Dodgy British accents in American programmes

[rugbychick1]

I'm currently recovering from surgery and binge watching "Bones" for the first time. Why do the accents for any British characters all sound the same? Now I've noticed it, why can't I un notice it?

Not necessarily in JA’s time. In Emma, the successful but ‘low’ tradesman Mr Coles is clearly coming up in the world (extending his house, hiring more servants, acquiring a carriage, daughters who are learning to play the piano), to the point where we’re told the Coles’ fortune and style of living is second only to Emma and her father’s, but is only beginning to make inroads socially, and won’t presume to invite the ‘regular and best families’ of Highbury (the Woodhouses, Westons, Mr Knightley). Emma waits for an eventual invitation so she can snub them for not knowing their place (but ends up accepting).

Mr Weston is from a similar trade background, but in his case, the money had been made three generations ago, so the social ascent is complete.

Similarly, Emma tells Harriet Smith that had she married ‘down’ (to the tenant farmer Robert Martin), she would not have been able to visit her any more, because the social gap would have been too great.

Location continuity doesn't matter to the producers/directors, they are making a show for entertainment, not a travelogue. 99.9% of the audience will neither know nor care.

Michael Caine's accent is explained in the film.

Yes, I can’t get excited about location continuity.

Plus it’s spawned a lot of drinking games — there was a Morse one when I was a student, where you had to take a shot every time Morse drove the wrong way down a one-way street, or went through the gate of college X and ended up in the quad of college Y (usually Wadham).

When Casualty was filmed in Bristol we used to do that when e.g. someone ran out of the BRI and turned a corner into Bedminster.

Yes! Complete with scenes where he was doing Sean Connery impersonations.

Strangely, Ewan McGregor’s accent always sounds odd to me, he grew up less than half an hour from me, and we are roughly the same age. He was good in Trainspotting overall but the accent was just a teeny bit too clearly enunciated for the character. I really dislike how he speaks in Star Wars, though I accept that there are no strict criteria for the accent of someone from a Galaxy Far, Far Away 😀.

Someone mentioned Emily Blunt in Mary Poppins Returns- I agree, her accent sounded wrong, but then Julie Andrews was just so perfect. Surely any English actress worth her salt can do a Julie Andrews impression (even I can do a passable one, ha ha), so I can only conclude she deliberately didn’t go down that route. My sense was that what she came up with was a sort of “posh” accent of someone upper-class, whereas Mary Poppins in the original (similar to Julie Andrews) was more of a “middle/working class woman who has had elocution lessons and believes passionately in speaking correctly”. Emily’s cockney music hall singing in “The Cover is not the Book” is great though, and I warmed to the film overall. Lin Manuel Miranda is passable, accent-wise (I think he HAD to be slightly bad to pay suitable tribute to the original) and it’s great that Dick van Dyke is in it at the end.

Sorry, the first sentence was agreeing with the PP who said Jonnny Lee Miller had a good Scottish accent in Trainspotting.

I was reminded last night when watching Elton John at Glastonbury, that there is some weird thing that seems to compel English people to put on comedy Scottish accents whenever they are talking to/about a Scottish person. He did it when he introduced his Scottish guitarist. It happens to me all the time, the most extreme being the doctor who was stitching me up after DS was born, we were in London and he had a cut-glass English accent but looked up from my nether regions halfway through and said “Och, are ye fae Glesga then?”. Apparently this is fine if you went to medical school in Scotland and have fond memories of the “lovely lovely people”. Just focus on the stitches Russ bloody Abbott, I thought to myself…

This video is wonderful for anyone interested in accents.

but looked up from my nether regions halfway through and said “Och, are ye fae Glesga then?”

I'm of Scottish extraction, as my dentist is from Dundee.

Boom boom!

If Michael Caine had been born and brought up in Elswick, Dublin, Beijing or Neptune he would still have had a cockney accent because he's Michael Caine.

The first ever Sex and the City episode always annoys me as the ‘English’ woman sounds Australian

Some actors can do a brilliant accent though, Toni Collette in About a Boy does a completely convincing accent

I got in an argument on MN once about people from Rotherhithe not being proper Cockneys because you can't hear Bow bells from there.

She could have been from Essex! I once asked a young woman where in Australia she was from because I was convinced she was an Aussie. Born and bred in Colchester. I’ve since noticed loads of them sound like that.

I grew up in Hertfordshire but went to Uni in Yorkshire. I was asked a few times if I was australian. Must've been all the neighbours and home and away I watched as a kid lol

He (Ewan McGregor) was good in Trainspotting overall but the accent was just a teeny bit too clearly enunciated for the character

It would have to be, for global release... if it had been absolutely authentic there'd have needed to be subtitles or dubbing!

I agree with those saying that sometimes it's the American idea of a British accent that's often the aim, rather than authenticity; and as such even Brit actors can sound odd in an American film/TV series.
I was recently irked by accent of an English character in Modern Family... turns out he was actually English!

I do get what you are saying but McGregor sounded noticeably crisper to my ear than the actors playing his parents, or Spud and his family, or Begbie or Tommy. The only one posher is Diane, but she’s supposed to be a rich New Town private school girl.

There are subtitles in parts of the film, when they are in the nightclub for example but that’s obviously because of the noise.
The original book is written entirely in dialect, I’m not sure if a “translation” exists. I found it easy to read as I grew up with those voices around me but I always wondered how non-Scottish fans of the film who fancied reading the book got on with it.

Arvin! (name also annoys me. He should've been a Tom or William)

Yes, Arvin!

You’re right, never met a British Arvin. Tom or William would have been the perfect name for him.

I read some time ago that the way a native Scot would pronounce Lerwick depends on where they are from. On the TV programme Shetland the pronunciation is consistent with this.

From memory many of the cast do say Ler-wick. For me, the variety in the pronunciation means that it has been thought about, especially since it could have been modified in later series, and with some filming actually happening there.

@OllyBJolly’s post in this thread (fourth post down) is interesting, but points out that Jimmy Perez’s is wrong.

I think it’s on purpose tbh, Renton code switches in the book, he has whole passages in English rather than Scots - he’s supposed to be more well spoken, more well read, more intelligent than the others.

I take your point, it’s a long time since I read it. However, I’m not sure if you are Scottish yourself, but I would not say that Trainspotting was written in “Scots”, rather it’s written in the Scottish vernacular /slang of English that is specific to the central belt of Scotland (and a specific social class within that area, in informal situations only). Scots is a step further than that, much more archaic-sounding (think Rabbie Burns) and when I hear or read it (now that it’s been kind of resurrected by the SNP and is used in formal speeches and documents) I do not recognise it as the dialect that I grew up surrounded by. That said, a quick Google reveals that there is a LOT of academic debate about the dividing lines between dialect and language and what “Scots” really is. All I can say is that I can code -switch into that Trainspotting language myself and I do not consider myself a “Scots speaker”.

HerVagestyTheQueef · Today 10:48

It would have to be, for global release... if it had been absolutely authentic there'd have needed to be subtitles or dubbing!

I watched an episode of Rab C. Nesbit at my cousin's, in Reading and realised that it had subtitles. Unlike here in the Northeast.

I do not recognise it as the dialect that I grew up surrounded by.

I'm no expert, but aren't there different dialects of Scots, including modern Scots? I understand the debates about whether Scots is a language or a dialect of English, but there are many words and constructions used in modern Scottish speech that are Scots, rather than English.

Speaking of which, and not really relevant to the thread, but there was another thread on MN recently about Americanisms creeping into British English. One word complained of was "pinkie" for little finger. Yes, we use that in the US almost universally for little finger, but it's a Scots word, brought over by Scottish settlers.

I see what you mean, all I can say is that nobody ever described the language we were speaking as “Scots” but we were told Burns was writing in “Scots”. Speaking the vernacular that we did was not really helpful in understanding Burns poetry beyond the odd bit of vocabulary, so I never connected the two as ancient and modern versions of the same language/dialects.