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 find it quite interesting that Americans lengthen vowels, which Britishers don't; and vice versa. Anti: an tie. Iraq Eyerack etc. Economic eckernomic.

I don't know if I lengthen vowels with my Scottish accent but we tend to put in extra vowel iyswim

For example -
Door sounds like doh-ar
School sounds like scoo-ahl
Bull sounds like boo-ahl

So I end up making one syllable words have 2 syllables.

I once knew a man from Canada who lived in the UK with his English wife and English-born children. He was a big Star Wars fan and taught his sons all about the characters before they were old enough to see the films for themselves and he said they mistakenly 'converted' his accent into theirs on Darth Vader and started saying Darth Vater!

RaraRachael

I don't know if I lengthen vowels with my Scottish accent but we tend to put in extra vowel iyswim

Northern Ireland, too; it's probably why Americans say "meeyrr" instead of mirror > you buggers have stolen the syllable!

eckernomic

Said no American ever.

Said every American I've ever heard say it. I've never heard an American pronounce the first syllable as ee.

The 'e' is pronounced both ways in the US. It was the 'r' I was taking issue with.

SenecaFallsRedux

The 'e' is pronounced both ways in the US. It was the 'r' I was taking issue with.

Ah. Ecka better?

Oh yes, I could see that. Even in Washington DC (which is NOT deep south) there is a local accent that is rather drawling and takes a while to get used to (among people whose families have lived there for generations, not the politico transplant types)

Well that's just freaky!
Either I've just never noticed my whole life or I'm from a very dumb part of the country : )
I studied German so -garten wouldn't be weird to me, but I swear we spelled it -garden usually. Huh.

I'm Irish and have a very neutral Irish accent but when I lived in the States ordering water at restaurants was very difficult to say the least.I pronounce it wau -ter and Americans tend to pronounce it as waad-er .Once in Napa valley the waitress after looking quite confused came back with a bottle of port and asked if that was what I wanted .
In the end I just asked for waa-der just like the locals .

@schnubbins your story reminds me of being in a pub in London. I asked for a coke and was given port!

I taught in England for quite a few years. When I learned French we always spoke with an attempt at a native accent. I was trying to teach the kids to say Ouvrez la Porte and they hadn't a clue what I was saying. So I wrote it on the board and they said "Oh oovray la pauwte" so I had to teach them French In a London accent which was very weird.

@RaraRachael That reminds me of my first job in the UK, I was working in a restaurant where I was the only native English speaker, but everyone there had learned English in the UK, so if I used American pronunciations or words they had no idea what I was saying.
It was actually really good for me to pick up British English! Some fellow Americans made fun of me for 'going Brit' so quickly but hey if you need cutlery, you need cutlery (not silverware : )

@dreamingbohemian we had a young American teacher at our school and she was appalled when a young lad asked her for a rubber 😅

I was in Port Iberia, texas and had some trouble getting a coffee. The lady asked, as if talking to a 3 year old, "D'yall speak English?" I refrained from saying, "Whey aye, man, pet!"

We got taken to an "English Pub" in Mobile, Alabama and got roasted by the barman and told to lose the stupid, worst fucking Limey accent ever. I ended up showing him my passport and he still tried to insist I speak like a proper Limey.

Outside San Francisco, at Fort Ross, a teacher overheard me and my sister speaking. She asked us to say something to the kids (8 or 9) and I said, "Hi, are you enjoying your school trip? Where have you come from." Teacher said, "Wow, you speak real good English. Where you from?"

"England," I replied. "Oh? And where did you learn English."

Come on, Team USA. Regale us with some Dum Brit stories!

@SinnerBoy

There's that disappearing R again.

I have an idea that the ek-ON-uh-mee/ ek-uh-NOM-ik pronunciation is closer to the older pronunciation of words in the oeconomy family.

I was volunteering in court in Chicago and a social worker asked me where I came from and how long I'd been in the USA.
I said I was from Scotland and had been in the USA for 8 months.
She replied that my English was excellent considering this and did I miss Scotland.
I just said thanks and I was enjoying being in the USA.

When I was in America I got asked pretty much every time if I was Irish or Scottish, which I thought was quite interesting because to me they’re completely different, I mean they’re completely different in different parts too, lol, but definitely from each other.

To be fair though, a woman from Luxembourg once got very excited because she thought my DS and DP were speaking Gaelic to each other... they weren’t, they were just talking with a Scottish accent very fast 😂