British forums members: does Hammond sound really Northern on tv?

edkwon said:
Do ppl on the eastern shores of Australia sound different from the ppl who live in Perth?
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I have heard a lot of people say there is an accent difference between the states of Australia, but I haven't heard it. But you can tell a true-blue Aussie ocker accent apart from, say, mine :p Accents are fascinating! I don't hear enough of them in real life :)
 
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RE: Oh and, finaly, a question for you guys. Does Hugh Laurie
sound convincing in House? and where is that accent meant to be from

That was the tell for me. When I first heard him, I thought he was actually American. Then, I listened a bit more carefully and could not place a regional American accept. I kept thinking, "oh wait, he's supposed to be from..." and went through NY, NJ, MA, Cali, the south, the north, etc. but finally ran out of places. Came down to he's either from some remote region of Samoa (accent I've never actually heard in person) or he's faking it. He's very convincing though indeed, almost too convincing. It's like his accent is too good so it made me think it fake.
 
About the aussie accents, there isn't really much difference from state to state. Probably in the country it's very ocker, but apart from that, we all have the same accent.
 
Momo63 said:
...And don't even get me started on Frasier - an Australian doing Cockernee whilst playing the brother of someone purporting to be from Manchester
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We'w we aw tawk 'ike 'at, dant we gavana?

Isn't whatshername who plays Daphne from the UK really, but is being obliged to speak a 'northernish' with US dialect? I saw the fist ever episode of Frasier recently (well I assume it was, they were introducing the characters) and it was painfull, that someone aping West Yorkshire (if she was doing Manchester she should sound like a Gallagher - either Oasis or Shameless I don't care - you know, all flat glottal stops and nasal whining) to such a strong degree should have to use US English grammar and dialect. So grating.

Chesire Cat said:
As for aping Brits in a Dick Van Dyke voice I tend to get the opposite & always get someone aping a Liz Hurley voice...& I hate that.
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Was just watching the Simpsons where they go to London recently... either one or the other... though they've had Willie for years.

I don't really blame them for not being able to pull off the accent perfectly. I'm from the East Midlands, and the accent there is apparently so neutral that when someone takes you off, they miss by about a hundred miles or so. I've never heard anyone from outside the region get it even close, even great actors and actresses fuck it up. Maybe impressionists, but not very often. I just find it weird that people from outside the UK think that we sound like a caricature of a cockney as played by an American. I don't even sound like a cockney (not quite, nearly, but I refuse to say barf, grarss, parss, bas, fack, cant and so on... ask a cockney to say mass and pass, and see them get confused when you laugh at them), never mind one that sounds nothing like a cockney, if you know what I mean.

I was going to post a link to a sample of my own regional accent. I thought the http://web.ku.edu/idea/europe/england/england.htm site might help, but no, the East Midlands is a void between Northhants (who consider themselves to be Southern anyway) and South Yorkshire. I knew the BBC would come to the rescue though: http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/group/leicester-groby.shtml
 
edkwon said:
Do ppl on the eastern shores of Australia sound different from the ppl who live in Perth?
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Nope. You can't tell where someone comes from in Australia based on their spoken language - I don't think English has existed for long enough in this country for regional dialects and variations to become pronounced. There is some variation most broadly based on education and social status.

Jesse Spencer (Dr Chase on House) grew up in the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne and is a reasonable enough example of Australian English, but some might say slightly on the 'posh' side. Very few people actually speak like the late Steve Irwin (The Crocodile Hunter) - I have lived in Australia all my life and never have once come across someone who naturally spoke like that, although I don't go to rural areas often.
 
Meio said:
Isn't whatshername who plays Daphne from the UK really, but is being obliged to speak a 'northernish' with US dialect? .... to such a strong degree should have to use US English grammar and dialect. So grating.
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Yeah, Daphne's from the UK ...oh crikey, I just checked IMDB & she's an Essex girl! She was one of Benny Hill's Angels. I know what you mean about having to use US dialect ...they're just too chicken & too scared people wont understand her or endear to her if she sounds too different.
 
Programme said:
Jesse Spencer (Dr Chase on House) grew up in the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne and is a reasonable enough example of Australian English, but some might say slightly on the 'posh' side. Very few people actually speak like the late Steve Irwin (The Crocodile Hunter) - I have lived in Australia all my life and never have once come across someone who naturally spoke like that, although I don't go to rural areas often.
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Was Steve Irwin's accent that exaggerated in real life, or did he just play up his 'Aussie-ness' for the global tv viewing audience.

I feel like when we see these australian animal planet tv presenters, they do the 'shrimp on da bahbie' accent a little too strong. And Irwin was very outgoing in his speech patterns. I wouldnt be surprised if he cheesed it up.
 
To add to the confusion, there is also the South African accent. I have known my fair share of S. Africans in my lifetime, and their accent is a wierd mixture of posh English mixed in with a unique blend of local dialect. Heh, everytime my S. African friend would speak, people (Americans) would always ask if he was British or Australian :lol: and when he'd respond "South African" they would get this really confused look on their face. Oh, and as far as all the different dialects in the UK, I'd like to quote one of my fav movies of all time:

Bullet Tooth Tony: A bookie's got blagged last night.
Avi: Blagged? Speak English to me, Tony. I thought this country spawned the fucking language, and so far nobody seems to speak it.
 
Er, we all understand each others (bar the odd word - Newcastle and Glasgow you know who you are) but speak our own - hence I understand blagged = ripped off.
 
Someone told me that the classic southern american accent (the stuff you hear from georgia, s carolina or any Civil War film (Gone with the Wind, etc) is essentially a corruption of english accent from the colonies days. If that's so, how come one doesn't hear the same accent in the northern states?
 
edkwon said:
Someone told me that the classic southern american accent (the stuff you hear from georgia, s carolina or any Civil War film (Gone with the Wind, etc) is essentially a corruption of english accent from the colonies days. If that's so, how come one doesn't hear the same accent in the northern states?
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'cause they got corrupted too, just in a different way. Also, what cobol said is true. A nation of immigrants pretty much guarantees some form of anomaly in the host language every time a new immigrant wave hits the shores, so to speak.
 
edkwon said:
Someone told me that the classic southern american accent (the stuff you hear from georgia, s carolina or any Civil War film (Gone with the Wind, etc) is essentially a corruption of english accent from the colonies days. If that's so, how come one doesn't hear the same accent in the northern states?
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There's much more Irish thrown into the mix that is northern American English, among other influences, hence the more defined pronunciation of the letter "r" in the north. Remember, after the Civil War most immigrants from Europe stayed up north, so their influences on the Southern accent are less pronounced, if existent at all.
 
edkwon said:
Was Steve Irwin's accent that exaggerated in real life, or did he just play up his 'Aussie-ness' for the global tv viewing audience. I feel like when we see these australian animal planet tv presenters, they do the 'shrimp on da bahbie' accent a little too strong. And Irwin was very outgoing in his speech patterns. I wouldnt be surprised if he cheesed it up.
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I don't know. I never met him. However, I would guess that it was played up for the TV audience. Australian accents on television are usually played up or completely suppressed.

That being said, "shrimp on the barbie" is a completely artificial phrase made up by marketing executives for tourism adverts in America. If an Australian were to say something along those lines, it would be "prawn on the barbie". :p
 
I 'm not sure about this 'Australia has no regional accents' thing, because the first time I ever went to Sydney this waiter in a restaurant picked that my mum and I were from Victoria the moment we opened our mouths!

I didn't think we sounded any different to anyone else. It's confusing.
 
captain_70s said:
I always thought the Canadian accent was a odd cross between the American and Scottish accents.

Or am I completely of track there!:D
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I think you are off track and which Scottish accent do you mean? Pure Glasgow and pure West Highland have about as much in common as Australian and Portuguese :)
 
An interesting comparison is to listen to Hamster in a very early episode (such a 1x01 or 1x02) and compare him to a much later episode. Particularly where there is an 'a' sound, as in 'fast'. I have a feeling I (or someone else) pointed this out a while back around the time that SBS started showing Series 1 of TG, as it had been so long since I'd seen it I'd forgotten what Hamster's accent used to be like. And yes, it used to be more northern.

I'm guessing that these days, he's taken on some of the pronunciations attached to Received Pronunciation, or possibly Estuary (although not as overt with the Estuary as, say, Jamie Oliver).

Zesty said:
I 'm not sure about this 'Australia has no regional accents' thing, because the first time I ever went to Sydney this waiter in a restaurant picked that my mum and I were from Victoria the moment we opened our mouths!

I didn't think we sounded any different to anyone else. It's confusing.
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Australians DO have regional accents, though not as overt as those in the UK. Queenslanders tend to be a bit slower with their speech, and often use 'eh' as a verbal full stop (like Territorians and Kiwis do). South Australians tend to overpronounce things - ask someone from Adelaide to tell you about the time they went to France to dance with Lance and get ready to piss yourself. It's almost as funny as asking a Victorian if the school in Castlemaine has a pool, and if they've seen any good films recently. :p

That said, even people in the same city have different accents. I can pick where someone grew up in Adelaide purely by listening to their voice. Bogans have a distinct twang, but Adelaide bogans sound different to their interstate counterparts somehow. It might be because Adelaide bogans tend to use 'and that' as their verbal full stop. I think it's funny how bogans need to verbalise their punctuation, it's quaint.

/amateur cunning linguist
//should have gone to uni to study this
 
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Back to Brit accents, where does Tiff Needel's accent come from? Whatever it is, it sounds really regional and he doesn't try to hide it or make it sound 'BBC standard' at all (yeah i know he doesn't work for the BBC).
 
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