People who have been asked to change their accent

lightcrystal · Post by **lightcrystal** » November 5th, 2021, 5:59 pm

The actor Jon Pertwee was told that he would never succeed and to give up acting; he had a lisp.

Teachers at school told me that my accent is irritating. It is "nasalized" or "metallic". One offered to teach me how to change it. Not in a rude way. I said no. I was told that I sounded so irritating to people that I would not get a job or get through an interview. I have also been told that my breathing is wrong in public speaking. What am I meant to do? Not breathe?

I have spoken in front of hundreds of people in a speech competition at a hotel. I have spoken on CB radio. In both cases I did not seem to irritate people; a win for me.

Basically I am a weird amalgam. I got an English accent from my family and then when we traveled to Australia as migrants I picked up Antipodean voices. I am not going to say which English county we came from; might be fun to guess. Hint, the most stubborn county lol.

The result. I manage, without any intention, to sound about 20 or more years younger than I am; I often get the response on the phone "you have a young sounding voice". I have no idea how I do this. If Morgan Freeman sounds like Methuselah then I sound like a teenager. There is an esoteric reason for this if anyone is interested. I am one of the few defenders of astrology working. There aren't many of us left after Carl Sagan's 1970's demolition job. Let's say that mercury [the planet] would be very different for someone like Freeman.

Being asked to change puts me in a weird position. I don't know whether to thank the person for being so concerned or to just explode at them for being rude.

Post by **annise** » November 5th, 2021, 6:36 pm

Is this in the LV forum or via PM or on one of the multitude of non LV sites that use the name and the recordings?.
If it is on our forum please PM me
If it is on youtube or an app or Archive or somewhere like that. that's life - the world is full of people who only like the accent they use and others who are just ignorant and of course those who think Sherlock Holmes should talk BBC English.
I think my favourite review of a recording a Britisher said
How dare you read this book by that famous American author Charles Dickens.

So just think of them as some smug talentless person

Anne

And as I have said before - we don't have accents, everyone else has.

lightcrystal · Post by **lightcrystal** » November 5th, 2021, 6:38 pm

You will be pleased to hear that none of this has happened here. Librivox is better than that!

I agree; why can't people just accept people the way they are?

maxgal · Post by **maxgal** » November 5th, 2021, 6:40 pm

On the somewhat related topics, of either asking someone to change an accent, or commenting on why someone's accent is "bad":
I think this sucks.
Accents are, for better or worse, part of the entertaining, enlightening, infuriating, maddening, brilliant world of human communication.
As far as I'm concerned, the more the merrier.

GettingTooOld · Post by **GettingTooOld** » November 6th, 2021, 5:17 pm

Everyone who speaks has an accent. Strangely, ignorant people think that some people speak 'without an accent' but this can only be said as a comparison, usually to themselves and their associates. Everyone who is capable of speaking has 100% accent, it's only when the comparison comes in, and the difference is measured that people can say there is 10 % difference and therefore 'that person has a slight accent'

accents are useful and interesting, you can tell a great deal about someone from their accent. I often enjoy surprising strangers by telling them things they wouldn't guess I could know, just from their accent.

You can tell what rubbish most people will think due to cultural imperialism. People with '5 eyes' accent will all be fed the same ideas through their media, English with Russian or Beijing characteristics will contrast to those ideas. I better not go on about how much you can read out of an accent, lest people tell me I'm too political and so on.

When I hear someone say about someone else '[that person] doesn't have any accent' it's invariably both of them speak USA Hollywood accent, and they're unable to distinguish their home country accent, which is not a USA accent, from what they listen to for many hours a day and adopt as their own. This is because the majority of their countrymen who are also not living in the USA, have likewise been conformed to both Hollywood accent and 5 eyes propaganda.

Post by **Rapunzelina** » November 7th, 2021, 6:23 am

Google tells me that the most stubborn county is Yorkshire.

lightcrystal · Post by **lightcrystal** » November 7th, 2021, 8:15 am

Well done! Your prize is a plate of Yorkshire puddings. My family used to own a market garden near Huddersfield. I even have a brass pugwash telescope that my family got in a barter.

Post by **annise** » November 7th, 2021, 3:59 pm

Phil Benson uses his childhood Manchester accent to read a heap of literature by local authors and guide books and novels and they are great.

Anne

paullawleyjones · Post by **paullawleyjones** » January 9th, 2022, 6:04 pm

When I started teaching English in South Korea 21 years ago, the owner of the hagwon asked me if I would speak in an American accent in the classroom (I am British, without any regional accent.) I flatly refused, positing that it would be better for the students to hear accents other than American. The situation is entirely different now, with Australian, New Zealand, South African, Irish, Filipino, and of course different British English accents heard in classrooms.

lightcrystal · Post by **lightcrystal** » January 9th, 2022, 6:34 pm

paullawleyjones wrote: ↑January 9th, 2022, 6:04 pm When I started teaching English in South Korea 21 years ago, the owner of the hagwon asked me if I would speak in an American accent in the classroom (I am British, without any regional accent.) I flatly refused, positing that it would be better for the students to hear accents other than American. The situation is entirely different now, with Australian, New Zealand, South African, Irish, Filipino, and of course different British English accents heard in classrooms.

That's interesting; it is still common for some Asian people, especially Indonesians, to have a pronounced American accent element because of how they are taught English.

lurcherlover · Post by **lurcherlover** » February 12th, 2022, 3:56 am

Rapunzelina wrote: ↑November 7th, 2021, 6:23 am Google tells me that the most stubborn county is Yorkshire.

I think this could just possibly be right. If you have ever watched "Heartbeat" - a drama series on British TV, which is set in Yorkshire, you will see this stubbornness a lot. But I'm not sure it's really true and it's probably very exaggerated for dramatic purposes.

But accents are fascinating, and at times irritating if you can't understand what people are saying ...

Me, I just have an southern English accent with a bit of London thrown in. It's probably not very popular or colourful so most listeners pass on and over me, I'm sure.

Gvbriel · Post by **Gvbriel** » April 14th, 2022, 4:02 pm

Im from the Bahamas and it is extremely hard to hide my accent on certain words

Gvbriel · Post by **Gvbriel** » April 14th, 2022, 4:06 pm

Bahamians have a strong dialect so it can be hard for us to hide it

Gvbriel · Post by **Gvbriel** » April 14th, 2022, 4:08 pm

I thought this amount chat would be more active considering that many people have accents.

mariegriffiths · Post by **mariegriffiths** » May 14th, 2022, 2:55 am

The Hobbits in the Lord of the Rings should speak with West Midlands accents, you can hear a recording of Tolkien himself doing this.
In the film they changed to Irish American obviously to chase the $$$$$$$$.