American accents - t sound in water and others

[mincepiepie]

I'm really intrigued by accents.

I'm from the north of England and have a generic northern accent.

I know there are a wide range of accents in the United States, and but also that typically the T is pronounced as D? for example, water I would say war- tah Americans would pronounce war-Der And duty, I would day dyou-tee and US accent doo-Dee.

Is this typical of an most American accents? I was listing to a true crime podcast and a witness was call Soptic. Fairly odd name in English but I'd pronounce it sop-tick but the presenters mad a big thing of calling her soap-dick. (It was the room 1046 Murder of you are interested she was a cleaner hence the hilarity )

Also the Boston accent drops the r in car, bar so on but I think I do this too, baa and caa. But don't most typical British accent say it this was, except rural West Country type accents ( i think the dropping the r is non -rhotic?).

Can any one enlighten me?

I’ve been confused by song lyrics that involve people wading.

@MissConductUS Not the most reliable source bit this is what Wikipedia tells me - ‘The Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent, is a consciously learned accent of English, fashionably used by the late 19th-century and early 20th-century American upper class and entertainment industry, which blended together features regarded as the most prestigious from both American and British English.’
I’m sure I watched a tv show - I think it was on Netflix - set in the 40s or 50s Hollywood, I can’t remember the name, but there was definitely a scene with actors sat in a classroom learning this accent and it was said that it was made up! Because the mid-Atlantic, or transatlantic, references the sea, it’s not an actual place where people come from. Although clearly it is as you’ve shown - maybe some background research for that show went wrong there!
I’m not questioning your accent by the way - just explaining where my awareness of this came from.

It's sad the Americans can't speak proper.

I’m sure they can, they just seem to make it rhyme with greig, like they say graham as gram.

But I mean, St. John is sinjin, so, don’t know that we’re any better tbh

😂 yeah.... I can do it, if I really really concentrate, but it sounds very odd still, like I’m putting on an accent. Better than just calling him carol though. 😐

Thankfully, I’ve never met a Pearl.

It's the Irish and Scots influence as well as German/Dutch from early European settlers. I'm amazed sometimes at the similarity between some Irish and US accents.

And another show where someone I thought was ‘Carrie’ was actually ‘Kerry’. Because that’s how you’re used to hearing the American pronunciation after a while

I was about 10 seasons into ER before I realised the character I thought of as "Carrie Weaver" was actually Kerry Weaver.

Yes I can hear this in their accents

I find the Illinois? accent particularly fascinating with the long drawn out sounds

Yes! I happened to see an episode recently with subtitles and actually thought they'd spelled her name wrong!
I thought she was Carrie.

Yep, Carl/Carol are the same to me.

I've always wondered why most Americans don't seem to be able to pronounce mirror (meer) or horrible (horr-bill).

Like the OP I find it fascinating. But I hate it when people say they hate a particular country's accent. Scotland is only a small country but someone from Shetland sounds nothing like one from Glasgow.

Very few people can ever place what my accent is. We have lots of local words that nobody outwith the area can understand.
When I say fish, the vowel sound isn't a letter i, nor is it an e - it's something in between.

@BeanieTeen, that same wikipedia article goes on to say

"After the accent's decline following the end of World War II, this American version of a "posh" accent has all but disappeared even among the American upper classes, as Americans have increasingly dissociated from the effete speaking styles of the East Coast elite"

So the accent it refers to is not in general use today. The mid-Atlantic states have some distinct local accents, but overall the current accent is relatively neutral compared to the American south or places like Boston. I have a modern mid-Atlantic accent, not the historic one you are referring to.

I'm in New York, but not NYC, which has quite a distinct accent that traces back to the early Dutch settlers when the city was New Amsterdam, with input and influence from later waves of European settlers. The NYC accent is quite famous from TV and movies but isn't common in even the close suburbs.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_accent

My husband, who has the same accent as I do, lived and worked in London for a time. His British colleagues could obviously tell that he was an American, but according to him, they were surprised that his accent wasn't more pronounced. So perhaps we're judged by a television standard rather than the actual current usage.

@BeanieTeen Yes, this was my understanding.

It was called mid-Atlantic or Trans-Atlantic, which would be in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, to symbolise the fact that it is half and half / neither one nor the other.

It was used in old films and I absolutely love hearing it, but yes, it wasn't a real accent that people naturally spoke.

I hope this was in jest.

Lol at Carl/Carol 😅 Other languages are lazy with p's and t's too. Greek (Cypriot Greek) is the worst - we soften them to b's and D's!

I lived in the States and worked in various cities. The accents are really different but even living in Brooklyn you can tell different areas from the accent.

I am a linguist by trade but haven’t researched it. I just heard it and apparently my Northern accent stayed in tact with a very Brooklyn Bay Ridge “water”

On similar vein to a Scotsman saying Carl, try being Irish and saying Howard

This reminds me of a phonics programme I was doing with DS at 5. It was American and he had to decipher the phonic sounds and pick the correct word. He managed to work out 'butter' even though they pronounced it bud-der 😂

Interestingly New York and New Jersey are states where I’ve regularly had problems ordering water in my British accent and had to ask for wah-dar

so I’m not sure the mid Atlantic states pronounce water in the way you think!

Trying to teach phonics in Scotland using English resources had its tricky moments.
They didn't acknowledge the wh sound so our kids would struggle with the fact that whether and weather supposedly sound the same.
The fact that farmers and pyjamas allegedly rhyme.
The long and short oo sound - book, spoon, all have the same oo sound to us.

I remember thinking it was hilarious that we had a child called Luke Wright cos it made me think of Look right as you cross the road, except that it was pronounced more like Luck than Look.

In a similar vein, a clip of English actor Hugh Dancy who mostly works in the US with a very convincing American accent, discussing the words that catch him out. 6 minute mark. Hovering/huvering!

On similar vein to a Scotsman saying Carl, try being Irish and saying Howard

It’s not that Hard.

As Brits living in the USA we have learned to add a d to water to make sure we are understood.

In my original NYC accent I said waddah

We moved upstate when I was young and the school put me in speech therapy because of my accent 🙄

You should have told them to Fuhgeddaboudit! 😁