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From: rte@elmo.lz.att.com (Ralph T. Edwards)
Subject: Re: Dutch and English accents
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References: <3rgfmn$958@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu> <rte-1206951353530001@mac-118.lz.att.com> <DA7opG.L6z@statsci.com> <3s2a7j$88d@gordon.enea.se>
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 20:45:24 GMT
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In article <3s2a7j$88d@gordon.enea.se>, sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog)
wrote:

> First, when I said I preferred British accents over American ones,
> Uri Bruck asked if with British English I meant RP/BBC English or 
> rural country dialects, and Ralph Edwards assumed I meant the
> former. However, I did mean both.

I don't remember assuming anything (at least about your comment).  I
mostly just ignore subjective opinions.  They're not very interesting.  My
comments were in response to tother peoples comments, as best as I can
recall.

> As for the difference between USAmerican English and Canadian I
> don't doubt that they exist (but I'm skeptic if you say that
> there are traits that all varieties of American English share,
> that are not present in Canadian English.) I don't have enough
> exposure to different sorts of North-American English to say what
> is what, but being exposed to a Canadian and a USAmerican I would
> probably be able to tell the difference.

Let's see, you don't know the differences, but you think you can tell the
difference.  Hmmm.  With a Ouija board?

> 
> Nevertheless, Canadian English seems to share traits with USAmerican
> English which makes them both sound ugly.
> 

In American films, if we really want to make somone sound silly, we give
them a Swedish accent. :-)

But seriously, if you discussed which features, perhaps we could correlate
what you find "ugly" with some preprogrammed attitude as to what you find
ugly in your own language's varieties.  This varies by culture.  In
British films, lower class or sometimes base characters are often given a
rhotic dialect.  In Disney films, the truely evil characters are give
advanced RP accents.

-- 
R.T.Edwards rte@elmo.att.com 908 576-3031
