowel changes before r. It will take some time for the other sections to be replaced.LakeKayak (talk) 14:15, 30 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
I have decided to remove the section for the following reasons:
This vowel has no variation in American or British English that I am aware of.
This would exclude vowel differences before /l/, which is mentioned in the section "Distinctions before l" anyway.
The section may have been instated to mention the protruded rounding of the vowel, as opposed to compressed rounding. However, it seems that back vowels rarely encounter compressed rounding.
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I feel that this page seems to be too much of a guide on how to speak the Transatlantic accent, and that therefore the page may be losing its neutral point of view. In order to mimic the structure used on the other dialect pages, in essence, I am going have to redo the entire "Phonology section".LakeKayak (talk) 01:27, 14 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 years ago41 comments13 people in discussion
The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the move request was: Not Moved per Commonname. Three RMs in slightly over a year suggests that this one should be left alone unless overwhelming evidence to the contrary surfaces. Mike Cline (talk) 13:08, 1 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
Support move, but this has been proposed before without success. I don't think enough has changed since the last RM, but if you want to propose this, then by all means do so. ONR (talk) 12:01, 21 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Comment. Surely Transatlantic is more ambiguous than Mid-Atlantic? Transatlantic means "concerning countries on both sides of the Atlantic" or "relating to or situated on the other side of the Atlantic" whereas the Mid-Atlantic states is a defined area (as I write this I was expecting Mid-Atlantic states to be WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for Mid-Atlantic. The phrase Mid-Atlantic pertains more to the US than Transatlantic). Zarcadia (talk) 18:51, 21 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Comment. @Zarcadia: This page is about a blend of American and British English, hence the ambiguity where Mid-Atlantic can mean two things: this accent and Mid-Atlantic American English. This accent does relate to both sides of the Atlantic, by blending the features of American and British English. Therefore, the accent does fit the definition of the word transatlantic which you have provided.LakeKayak (talk) 20:38, 21 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Counterpoint. @Reb1981: While Mid-Atlantic is more widely used, it can be two different things: the Transatlantic accent and Mid-Atlantic American English. Labov et al. refer to the latter simply as Mid-Atlantic. The suggested move is solely to avoid ambiguity.
Weak Support, On futher review and consideration. I still go by what I have said before, however to help with ambiguity. I will go along with this, but Mid-Atlantic is still wildly used as opposed to the later. Reb1981 (talk) 22:02, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Weak support. On one hand, "Mid-Atlantic" is what I'm used to hearing (but this is not really my area, and I also live on that side of the pond where the Mid-Atlantic dialect is less prominent a topic), and it is a term that receives more hits on google scholar (3x) and google books (1.5x). On the other hand, "Transatlantic accent" seems to be more common on the web (see previous RM), and it nicely avoids the ambiguity, which, given the start of this discussion, apparently could not be handled with hatnotes to a sufficient standard of clarity. – Uanfala (talk)00:34, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Support. Unsurprisingly (see my past nomination), I still support this move. (1) "Transatlantic accent" is much more prevalent on Google than "Mid-Atlantic accent". (2) "Mid-Atlantic accent" can refer to either this page OR Mid-Atlantic American English (the regional accent of Philadelphia, Balitmore, etc.), making it unclear: i.e, ambiguous. The term "Transatlantic", on the other hand, does NOT allow for such ambiguity. Based it on its name, a "Transatlantic accent" could never be mistaken for a regional Philly accent. Therefore, the name "Transatlantic accent" is prevalent and unambiguous. Wolfdog (talk) 21:41, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Oppose Mid-atlantic is the more used term for this accent. Many of the sources also use 'mid-atlantic.' Even many dialect coaches call the accent mid-atlantic. Also, look above. This was decided as and oppose just a few months ago. And even a year before that it was opposed. Why does this need to be asked 2-3 times a year? Kevinfromtx (talk) 22:03, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Counterpoint. @Kevinfromtx: Also, I asked before moving the page because I thought there would be some controversy. Also, regardless of which one is used more, the name "Mid-Atlantic" is still ambiguous, meaning potentially two things: the Transatlantic accent and Mid-Atlantic American English. The sole purpose of the move to avoid ambiguity. And on top of that, as "Transatlantic accent" is not an original name, it wouldn't be unsafe to use it for the page.LakeKayak (talk) 02:21, 24 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
I agree with LakeKayak here. What is your proof that Mid-Atlantic is the more used term? I'm arguing it is not through a simple Google search. Also, as LakeKayak and I continue to try to argue, there is still a second reason to move the page: Mid-Atlantic is ambiguous; Transatlantic is not. So far, no one has been able to refute this. Wolfdog (talk) 02:36, 24 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Wolfdog: I am not arguing whether or not "Transatlantic" is used more. I am saying that is a commonly used synonym. For my argument, if "Transatlantic" were a name that we coined, I could see why it would be safe not to use it. I don't want to mislead anybody here.LakeKayak (talk) 21:37, 24 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Having the same proposal threetimes on the same talk page makes my life easier because I copy and paste my vote here: Oppose. Most of the article's sources use "Mid-Atlantic". The hatnote should deal with any ambiguities. I will notify previous participants as well. — AjaxSmack02:36, 24 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
The ambiguity issue continues to be problematic and not clearly solved by a simple hatnote. That's the point here. In previous discussion, editors tend to state their opposition and then walk away from the conversation permanently. We are trying to have a conversation here. The term "Mid-Atlantic accent" has two well-established meanings; we are presenting a more effective way to disambiguate the term by using a more or less (I'd argue more) common synonym. What is the opposing side's better solution? Wolfdog (talk) 17:42, 24 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
No, the term "Mid-Atlantic accent" has one well-established meaning. "Mid-Atlantic American English" is a creation of the Atlas of North American English and the article's only source is that work. The Mid-Atlantic accent article, on the other hand, presents a well-known topic with numerous citations, the overwhelming majority of which use the term "Mid-Atlantic". Comparing the relative weight of the two topics, there is no problem with the current situation with a hatnote header. — AjaxSmack23:09, 24 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Firstly, Labov et al. (p. 236) refer to a "Mid-Atlantic dialect region", not a "Mid-Atlantic accent". Saying that "naturally to call this accent a 'Mid-Atlantic accent' makes the most sense" is original research as it does not derive from the article's single source. Secondly, "Mid-Atlantic dialect" almost always refers to the blend of American and British English Pronunciation as seen in these Google Books results. Ditto for "Mid-Atlantic accent". In short, both of these terms refer almost exclusively to one thing. — AjaxSmack20:09, 26 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
@AjaxSmack: I see no reason for you to shout. This is uncivil. Labov et al. refer to the section as "Mid-Atlantic". They don't use the term "accent", "dialect region", or anything. I can't see how it is originally research to call Mid-Atlantic American English, a Mid-Atlantic accent. The accent of New York City is a New York accent. The accent of Boston is a Boston accent. The accent of the South is a Southern accent. So, therefore, by this convention, the accent of the Mid-Atlantic States would be a Mid-Atlantic accent.
Comment. @Derickchetter: The idea is to keep a neutral ground. In America, the term "Mid-Atlantic accent" is sometimes used for Mid-Atlantic American English. Therefore, the name "Mid-Atlantic accent" is ambiguous. The requested move is only for the sake of clearing up the ambiguity, which in Uanfala's words "could not be handled with hatnotes to a sufficient standard of clarity".LakeKayak (talk) 16:11, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. The above discussion demonstrates that the current name is the WP:COMMONNAME in reliable sources. It is also the only name used on the UK side of the pond - "transatlantic accent" is not used here. So per WP:RETAIN we shouldn't change it anyway. Hatnotes can clarify any confusion that may exist with Mid-Atlantic American English, over which this is a primary topic. — Amakuru (talk) 15:41, 28 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Side-note: @Derickchetter and Amakuru:: As an unrelated side-note, are there any sources you can find which show the British perspective on this accent? This would be very helpful for the article overall (regardless of the name we go with). I've been looking for British-based articles on this topic for a while now. Thanks. Wolfdog (talk) 18:16, 28 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
Latest comment: 7 years ago15 comments4 people in discussion
According to every dictionary the term transatlantic is an adjective and not a proper noun even when included with accent, as LakeKayak has stated. Just as prior example that I included on a revert. Webster states, crossing or extending across the Atlantic Ocean, example: a transatlantic cable. You can not use example as Mother Jones, which is a name and title of a person. Refer to https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transatlantic. Reb1981 (talk) 21:41, 22 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
"Mother Jones" is one of the sources on the page. The article uses the term "Transatlantic accent", capitalizing the initial t. My argument is not that "transatlantic" is a proper noun. My argument is that "Transatlantic accent" is a proper noun.
I am sorry, but just because another webpage uses it that way does not mean it is proper English. That would mean that we would have to capitalize transatlantic cable. That is per every dictionary I have looked up. How do you say if you follow my logic that you would captalize that too? In any case if you pull up it's same case I'm trying to explain southern accent does not need to be capitalized. Just as transatlantic accent. Reb1981 (talk) 22:58, 22 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
You have no evidence to say that accent names are not capitalized. In the vernacular, I think they may be used to interchangeably. Also, starting a sentence "I am sorry" is a little fresh.LakeKayak (talk) 21:17, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Seems pretty simple to me: "Transatlantic" in this case is clearly a proper noun. Proper nouns are capitalized. Sources agree with this. Why argue over it? It's not like the Republic falls over capital T's. Eggishorn(talk)(contrib)21:58, 24 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Eggishorn: We resolved the issue. The agreement was that both "Mid-Atlantic" and "Transatlantic" be capitalized consistently. Also, try to avoid saying that something "is clearly" something. It can be taken the wrong way too easily.LakeKayak (talk) 22:03, 24 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
@XSAMPA: Just so that we're on the same page, it seems that /juː/ is not recognized on the RP page (or any other dialect) as a separate phoneme. As RP, in particular, has a strong resistant to yod-dropping, if /juː/ were to be recognized as a separate phoneme on any dialect page, it would be RP. Therefore, it seems that the sound is realized as /j/ followed by /uː/. With this in mind, I don't think that /juː/ should be instated as a diphthong of the Transatlantic accent.LakeKayak (talk) 02:07, 6 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
@Mr KEBAB: I only used the word "phoneme" because the word "phoneme" was used on other dialect pages like New York English and General American. I only request for consistency from page to page. If the word in "phoneme" should not be used here, then we probably should change the word "phoneme" on the other pages. Either way, it's your call.LakeKayak (talk) 20:59, 14 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Does anyone know, beyond original research, the reason for the decline of the Mid-Atlantic accent? Scholars seem to agree that it declined sharply after WWII, but do they also have any strong theories about why? I can think of many sensible theories off the top of my head for this postwar change (aversion to British sounds, embracing of more "middle-America" patriotism, resistance to upper-class norms, etc.), but does anyone know what the scholarly research actually has to say? Wolfdog (talk) 13:36, 26 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Just my opinion but I rather doubt you will find a scholarly investigation of the decline as the reasons seem fairly obvious and it was really just an isolated fad. You can view its dying out as part of the larger trend that caused non-rhotic speech to mostly die out in America. --MC 141.131.2.3 (talk) 16:47, 10 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
What is the evidence that it was "just a fad"? Are you sure the mid-Atlantic accent wasn't in use for some decades of the 1800s? And what exactly is the source of "the larger trend that caused non-rhotic speech to die out in America"? I'd still like to know why this seemed to occur so abruptly right around the end of WWII. Wolfdog (talk) 22:35, 10 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 5 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
I recently made a couple of edits which Wolfdog asked to be discussed. The first was removing some plagiarism, changing
... but an affected set of speech patterns whose "chief quality was that no Americans actually spoke it unless educated to do so".
to
... but rather an affected set of speech patterns that are learned in order to appear cultured.
Obviously the quote cannot be included without explicit attribution. In this case I see no reason to include a quote at all, hence my edit. Wolfdog did not explain a reason for re-introducing the plagiarism (so I have removed that part again since it is a serious violation).
The other edit was changing the lead sentence from
The Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent, is a style of speech, once popular among educated classes in parts of the United States, that is intended to blend together the standard speech of both American English and British Received Pronunciation.
The original version using a phrase like "consciously acquired" seems a tad confusing for a lead sentence. This phrasing is fine for later in the article but for somebody unfamiliar with the topic reading the article for the first time one would probably have to read that a few times to understand what was meant. Additionally, the lead did not provide any insight as to who used this accent which made it a somewhat incomplete lead sentence. Wolfdog seems to dislike my choice of the word style. I am OK with choosing another word but I am unclear as to why that required reverting the whole thing.
@141.131.2.3: Hello. Since you are considering the presence of a citation but absence of in-text attribution a "serious violation" (I admittedly didn't read up on Wikipedia quoting policy before this talk), we certainly can do so. Honestly, however, I thought the quoted phrase itself was perfect as it stood: concise, straightforward, and "catchy" (which is why I verbatim quoted it to begin with). Next, I think "consciously acquired accent" is much more exact than "style of speech," which can vaguely seem to mean anything ranging from intonation to natural accent to vocal register to something else entirely. The page Style (sociolinguistics) defines "style" as "a set of linguistic variants with specific social meanings", so if the vagueness of the term can be avoided with a more precise term, this is preferable. As for your lead-sentence addition of "once popular among educated classes in parts of the United States," this does not need to be jam-packed into the first sentence, because all that information (with further detail and clarification) appears already in the larger lead section anyway, which presents the fuller reality that the "educated classes" are only one group that has typically used the accent. Wolfdog (talk) 22:24, 10 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Can't agree that this accent is always consciously acquired. If a child's parents and peers spoke this way, of course the child would do the same unconsciously. Are we really to believe that everyone had to consciously learn the accent with each succeeding generation even if their grandparents and parents had already done so, and they had been hearing it spoken in their own home from earliest infancy? 2606:A000:8948:A100:8DB7:F8B6:2A4B:4A2 (talk) 04:07, 9 February 2019 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 5 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
The article hints at but does not clearly expound the difference between these patterns of speech as affected and as natural. Is there any chance that perhaps we could have a special section about its conscious acquisition, and then one about its natural occurrence? Many thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iohannes Grammaticus (talk • contribs) 10:20, 12 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
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Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
This note has to do with two aspects of the claim that Grover Cleveland is from Central New York.
First, Grover Cleveland moved to Central New York at about 13 years of age. He was born in Caldwell, New Jersey (about 15 miles due west of Manhattan). The age is significant because accents are often set by the age of 13. They can and do change but typically not. Therefore, unless the editor had something in mind wrt talking about Central NY, it would probably make sense to say that he was from Caldwell, New Jersey.
Second, Caldwell, New Jersey may have played a significant role with his accent. I don't know of historical data but during the 20th century residents of New Jersey's Ramapo Ridge (which includes Caldwell) had an accent that could read as mid-Atlantic. For example, this region pronounces words like Florida with an "ah" sound before the "r" (flahridda). In addition, this region pronounces words like cot and caught differently. Mary, merry, and marry are also distinct. Many US speakers of English collapse the pronunciation of these sets of words and others like them. I would imagine that Grover Cleveland could easily have spoken with a similar accent.
It may be worth pointing out that some recent work (Coye's Dialect Boundaries in New Jersey, American Speech, 2009) suggests that younger people in this region may be collapsing pronunciation like the rest of the country. However, the sample size was small and arranged by county boundaries rather than established dialect boundaries. This same article does cover some of the dialect variants in pronunciation.
I'll add one more thing. There are at least two meanings for "Mid-Atlantic accent". There is that notion of an accent somewhere between the received pronunciations in the US and the UK but there is also the notion of a set of accents found in the mid-Atlantic region of the US.
Hi. I think all your comments are already duly noted except the Caldwell, New Jersey comment; you're right that that should be changed assuming you're correct. But actually the WP article on Cleveland contradicts this: "In 1841, the Cleveland family moved to Fayetteville, New York, where Grover spent much of his childhood." This article is specifically about the Transatlantic accent, not the Mid-Atlantic States regional accent. A quick listen to Cleveland's voice to me reveals happY-laxing, flapped R, and a curl-coil distinction. Yet I would expect a true Caldwell speaker from this era not to have these features, which are instead more in line with the affected Transatlantic accent. So we're dealing here with the affected accent, not the regional accent. Wolfdog (talk) 16:27, 18 April 2018 (UTC)Reply
References
^Dialect Boundaries in New Jersey. Dale F. Coye, American Speech (2009) 84 (4): 414-452.
In contrast to this article's (American) definition, in British usage it is not necessarily, though may be, consciously acquired and may blend any of the two forms of accent, standard or otherwise. In fact, the usage of RP in the blend would seem pretty unlikely, outside of Sloaney types. Again, as above, the term tends to be used of singing accents adopted by British musicians or of the accents acquired by Brits living in or spending substantial time in America, thus a blend of their own accent with an American one or an outright attempt at impersonation of the latter.
Per the example sentences at the Oxford dictionary above, the term is often prefixed to "twang"; not something that would seem descriptive of the examples given in the article.
I'd suggest that the initial paragraph note that what is currently there is the American definition, note the simpler British definition, per the refs, and in regard to the latter, we can probably only leave it at that as there is little else to say. Mutt Lunker (talk) 20:43, 29 September 2018 (UTC)Reply
@Mutt Lunker: Hi! I love the bit of informal research you've done. I basically agree with your conclusion that we keep this about the more fully fleshed-out American perspective. However, I do think we can use a source or two you found to at least give the British side a quick one- or two-sentence mention in the lead section. Doesn't seem like that could hurt. Wolfdog (talk) 11:42, 30 September 2018 (UTC)Reply
Sorry if there was some confusion but that is basically what I am suggesting. Along the lines of, appended to the initial paragraph:
"In American English the Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent is..."
with a following paragraph:
"In British English the term simply refers to any accent or dialect which features a mixture of American and British words or sounds,[1][2][3][4] not necessarily of the standard varieties or consciously acquired." Mutt Lunker (talk) 12:40, 30 September 2018 (UTC)Reply
You may want to end the sentence before the "not necessarily of the..." section and just start a new sentence there. That seems a little confusing as one long sentence. Wolfdog (talk) 15:28, 30 September 2018 (UTC)Reply
I don't understand how you came to the conclusion that the difference was in the varieties of English and not the usage. Your addition strikes me as WP:SYNTH (if not simply WP:OR) to me, because those dictionary definitions of "mid-Atlantic" can still describe the Mid-Atlantic accent as defined in the article, at least in terms of its intended effect, and don't talk at all about it being (or not being) acquired or consciously acquired. US-oriented dictionaries give similar definitions too: [12][13]. In other words, as far as I can tell, "mid-Atlantic accent" could refer to any accent that is "mid-Atlantic" (i.e. a mixture of British and American) in both British and American English, but the article talks about a specific kind of mid-Atlantic accent, with a capital M. (If calling it "Mid-Atlantic accent" is entirely an American thing, then what is it called in British English? It seems to me it's just that the Mid-Atlantic accent is discussed less often in the UK simply because it's encountered less often.) Of course the article may discuss other English accents that have characteristics of both British and American English, regardless of where it's spoken or whether it is acquired or not, as long as there are reliable sources that discuss them, but I just don't see how the dictionaries you cited support the sentence you added. Nardog (talk) 01:59, 1 October 2018 (UTC)Reply
In that case, if the term is also widely employed in a broader, generic usage in America, as it is in Britain, this should be clarified at the start of the article. Then, it can be related that in America the term is also applied to an accent with these narrower and much more specific characteristics, with the current content following on.
As far as I'm aware, this narrower definition is all but unknown in Britain so it is not called anything in British English. Generic mid-Atlantic speech is however widely referred to in Britain though, so from a WP:WORLDVIEW perspective, should be reflected in the article. As I was when I first encountered it, without this clarification at the outset, British users will be confused at the narrower specific designation laid out herein. Mutt Lunker (talk) 13:43, 1 October 2018 (UTC)Reply
In that case I'd suggest:
"A Mid-Atlantic accent is one which features a mixture of American and British words or sounds.[2][3][4][5][6] In North America, this term, or Transatlantic accent,[7][8][9] is applied to a consciously..." or "may be applied to" if that is considered more accurate. Mutt Lunker (talk) 18:51, 3 October 2018 (UTC)Reply
@Mutt Lunker: If you're saying the above should be the first two sentences, I disagree with that. The entire page is already about the American perspective, so I like where the British perspective sentence is already located. Wolfdog (talk) 23:32, 3 October 2018 (UTC)Reply
Can you clarify which sentence you are referring to as the British perspective sentence please? Since I self-reverted on Monday, pending any further discussion here, there isn't anything about the British perspective any more, is there? Mutt Lunker (talk) 08:08, 4 October 2018 (UTC) Mutt Lunker (talk) 08:08, 4 October 2018 (UTC)Reply
@Nardog: seemed above to be maintaining that this general usage is universal and that it shouldn't just be stated as being the British perspective. Can you clarify please Nardog? Also, I'd like it to be clarified that the definition outlined in the first paragraph is a more specific and American usage, or the American usage, whichever is correct. Mutt Lunker (talk) 11:21, 4 October 2018 (UTC)Reply
Right, but why can't the Americanness be stated later on? After all, the scope this article covers is really an American phenomenon. The British perspective here will just be a side-comment. Can't that suffice? (Perhaps you'd prefer a clarifying hatnote of some kind?) Stating in the lead sentence what this article is not about doesn't really follow WP norms, though I understand you desire to be clear for confused British readers. And the way I worded it in the article does show the universality but simply emphasizes that it is especially common in British English. Wolfdog (talk) 14:06, 4 October 2018 (UTC)Reply
Not sure why you think I don't want the Americanness to be stated but thatt's probably academic as I realise I hadn't clocked a couple of significant aspects to how you'd rephrased my original statement. I reckon your edit covers matters now. To note, the refs appear to be displaying incorrectly. Can't address that right now but will look later if I have time... Mutt Lunker (talk) 14:28, 4 October 2018 (UTC)Reply
All looks good now, though I'm a bit concerned we've stripped the British perspective from the article entirely. Do we not want, in that new sentence, to say anything like "particularing in British English" or "as most commonly used in the UK"? Wolfdog (talk) 20:25, 4 October 2018 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 5 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
1. Having watched probably thousands of movies from the 30s and early 40s, I've often noticed a double standard concerning gender and the M-A accent. Full-blooded linguistic "Americanism" was much more readily heard (and presumably accepted) from male characters, and when "cultivation" was required from a man, the studios often simply hired a British actor like Ronald Colman, Flynn (Tasmanian I know, but an Englishman as perceived by the American public), Olivier, Leslie Howard, Claude Rains, George Brent, C. Aubrey Smith, Herbert Marshall etc. I suppose that even in the 30s the public felt that "cultivation" was a rather effeminate quality to be found in an American man, and so we find most of the very biggest American male stars of the 30s and early 40s DID NOT use the M-A accent--Gable, Cagney, Bogart, Cooper, Tracy, Stewart--and those top box office men that did use it tended to use a milder form (e.g. Robert Taylor) than the women. Conversely we find that almost all of the biggest female stars of the same period did indeed use the M-A accent to some degree--Davis, Crawford, Colbert, Shearer, Loy etc. Are there exceptions? Most certainly, but you can't have exceptions without a pattern. In a man, an "everyday American" accent could be seen as straightforward, rugged, virile, down to earth. In a woman, the same accent was considered boorish, unladylike, and fit for the gutter (think Barbara Stanwyck or Joan Blondell). A male character with such an accent might be the hero of a grand adventure, as indeed Gable was in picture after picture; whereas a woman with same accent would probably be a streetwalker, barmaid, or trashy chorus girl.
The more movies I see from this period, the more I notice how gendered the M-A accent was. It was a way to signal to audiences that an American woman was a "lady" despite her unfortunate nationality, and therefore worthy of respect, courtesy, and sympathy that ordinary American women didn't merit. On the other hand a man could be a linguistic boor and "get away with it" (or even be applauded for his boorishness as a charming rogue) much more easily--what else is new? Perhaps this issue of gender discrepancies--with further research and sourcing of course--could merit a sentence or two in the article.
2. It seems to me that the movie actors listed should typify this accent in its strongest form. Those who cite Tyrone Power as having used M-A are perhaps insufficiently familiar with the range of speech patterns and accents present in the movies of that vintage. By the elocutionary standards of the 1930s and 40s Tyrone Power did not use a markedly M-A accent, although his speech might be considered mildly cultivated to today's ear. He consistently pronounces his r's at the ends of words, and thereby fails the shibboleth of M-A. Vincent Price's M-A accent was likewise quite mild most of the time.
Orson Welles is a much better example (perhaps the quintessential one, along with John Barrymore), as are William Powell, Fredric March, Warner Baxter, and Warren William. Among women I'd point to Claudette Colbert as perhaps the most famous textbook example besides Bette Davis; also Rosalind Russell, Kay Francis (despite her speech impediment) Paulette Goddard, Margaret Sullavan (an aristocratic southern accent but clearly approximated to M-A), Irene Dunne (likewise a southern accent with cultivated M-A theatricality), Miriam Hopkins (another southerner), the De Havilland sisters (British-Americans), Margaret Lindsay (textbook example), Carole Lombard (her M-A comes and goes depending on the "elevation" of the scene). Mind you, some of these actors who lived into later decades did begin to modify their speech slightly as M-A became less fashionable after WW II. In Fredric March's early roles he practically impersonates John Barrymore, whereas in old age his accent had lost much of its English theatricality.
3. The theory that the Mid-Atlantic accent has something to do with primitive recording technology is bunk. The desire of educated Americans to sound like English gentlemen (or some approximation thereof) is a cultural phenomenon that goes back long before any recording technology. In the 19th century the greatest compliment a Bostonian could receive while travelling abroad was to be taken for an Englishman. From 'Misinforming a Nation' 1917: The American actor, in order to gain distinction, apes the dress, customs, intonation and accent of Englishmen. His great ambition is to be mistaken for a Londoner. This pose, however, is not all snobbery: it is the outcome of an earnest desire to appear superior; and so long has England insisted upon her superiority that many Americans have come to adopt it as a cultural fetish. T. S. Eliot anyone?
4. It's equally ridiculous to write that this accent was most fashionable in the 30s and 40s. Yes, it was more frequently recorded then, but that's because talkies had only just been invented, which is how most modern persons come across this accent. If anything it had never been LESS popular. Anglophile accents had been (very) slowly going out of style since WW I.
5. Finally, I'd emphasize that the Mid-Atlantic accent never aimed at sounding "British" (whatever that means) or even "English", but something much more specific: the upper classes of London and the classically trained actors of the London stage. These are the only "British" accents concerned with this phenomenon. 2606:A000:8948:A100:C47A:B67B:A8D0:E7ED (talk) 06:25, 28 January 2019 (UTC)Reply
A fascinating theory. Can you find sources (either already used in the article or on your own) that confirm any of this?
Feel free to remove examples that are not well-sourced or add examples that are. Also, feel free to qualify any example speakers as you so usefully do above, but using sources.
You give one source that suggests it could be bunk. The Wikipedia page give ones source that suggests it isn't. Now what?
This seems a reasonable notion. Do you have any sources to support it?
How do you know this about Anglo accents and WWI?
Right. I think this is assumed, though feel free to clarify in the article.
Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
What about persons who grew up hearing this accent because their parents or grandparents consciously "acquired" it generations back? If this is what one hears spoken in one's childhood home, then there's nothing "consciously acquired" about it. The article seems to assume that every family's linguistic memory was wiped with each new generation and that the Mid-Atlantic accent had to be relearnt from the ground up. It would have us believe that, for some arbitrary reason, the Mid-Atlantic accent absolutely cannot be passed from one generation to the next, even if every member of the family spoke in this manner. The fact that the Mid-Atlantic accent has artificial and affected origins need not mean that everyone using it is necessarily affecting it. 2606:A000:8948:A100:8DB7:F8B6:2A4B:4A2 (talk) 05:08, 9 February 2019 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 4 years ago8 comments7 people in discussion
The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Mid-Atlantic accent → Transatlantic accent – The vast majority of the sources refer to the accent primarily as the "Transatlantic accent". This is unsurprising, as "transatlantic", meaning across or concerning both sides of the Atlantic, makes far more sense than "Mid-Atlantic" and is far less ambiguous. As the term "Mid-Atlantic", at least in North America, is used more frequently to refer to the Mid-Atlantic United States, the current title creates unnecessary confusion, especially considering that there already exists an American English accent and dialect in the Mid-Atlantic United States referred to as the "Mid-Atlantic dialect". Thankfully, "Transatlantic accent" exists as a synonymous and far more prevalently used nomenclature for the accent discussed in this article and should be used as the primary title of the article. Madreterra (talk) 14:23, 7 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
Support: As you can see above, we have had this same discussion three times under the following titles: Requested move 5 December 2015; Requested move 13 September 2016; Requested move 21 February 2017. Each time I've led and/or supported the move and I will again. "Transatlantic" is common/prevalent (see Google search hits) and unambiguous (unlike "Mid-Atlantic" which is susceptible to being confused with Mid-Atlantic American English whose coiner, William Labov, never even called it so much as all that, instead simply labeling it "the Mid-Atlantic dialect"). You can see more about my views under the previous discussions. Wolfdog (talk) 14:45, 7 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
Procedural oppose and speedy close: As you can see above, we have had this same discussion three times. The conclusion in the last discussion was "that this one should be left alone unless overwhelming evidence to the contrary surfaces". There is no change in the situation, so this should be left alone. The proponent didn't even provide a rationale. This seems like it is just digging up an old disagreement for the sake of encouraging further argument. —BarrelProof (talk) 17:31, 7 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
Support per Madreterra and Wolfdog. Just as an aside, I had some teachers who spoke with what sounded to my ears like the Transatlantic accent I heard in old movies, but with a Southern lilt, if such a thing is possible. Carlstak (talk) 05:55, 11 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
Oppose I have never in my life heard anyone use the term "Transatlantic accent". Wikipedia is a medium for presenting established information, not for generating new ideas. I have once heard this accent referred to as the Delawarean Accent. The only other common name is "Mid-Atlantic accent". 111818b (talk) 16:52, 14 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
Latest comment: 4 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Ironically, it seems as though one of the editors that voted "oppose" in the above page move proposal actually thought that this was an article about the Mid-Atlantic American dialect, noting that he "once heard this accent referred to as the Delawarean Accent". This is clearly a reference to the Mid-Atlantic American accent, and this editor's understandable confusion only further demonstrates the need to re-titled this page by moving it from the unnecessarily confusing "Mid-Atlantic accent" to the more commonly sourced "Transatlantic accent." It is laughably ludicrous that a page move proposed in part to avoid confusion over a similarly named dialect was thwarted because editors voting "oppose" are themselves confused and believe this article is referring to Mid-Atlantic American English. You see what I mean, right? Ultimately, however, the proposal was also based on the sources, the majority of which refer to the "Transatlantic accent." Madreterra (talk) 19:01, 18 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
I've heard the term "transatlantic accent" all my life. To suggest that its existence constitutes anything other than "established information" is silly. Anyone who has ever read about old movies or stage history for more than fifteen minutes will have come across discussions of the transatlantic accent. I have never heard anyone say mid-Atlantic accent without meaning the transatlantic accent. In my experience they are synonyms, and it would be absurd to use mid-Atlantic accent (in the singular) to mean anything else since no single accent clearly predominates in the mid-Atlantic states, that region having dozens of widely diverging dialects that scarcely resemble each other at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2606:A000:8948:A100:A0DA:E028:6EC2:385D (talk) 06:41, 18 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
The article could use map and perhaps some other ornamentation
Latest comment: 4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I have skimmed through the article and it seems to be comprehensively written. It could use a map showing where the Midatlandic dialectbis spoken. Spannerjam (talk) 11:20, 27 October 2020 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 4 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
The whole article seems to lionize the unsubstantiated thesis by Dudley Knight (who was a vocal coach and NOT a linguist) as the voice of God without any critical assessment. Are we to believe that William Tilly traveled back in time to the 1830's-40's to teach presidents Cleveland and McKinley his Mid-Atlantic speech? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.158.24.144 (talk) 19:02, 27 October 2020 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
According to the article, this accent is a mixture of both American and British characteristics. However, almost all the features listed in the Phonology section are featues from RP. Where are the American characteristics? It feels like the article is written from the American perspective and focused on features that are not American. I'd like to read more about the American characteristics. Betty (talk) 00:23, 15 September 2021 (UTC)Reply
I created the diagrams for the Mid-Atlantic vowels as pronounced by Franklin D. Roosevelt, but his version of it was somewhat different from the theoretical version of the accent, does someone have the acoustic data of a perfect Mid-Atlantic speaker ? YanisBourgeois (talk) 11:55, 11 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 2 years ago14 comments2 people in discussion
I read this article yesterday, and I didn't understand whether this accent was chiefly British or American. I read the chapter in Robert MacNeil's book, and, according to Robert MacNeil, this accent was "the British pattern".
I read the description of MacNeil, and I cannot but agree with him. In a word, gentlemen, do you have an opportunity to write about the Britishness of the above-mentioned accent in the article? Роман Сергеевич Сидоров (talk) 11:38, 24 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
I read the article which deals with this accent, and, accordingly, I didn't understand whether this accent was chiefly British or American. Listening to Katherine Hepburn convinced me that this accent was predominantly British, to say nothing of Billie Burke. I'm a novice in phonetics, so could you help me with answering this question? Роман Сергеевич Сидоров (talk) 07:48, 23 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
Hi, I'm not entirely clear what your question means. I think you're asking whether the accent is phonetically more American or British. Is that right? It's a blend of both, but the exact degree to which is more influencing is somewhat subjective and entails understanding various complexities. Maybe you can specify a bit more exactly what you're looking for. Wolfdog (talk) 12:06, 23 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
Thank you very much indeed. I really appreciate your answer. However, do you know a Wikipedian who can answer my question, citing various sources and stuff? By the way, you understand my question correctly. My English is rather complicated, though.
Apposite to what? Some more General American elements of the Mid-Atlantic accent include L velarization, a back GOAT vowel, and a lack of intrusive R; some more RP (British) elements include a long monophthongal THOUGHT vowel, a lack of pre-nasal TRAP tensing, and a lack of HAPPY tensing. There are also elements that are arguably distinct from both General American and RP, including a unique PALM-START distinction and a lack of the wine-whine merger. Furthermore, there are many features that, while seemingly RP (rather than General American), are also shared with Eastern New England or even New York City of the time: a lack of vowel mergers before /r/, a PALM-LOT distinction, the articulation of BATH as an open fronted [a], and non-rhoticity. (All these features are already mentioned on the page.) So you can see that it is quite difficult to call the accent chiefly British or American. It sounds wannabe-British (or perhaps upper-class old-timey Northeastern American) to American ears and utterly American to British ears. Wolfdog (talk) 22:21, 23 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
I read the description of vowels and consonants in the article. I appreciate your answer, but, first of all, I didn't find the opinion of Britishers who suppose this accent to be quite American. I read the book written by Robert MacNeil who called this accent "the British pattern (p. 51). Secondly, it is rather important that you should prove that L-velarization was a part and parcel of this accent, for, according to the rules of Wikipedia, it's vitally important that the members of Wikipedia should prove their judgements with secondary sources, so to speak.
It would appear that our knowledge of this accent is pretty small and insignificant, just because Fletcher's book Labov's atlas are not so accessible. I tried to find these sources in order to broaden my knowledge, but my attempt to find them was totally abortive.Роман Сергеевич Сидоров (talk) 07:46, 24 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
As for the article itself, I suppose the article on Transatlantic accent not to be complete, and correct. It's really hard to understand the core components of this accent. By the way, Alexei Ababilov, my Russian acquaintance read about this accent, and, according to his opinion, this accent is British, in the main: there are seven criteria, in accordance with Ababilov's opinion: non-rhotic, no flapping, almost no yod-dropping, father-bother distinction, no lot-cloth split, no æ-raising, trap-bath split. It's highly important not to deny the importance of Ababilov's opinion, for this gentleman is certain to be more or less well-versed in terms of British, and American accents. I'm going to ask hime whether he has an opportunity to prove his opinion with a liable source, and I sincerely hope that I'll have an opportunity to furnish this would-be source in our chat.Роман Сергеевич Сидоров (talk) 11:04, 24 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
I'm still not sure precisely what you're looking for, but I'll point out the following. Of your seven criteria, four or five of them are also features of modern Eastern New England English and as many as all of them are potentially features of conservative (19th-century) Eastern New England English. So, this makes it further hard to be certain what we're looking at are British features rather than simply conservative American features. Wolfdog (talk) 12:24, 24 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
I'm going to explain what I'm looking for. First of all, the English language of "Tory" cities was rather close to RP because of close cultural, economical ties in the nineteenth century. Secondly, "American" means "General American" in my sentences. British - RP. It's blatantly obvious that there are very many accents in Britain and the US, and sometimes they're terribly different from one other. Between you and me, some of your countrymen cannot differ Australians from Russians in a set of contexts.
It is probable that the term "Transatlantic accent" is rather pseudo-scientific, Only to think, Bullie Burke's speech in Dinner at Eight is rather close to the most Conservative form of RP, and, accordingly, the so-called Transatlantic accent of K. Hepburn, Cary Grant is certain to be different from that of Billie Burke. By the by, I haven't noticed L velarazation in Great Kates's speech, in the speech of Cary Grant. May be, I'm just deaf. It's evident that the speech of Mike Connor (Sorry. I forgot the name of actor. Very sorry) is full of dark Ls, and I don't know why they are not audible in Hepburn's speech. Could you help me with dealing with L velarization?
It seems your main concern / question is about L velarization. It may be variable. I certainly hear it in the speech of Sylvia Plath and Franklin Roosevelt (the audio on the page itself -- listen especially to how he says "belief"). I'm not sure who Mike Connor or your friend Alexei are. (I also think flapping may be variable in the accent, though conscious speakers likely aimed to avoid it.) Best of luck. Wolfdog (talk) 20:45, 24 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
First of all, Alexei Ababilov is a well-educated and learned person, and he isn't accustomed to playing with toys and bagatelles, therefore you should consider the opinion of this learned person to be a liable source. Alexei Ababilov is rather good at acoustic phonetics. He's sure to be a very good teacher of phonetic, in my estimation, so you shouldn't deny the importance of his opinion, in conformity with my current viewpoint.Роман Сергеевич Сидоров (talk) 17:49, 31 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
Secondly, you're certain to have been denying the importance my first questions concerning the basis of Transatlantic accent. According to one of liable sources (see above), this accent was almost totally British, but I didn't add this piece of information, for I suppose this viewpoint to be a bit dubious.Роман Сергеевич Сидоров (talk) 18:00, 31 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 2 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion
I suggest that the Wikipedians should describe and discuss Kate Hepburn's English in a scientific and dispassionate spirit. First of all, I'm interested in the Mid-Atlantic accent, and, accordingly, I must ask the chief editors and creators of this article whether it's possible to find the transcripts of Philadelphia Story and stuff. As a reader, I suggest that the public of English Wikipedia should improve this article, for the description of this accent is sure to be rather incomplete, in my estimation. Роман Сергеевич Сидоров (talk) 13:03, 25 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
I prefer learning English with watching old Hollywood movies, but I don't know whether it's possible to pick up basically British pronunciation with watching them. I'm just trying to say that I have a right to read about the Transatlantic accent, and accordingly, I would like the abovmentioned editors of enwiki to provide the required pieces of information.Роман Сергеевич Сидоров (talk) 18:48, 29 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
I have already asked a set of quiestion in Reddit. I'm talking about the questions concerning Hepburn's accent. None answered, to tell the truth. All in all, I'm sure to be highly malcontent with the article on Transatlantic accent.Роман Сергеевич Сидоров (talk) 12:11, 31 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 year ago7 comments2 people in discussion
Hi YanisBourgeois, can you please explain where you're deciding upon the notation use for FDR's vowels. You refer to the Urban (2021) source and I think specifically the chart on p. 238. But how are you inferring the [ɐ] offlglide or the rhoticity of NURSE? (His NURSE certainly is non-rhotic in the phrase "assERT my FIRM belief" from the Fear Itself speech.) Thanks. Wolfdog (talk) 14:30, 8 February 2023 (UTC)Reply
Hello Wolfdog, as you can see the SQUARE and FORCE diphthongs have low ending points : the F1 values are lower 600 to 650 approximately. Being open-mid vowels, a [ə] offglide would've implied ending points with a F1 value equal or lower than 600. The reason I use the symbol [ɐ] is to insist on the fact that these diphthongs are realised as opening diphthongs (even though they actually never reach the value [ɐ̯], to be absolutely accurate the symbols <ɛæ̈> and <ɔɒ̟> would be more accurate, but the level of accuracy seems a bit over-the-top). As for the START vowel, the F1 values are 700 to 750, so it's a falling diphthong as well, it seems that the ending point would be somthing like [ɑ̟]. So I decided to express the ending points [æ̈, ɒ̟, ɑ̟,] with one symbol <ɐ> that makes it all more synthetic.
Now when it comes to the NURSE vowel, The chart indicates a vowel very far back (F2=1350) which is weird for a central unrounded vowel, that's why it seemed obvious to me that the low F2 was a consequence of a rhotic realization, but after listening the speech you mentioned I heard [əː~ɜː], so I might have made a mistake for that vowel.
The disagreement we seem to have about the GOOSE and FOOT vowels is probably due to the presence of voiced consonants. Before voiced consonants FDR pronounces them [u̟, ʊ] but before pauses or voiced consonants, their diphthongal nature appears [u̟u, ʊɤ].
Hi, why are you adding Freeman and Jones's pronunciations when we haven't even figured out the FDR matter yet? Do we have credible data/sources on them too, or are you conjecturing? Wolfdog (talk) 18:26, 8 February 2023 (UTC)Reply
I used an articulatory approach to evaluate Freedman and Jones' vowels, not an acoustic one. The reason why I added them is because theroetical aren't enough, and seeing some actors, some probably professionally trained, might be interesting, however they happened to have some inconsistency, particularly Jones. YanisBourgeois (talk) 11:30, 9 February 2023 (UTC)Reply
Some of the "disagreements" you mention above are really about me wanting to go for a broader transcription and you for a narrower one, but we haven't really tested FDR's SQUARE vowel (for example) finally in an open monosyllable versus medially in a closed monosyllable versus in a polysyllabic word etc. So the more usual transcription (of say RP or Transatlantic) [ɛə] would seem to be safer phonetically, without getting too narrow. I really appreciate your intentions (and it certainly can be fun to represent speakers' vowels with phonetic precision), but I worry that the transcriptions will be very open to eternal disputes without sources verbatim providing them. Wolfdog (talk) 18:28, 8 February 2023 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion
In Good American Speech by M. P. McLean, is described as low front unrouded [a] with a certain degree of variation as far as the length is concerned : "Its length varies but it's usually about half long, perhaps because it's usually followed by of voiced consonnant. It is rarely, if ever, fuuly long." It's also asserted that it can take the PALM value : Every sound that contains the sound a may be pronounced with the vowel ɑ(ː) as well" YanisBourgeois (talk) 11:53, 21 February 2023 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 year ago8 comments2 people in discussion
@YanisBourgeois: Reiterated from my edit summaries in opposition to your recent reverts: You're including a term, "Classical American," that is otherwise defined nowhere else in the text. I don't see the good of this. What does the term mean exactly and why do you feel it should be included? Wolfdog (talk) 01:17, 22 February 2023 (UTC)Reply
It reprents a form of compromise between General American and Mid-Atlantic English, the latter often judged too British (which nearly an objective truth). The reason why I decided to include it is because it completes a continuum that goes from General Amercian to RP and helps understanding it more solely. YanisBourgeois (talk) 15:16, 22 February 2023 (UTC)Reply
I think it's best to ignore a term that will only add further confusion and only comes from a single source. Furthermore, the only difference between Classical American (or "Classial" as it currently reads) and Mid-Atlantic is length distinctions. Clearly, we're getting into the weeds of phonetics on a chart that is focused on phonemics. Wolfdog (talk) 17:56, 22 February 2023 (UTC)Reply
Also, why have you chosen to use the sole symbol /ɒ/ to represent the Mid-Atlantic CLOTH and LOT vowels, when we have already established in the prose and both /ɒ/ and /ɔ/ are options for CLOTH specifically? Wolfdog (talk) 01:21, 22 February 2023 (UTC)Reply
I agree that some speakers might use the tense THOUGHT vowel for words like CLOTH but it's only a result of mistake or personal liberty on the part of the speakers. So as interesting as it is to mention this variability, a tense open-mid variant for CLOTH shouldn't be included in the Mid-Atlantic Accent. Including a variant into a type of speech because of it's initially "inappropriate" use, only makes sense for a natural accent that, supposedly, evolves over time and along with demographic changes, not for one that was consciously constructed and has been volontarily learnt. YanisBourgeois (talk) 15:30, 22 February 2023 (UTC)Reply
Plus if I include the tense CLOTH variant in the chart, I would have to include the tense LOT variant [ɑː] and the raised pre-nasal TRAP and BATH variants as well. This chart being meant to be extremely synoptic I only mentionned variants that were consensually accepted by both Skinner and McLean, i.e. TRAP [æ], BATH [a], PALM [ɑː], LOT-CLOTH [ɒ] and THOUGHT [ɔː]. That's the reason why I didn't add the variants other than [a] mentionned by McLean in the BATH set. YanisBourgeois (talk) 15:41, 22 February 2023 (UTC)Reply
If we're going to include information in a chart that openly contradicts the prose, we need the actual labels "Skinner and McLean" in the chart then. Or, we could follow my suggestion (still my preference), which is to revert back to the chart matching the prose. Wolfdog (talk) 17:56, 22 February 2023 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
The entry on the Canadian counterpart of Mid-Atlantic English, namely Canadian English § Canadian dainty, describes it as a sociolect. So, my question is, can Mid-Atlantic English also be described as such? If it is (the use of it by the entertainment industry potentially makes this questionable), I'd like to add a wlink to 'sociolect' in the lede of this article.
Latest comment: 4 months ago23 comments7 people in discussion
This article is mentioned as containing incorrect information by Geoff Lindsey, one of the leading scholars on phonetic variation in English, in a video which dropped yesterday. We probably need to add his point of view and correct this. Even though this video is not peer-reviewed content, it is expert opinion. Boynamedsue (talk) 06:28, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Strong agree. A lot of the commonly-circulated false information Lindsey discusses is so easily and patently debunked that it is remarkable this has flown under the radar for so long. —AddieMaddietalk | contribs07:37, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I think the article doesn't actually include much inaccurate information, but the way the article is arranged can easily lead to mistakes. For instance, the opening paragraph calls it a "consciously learned accent" only to backtrack this at the end of the introduction. 73.170.84.123 (talk) 07:58, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, I think it is a case of WP:DUE. The attention given to LillyTilly and his disciples was (prior to @Wolfdog:'s edits) probably very excessive, and there is still a lot there. I've tweaked the lead to avoid suggestions that the accent was always consciously-learned, but I think more work is needed there. We also have the problem that there was an "American Theatrical Standard" which was more British than the Mid-Atlantic accent which someone like Kathryn Hepburn used. This article is mixing the two up, I think.Boynamedsue (talk) 08:38, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
This phrase in particular presents difficulties for us: Specifically, it blended features from both prestigious coastal Northeastern American English and from Received Pronunciation, the standard speech of England. As I understand it, the accent is in effect "the prestige dialect of Northeastern American English" so it can't also be a blend with RP?Boynamedsue (talk) 08:49, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I think you've got it backwards. The Mid-Atlantic accent, as the name implies and as far as it can be said to have existed, is the continuation of an "American Theatrical Standard" and Hepburn just spoke an upper-class East Coast accent. Nardog (talk) 08:55, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
That's the problem we've got then, because a lot of the article is talking about people like Roosevelt and Hepburn, who just spoke with an Eastern accent/sociolect.--Boynamedsue (talk) 09:18, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
So, the video states at 7 minutes that the native accent is "Northeastern elite", and this was definitely the native speech of most of the people we list as being speakers of "mid-Atlantic English". There can be no basis for leaving "consciously-learned" in the text.--Boynamedsue (talk) 12:46, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Well, when people use the term "Mid-Atlantic accent" today, they are often including the native accent. This whole thing is real mess, as there is not actually that much written by serious linguists on this topic. There are only about 500 hits on google scholar, and most of them aren't talking about this accent, and those that do are largely throw-away mentions and BA/MA theses.Boynamedsue (talk) 13:42, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Lindsey's recent video, IMO, is both excellent at pointing out some nuances but, at the same time, overlooks other nuances. It's not that the WP article is deeply inaccurate but that MANY content-creators have slightly misrepresented and simplified info from our article. Myself and others have endeavored to use credible sources here, such as the Knight source, which seems to be this topic's main scholarly source of info. As Boynamedsue points out, I did in fact make a couple changes based on Lindsey's video: Tyrone Power spoke with a rhotic accent, so I deleted his name from the page. Let's take another point Lindsey asserts: Katharine Hepburn developed her accent before she entered the film industry in the 1930s, and Skinner only published her famous book in 1942, so any claims that people like Hepburn were learning this accent in the 1930s or 1920s is false. While that's true for Skinner, Margaret McLean (and likely many other forgotten coaches) were indeed working in those earlier decades; McLean published her book in 1928, and I've since edited the page to reflect that. This keeps the "World English influence in Hollywood" argument on the table. (Also, Hepburn self-admittedly learned her speech style at her Pennsylvania college and why would a New England accent be taught there? This seems to contradict Lindsey's basic thesis. It's also quite the jump for me, as a native Connecticuter who's studied its historical dialects, to believe Hepburn's accent on-screen is a natural New England OR Pennsylvania one.)
The main argument of this page is not that Tilly and the gang invented this accent (since a variety of roughly RP-inspired accents were used by earlier Americans like President McKinley and the Roosevelts), but that they codified a fairly phonetically consistent version for the first time, which got big in the the acting world probably as early as the 1920s, declining in the mid-20th century.
Although Lindsey is right to attack the idea of a straightup "fake accent", there is indeed a kind of "respectable and briefly-trendy but contrived accent" drilled into wealthy people of this time (again, yes, predating Hollywood) which people from that era (including Hepburn in Lindsey's own video) readily admit to in interviews. FDR does not speak with the natural features known to be used by New Yorkers in his era any more than Hepburn speaks with natural Connecticut features from her era. Is it possible that FDR and Hepburn are both using an upper-class Northeastern accent? Absolutely. But that alone doesn't assure it is a naturally acquired accent.
Since this is getting a bit long, I will give two specific speakers to consider: Aurelia Plath versus her daughter Sylvia Plath, both from money in Eastern Massachusetts, and so a very easy comparison to make... yet they have two different accents. Aurelia has the Boston Brahmin accent (presumably more natural/local among the New England elite) with unrounded LOT, fronted START, a flap for intervocalic /t/, [ɛə] for BATH, and a GenAm-style THOUGHT of the type [ɒ~ɔə]. Sylvia, on the other hand, shows RP influences in all these same features, suggesting a more acquired-later-in-life Transatlantic accent: rounded LOT, backed START, a sometimes plosive [t] for intervocalic /t/, [a] (the "intermediate A" as I think Skinner calls it) for BATH, and an RP-style THOUGHT of the type [ɔː~oː]. You might even expect the older woman to have the more RP-like sound, but this just isn't the case. Wolfdog (talk) 14:25, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I think the next moves we want to make here on WP (if any), are RELIABLE SOURCES. Good news: we do already have some. What are further sources that Lindsey can point to? There's not a lot of solid scholarship out there. I really don't think Lindsey's video is a decisive takedown of our page as much as it is of his fellow Youtubers. Wolfdog (talk) 14:31, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Lindsey is, in and of himself, a reliable source, being a subject expert. Anything he writes or says on English phonology is reliable per WP:RS: Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. We could argue about WP:DUE, as this is not peer-reviewed, but reliability is not an issue. Boynamedsue (talk) 16:31, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
That's fine. But we should all keep in mind that he is ONE source of the several reliable ones we already have on the page. I don't think the basic content of page is in any danger of being toppled by his video. I'm fine with leaving "consciously acquired accent" to simply "accent", though I and certain mentioned scholars have our doubts. (By the way, the DAREinterviews at UW-Madison's website are great for examples of more "natural" older speakers of American English from around the country, including the Northeast around the relevant time. Wolfdog (talk) 18:56, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
The point is there was no fake, or acquired, accent. Wealthy people in the Northeastern USA spoke that way naturally. As those people tended to control many areas, including Hollywood, that accent was over-represented on screen and radio.
As people from other regions(eg. Midwest) started entering areas like film, the dominance of Wealthy Northeastern accent started receding.
Again Nobody created an artificial hybrid accent. That was the way people in one region spoke naturally. And Hollywood was founded, and controlled by people with that accent.
And, just as Princes William and Harry have a different accent to the late George VI, so the Wealthy Northeastern US accent has changed over the years.
The idea that anyone created a phony hybrid way of speaking is untrue. It WAS an actual regional(and wealth-based) accent that, for a while, was very common in many public areas — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.87.135.139 (talk) 13:26, 2 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
In fact, it would be interesting to see where and when the idea of people deliberately creating a hybrid of RP and NEUS, and schools teaching this new creation originated.
EDIT: The Original, totally unsourced, article was created on 30 June 2004 by an IP from Atlanta GA.
FURTHER: First source added 2005. Up until late 2007, it was the only source. Namely the 2004 "Do You Speak American?" by Robert MacNeil and William Cran. Does anyone have access to a copy of this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.87.135.139 (talk) 15:23, 2 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
It's all well and good for you to have your opinions. But do you have SOURCES? Certainly, Lindsey agrees with you. However, evidently several other sources don't (Knight, Labov perhaps, and actors). Wolfdog (talk) 16:17, 2 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Lindsey cites two concrete examples of Americans speaking with what sounds to be a British-influenced accent: Burton Holmes born 1870 in Chicago, and an unnamed member of the 9th New York Infantry Regiment, veteran of the civil war. He also quotes approvingly Dudley Knight writing that American actors doing Shakespeare in 1900 were speaking (i.e. acting) with British accents. Knight was an actor and dialect coach, a competitor with Edith Skinner with a different approach focusing on being true to your heritage rather than imitating an artificial norm. Knight wrote that Tilly and his students were careful not to describe 'World English' and 'Good American Speech' as British accents. The idea was that this was "cultivated" American speech.
You can watch William Labov et al in the three part 'Do you speak American?' PBS specials on Youtube. Labov uses the word "Mid-Atlantic" to refer to area on the coast just south of New York City. Labov did research that suggested that pre-1950, many New Yorkers did not pronounce r-sounds after vowels, but after 1950, upper middle class New Yorkers or people speaking carefully started saying their r's after vowels again. In Labov's 1966 Social Stratification thesis/book he does mention the possibility that US English became more prestigious in the wake of WWII compared to the UK.
I think it is Trey Taylor in the Atlantic in 2013 who first claims that Katharine Hepburn's accent is "fake," but I'm not sure if that really qualifies as a reliable source. Knight notes that Tilly and his students' systems were not based on an accent spoken by real people. It was their picture of how people should speak. One actor that Knight mentions is Charles Grodin who apparently didn't like Skinner's teaching style so much.Dongord (talk) 18:59, 2 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Labov is from 2006, ie. Just after MacNeil and "Do You Speak American English?".Could Labov have used MacNeil as his sole source?
Also, MacNeil's book only mentions a "mid-Atlantic" accent once, saying that American actors playing urbane or sophisticated roles "spoke with what some called a mid-Atlantic accent".
The same chapter points out that cities like New York and Boston were settled by English people, and they brought that speech with them. Philadelphia meanwhile was closer to modern American.
Thus, the "British-sounding" speak of Old Boston, Old New York etc. predates the idea of Tilly manufacturing it.
The fact is, people like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson etc. would have sounded much more like Hugh Laurie in Blackadder The Third than like Hugh Laurie in House.
People TODAY apply the idea of "American accent" to 100, 200, 300(?) years ago.
Could the 2004 Wiki article, made out of whole cloth, actually be the beginning of the idea that the accent was artificial, and not just an American accent "that some called the mid-Atlantic accent"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.87.135.139 (talk) 20:26, 2 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Noah Webster writing in the 1820's was somewhat suspicious of people who dropped their /r/'s after vowels. Webster was not so keen on British English generally, and changed the spelling in his dictionaries, honor instead of honour, center instead of centre.
Hans Kurath started gathering data for the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States in 1933, and published the Handbook of Linguistic Geography of New England in 1939. The sociolinguist William Labov's thesis was completed in 1966, and released as a book, The Social Stratification of English in New York City. He compared his own observations that young upper middle class New Yorkers were no longer dropping their /r/'s after vowels in careful speech with Kurath's data which he wrote shows all New Yorkers dropped their /r/'s after vowels pre-war. Labov offhandedly suggested that WWII resulted in a "radical shift in the relative power and status of Britain and the US" as one part of the explanation as to why New Yorkers were starting to say /r/.
I have to say that just because a speaker drops their /r/'s doesn't necessarily mean that they have a British accent. These New Yorkers who say /boid/ for "bird" don't sound particularly British.
Robert Hobbs came out with a book called Teach Yourself Transatlantic in 1986, mentioned by Knight.
In 2006, Labov, Ash and Bobert used the word "Mid-Atlantic" to refer to the Middle Atlantic States, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware.
What do those sources say about it though? The main issues are:
A) Nobody disputes that there was an American accent that shared various features with British RP. The problem is the idea that it was an artificially-created accent that had no natural origin.
B) Tilly did not create it.
C) Skinner's book only came out in 1942. The idea that Skinner could be influential on the way that FDR spoke is absurd.
D) Hollywood was NOT all "Mid-Atlantic accent". Some of the most famous movies about mobsters, Midwestern families, Southern families etc. came out during the alleged "Fake Accent Era".
E) People may indeed have been persuaded to speak with the Mid-Atlantic Accent in certain movies... if the characters they were playing on screen were the type of people who would have spoken with a MA accent. someone playing a wealthy New England businessman would indeed be encouraged to speak with MA> Just as someone playing A Mafia Don would have been persuaded to speak with a Sicilian-like accent.
F) Many of the people that are today said to have used the "fake Mid-Atlantic accent" never actually did. The "experts" include a variety of American AND non-American accents under this umbrella term.
To summarise then, there was indeed a certain accent used by many (though certainly not all) people in the US Northeast (as well as other areas across the US). It was a natural accent, derived from Southern English that had evolved naturally in America. People doing plays, movies etc. about those sort of people would have been encouraged to speak like those people they were playing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.87.135.139 (talk) 15:41, 3 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I agree with you. As far as I can tell the Teach Yourself Transatlantic book is the first salvo in this discussion, and then Knight's article. Knight is unhappy with Skinner because she is a prescriptivist. I think all these articles in the Atlantic are mainly reactions to Knight's chapter. Nosowitz, the author of the Atlas Obscura article, actually emailed with James Stanford, a linguist who wrote a book on New England English. “There’s a long history of dialect features of Southeast England in Eastern New England dialects, tracing back directly to the colonial era,” writes James Stanford, a linguist at Dartmouth College, in an email. “European settlers throughout New England on the east side of Vermont’s Green Mountains tended to stay in closer touch with Boston, which in turn stayed in touch with Southeast England through commerce and education.” Dongord (talk) 19:55, 4 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
The problem is inaccurate modern perceptions. As an example, the article states that during the 19th century Americans on the East Coast "adopted British speech"(or words to that effect). Which is alarmingly ignorant.(And unsourced.) The problem comes with the bizarre modern belief that Benjamin Franklin, John Adams would have spoken like modern Americans. Nope. The Founding Fathers' speech would have been indistinguishable from the British. During the 19th century this wouldn't have altered much. If 19th century East Coast Americans used "British speech"... it is because that is the way they had always spoken. By the late 19th century, the 2 accents(NE USA, and RUKP) were different enough so that one could easily tell them apart, but not so different that there were not still clear and obvious similarities/common features.
Today, Elite Northeastern American and Upper Class Southern English are 2 distinct accents. Neither resembles the way people from their respective regions of a century ago. But the "Mid-Atlantic accent" captured a pocket in time when Elite Northeastern American speech was in the process of evolving away from British RP. It is/was a clear evolutionary link between Classic British RP and modern Elite American. It is only people who believe that accents in America have always sounded like they do in the 21st century(or late 20th century) who could believe that British colonists, and the children of British colonists, would not sound British. If there had been audio recordings since 1776, we would hear every generation of New Englanders sounding slightly less like England, until in the 20th century we hit modern American. And, as demonstrated, the Yankees during the Civil War still spoke with "British" accents. Modern Hollywood is partly to blame by having famous Americans from 18th/19th centuries speaking with modern American accents in modern movies, television series etc... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.87.135.139 (talk) 07:12, 7 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 4 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
@Dongord: I will respectfully ask you to stop editing the page at this point and to instead engage with a discussion with me here until we can get some disagreements sorted out. I also ask that you please stick to the topics at hand to avoid the discussion becoming too huge and unwieldy. I've reverted all your recent edits for the following reasons: some of your syntax is overly informal or contains typos like "not pronouncing your R's" or "as the year went by" or "McKean" (rather than McLean). Please point me to the source (and page, if relevant) saying that Tilly taught only summer sessions at Columbia; that may be true, but a source is needed. You are also steamrolling my edits/reverts without explanations as to why, so that we are verging on an WP:EDITWAR. At this time, please discuss any other changes you want to implement here before enacting them. Thank you. Wolfdog (talk) 19:04, 4 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I'm fine with using the word non-rhoticity if that's what you prefer, but I was trying to make it clearer. There are a number of articles about Tilly on the web. Tilly was an older gentleman (born 1860) who'd lived in Germany for a long time. Linguists such as his colleague at Columbia Krapp, Jones in England, Kenyon who wrote a pronouncing dictionary took exception to Tilly's prescriptivism. The main stream of linguistics in both England and the U.S. is towards descriptivism. In Tilly's own chapter, he doesn't write much about his system, but he does mention Krapp (who proposes multiple standards) and McLean. McLean makes a call for making the language cultivated speakers use the basis of her system, but then turns around, and recommends r-dropping, pronouncing the h in "who" and pronouncing "happy" with a short i at the end. I don't think Tilly or McLean got quoted much, but Skinner's book made more of a splash, being revised and reprinted many times.
Dudley Knight was teaching in southern California where people pronounce their R's, cot/caught are merged, there is no lower front a distinction as there is in New York. He taught a sort of do it yourself approach to phonetic notation, and was seemingly bothered that Skinner had ensconced herself at Carnegie Mellon and Julliard. His article is an attack on her and her approach. He may have dramatized the extent of her influence, but it is clear that her work continued to be influential within Carnegie Mellon for a long time. We have a lot of quotes from actors who don't like Skinner's approach, but it is unclear if any Hollywood actors liked her approach. Actresses such as Hepburn may have picked up their accents at private schools in New England they attended.
I don't think that the word "mid-atlantic" was used for an accent until Knight's article, so it is unhistorical to claim that early scholars were defining a mid-atlantic accent. Labov and perhaps most travel guide writers use "mid-Atlantic" to mean Pennsylvania and neighboring states.
New York, Boston and the large cities of the tidewater south are all nonrhotic. Plainly linguists who worked on New York in the 1930's were encountering some people who said "toidy-toid street", a nonrhotic accent, but this is probably not a British accent. Dongord (talk) 19:22, 4 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I appreciate the conversation, but my main points weren't addressed, so let me reiterate: please stick to the topics at hand to avoid the discussion becoming too huge and unwieldy; 2) Please point me to the source (and page, if relevant) saying that Tilly taught only summer sessions at Columbia; and 3) please discuss any other changes you want to implement here. Most importantly, be transparent about the sources you're basing your info on. Wolfdog (talk) 12:14, 5 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
British linguist Geoff Lindsey has recently dropped a YouTube video that has blown up this talk page (see the previous three sections above). Lindsey claims that the Mid-Atlantic accent once employed by certain famous actors a) is not "contrived" or "consciously learned" (or, the word in his video title, "fake") in an attempted emulation of British RP as so often described in the media, and instead b) is, in fact, basically the same thing as a naturally-acquired upper-class Northeastern U.S. accent whose heyday existed about a century ago. I've studied about this for years and the confidence of Lindsey's claims shocked me. After reacquainting myself with the admittedly scanty scholarship on the topic over the last few days, I'm content that the following reliable sources do not agree with Lindsey. (His confusion though is quite understandable; there's a lot of minutiae to unpack.) With regard to a), sources that I list below contend that this is in fact an accent actively learned and taught in elocution classes rather than a native accent. As for b), sources also contend that there are in actuality two distinct accents (the learned classroom accent versus the natural regional sociolect), with general agreement that the two are indeed quite phonetically similar but not the same.
See an overview of the relevant sources
Here is an overview of the relevant sources (the Wikipedia page has others too, but these seem to be the most reliable):
Knight's Standard Speech: The Ongoing Debate published by Vocal Vision 1997 and later reprinted by Taylor & Francis 2013: this is the main source of these arguments which can be found already heavily cited on the Wikipedia page.
Boberg's Accent in North American Film and Television published in 2021: "Beyond its traditional connection with New England, broad-a has an obvious association with the high prestige of Standard British English, so it is not surprising to find it in several of the earlier performances studied here, and not just those of New Englanders. In fact, it was one of several high-prestige features associated with what is sometimes called a 'Mid-Atlantic' stage accent, used by some actors in early- to mid-twentieth century theater and film... Though its features vary somewhat from one actor to another, it generally took /r/ vocalization, preservation of vowel contrasts before /r/ and sporadic use of broad-a from British English, and flapped /t/, palatal glide deletion after coronals and unrounded /o/ (lot) from American. [Certain actors] came by [their] high prestige speech honestly... For other actors, Mid-Atlantic speech was an artificial accent learned in drama school." (Thanks to Nardog for this source.)
Elliott's "Sociolinguistic study of rhoticity in American film speech from the 1930s to the 1970s" published by the University of Oregon: Mid-Atlantic theatre speech "partly follows a New England accent as its norm and partly follows the British standard"; "the target area for the prestige form apparently is intended to be New England"
Hubbell's Pronunciation of English in New York City published by Columbia University Press in 1950: certain New York City natives' " 'eastern' patterns, to be sure, are not infrequently acquired ones, carefully drilled into the speaker in college or in finishing school"; and "The types of metropolitan pronunciation that bear any marked resemblance to the speech of eastern New England... are spoken only by a small minority of New Yorkers. So far as the other dialects of the city are concerned, divergences from the New England pattern are far more numerous than similarities".
White's You Talkin' to Me? published by Oxford University Press in 2020: "The cultivated accent that children learned in schools would have overlaid the native New York accent, already somewhat British in its features, with a layer of further Briticisms"; and "There was a time when cultivated American speech had a New York sound. If you grew up in New York or New England in (say) the 1940s, you would have learned, either in public school or in a private or finishing school, a cultivated accent... To contemporary listeners, it actually sounded rather British, as though the speech of Southern England had been brushed over the top of New York speech. While some people disliked the artificiality of this school-taught accent, they agreed that it was pervasive; as late as 1952, a linguist could take for granted the “ ‘elocutionist fiction’ which prescribes for cultivated usage a mixture of eastern New England speech and Southern British English."
Urban's "Franklin D. Roosevelt and the American Theatre Standard" published by Jagiellonian University Press in 2021: This is particularly fascinating because it actually is looking into the specific question: Is the Northeastern century-old sociolect distinct from the Mid-Atlantic American Theatre Standard (ATS) accent? Some snippets: Since ATS promoters wanted ATS modeled on cultivated accents, "the north-eastern upper-class standard and the theatre standard are occasionally equated". Also: "to the extent that FDR’s accent is a good illustration of the north-eastern standard, the latter was certainly not identical to ATS"; "The main reason for the discrepancies between FDR’s pronunciation and ATS is that the former is a spoken variety, whereas the latter is a prescriptive construct"; and "British influences are obvious in both [FDR's speech and ATS], but ATS is far closer to its elder overseas sibling both in systemic and phonetic terms".
Lindsey also makes other claims that these sources would regard as contentious, but back to my Request for Comment. Does it make more sense to split along the lines of the two accents (one theatre-based Mid-Atlantic accent page and one Elite Northeastern accent page/section); or, to simply merge everything here into one "Mid-Atlantic accent" because the two accents are so commonly (if somewhat mistakenly) equated? Wolfdog (talk) 17:20, 6 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Split. Even if the two are very similar and related, interleaving information on a naturally acquired accent with info on an invented theater standard is really confusing, and can lead to people confusing the two. Erinius (talk) 13:38, 7 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Comment: My current feeling is that despite the two being distinct, they are both widely called by the same name "Mid-Atlantic/Transatlantic accent": #1) the upper-class sociolect and #2) the theatre-school accent. Even if we were to split, with the name most commonly used for #2, I don't think #1 has any great alternative name to send it to. (I'm already a little hesitant about having the Elite Northeastern American English section currently at Northern American English, since the latter is defined in part by rhoticity, which the Elite dialect lacks.) Wolfdog (talk) 01:00, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
