to hate how British people are portrayed in American TV programmes?

[500DaysofAutumn]

I've just finished watching an episode of Desperate Housewives, and it the one where Ian who is English has his English parents come and visit him and Susan.

They have a barbeque and Ian's father says -

"So one puts one meat on top of the burning coal? How wonderfully primal"

.... erm ... we may not have hot weather all year round but I'm sure most of us in the UK know what a barbeque is.

Also Ian won a poker games with a hand of "sevens and knaves" to which Carlos replies "we call them JACKS!"

• I've never known Jacks as Knaves.

Don't even get me started on Emily from Friends.

(I know it's just fiction but still )

Charlotte had a bad accent too and she was supposedly English

But the actress who plays Charlotte is English, so how can she have a bad accent?

Nancy that TOWIE Reject, X Factor joke act Rylan, i'd need a translator, to understand him.

Megan They often have to do a different accent thats nothing like their own, and their own accent accidently slips in.

Theres an American Show called, Pregnant in Heels, theres a woman called Rosie, whos meant to be English or (British), and told a child that in Britain we use the word "Spiffing" do we really?

Americans just aren't portrayed on British television programmes very much at all, are they? The only recent one I can think of is Mark Sheppard and his dad as Canton Everett Delaware III in Doctor Who and he was very cool. Although I suppose there were some American characters in the recent DW episode set in New York; mostly they were evil.

Well, all Americans are evil, so that was accurate.

You see, squoosh, I don't find the Dublin and Belfast accents similar at all. I find the Belfast accent sounds more like a Glasgow accent than a Dublin one.
I find the accent of people from what you guys call the Midlands (places such as Longford) fairly similar to yours and I can can only distinguish when the Dublin accent is very broad. However, I can tell the difference between Galway and Dublin.

Anytime I tell someone where I am from they feel the need to do an awful southern accent. Every British person I know think American accents are either southern rednecks or or some sort of weird New York accent.

There was one of your shows called Demsey and makepeace? Would come on in rerun sometimes..an American living in the UK and working but for some reason never used to know any normal English words. Always had to be explained to him.

I actually can tell the difference between UK regional accents (most of the time) because I worked on the phones doing customer service, I used to talk to people from all over the Uk and learned quickly. I have an irrational hatred of the Swansea accent due to being on to one of their call centers every day.

Used to think it was hilarious when people would ask me if they have moved the Indian call centers to the US now

I think if you really don't know an accent you are so busy trying to "keep up" you don't hear the nuances, Also we really don't have as much British television here as you have American television. and what accents we do (downton abbey) is usually, posh lady and scullery maid.

In my experience most Americans will guess australian for any northern British accent

Maybe but I have noticed essex/east london and Australian is what confuses most Americans. I get thrown a bit and lived in Essex or years. I think it's because so many London/essex types got sent over there

Emily was wet and whiney and had no sense of humour, what is English about that?!

But that's just a variation on personality type, it has nothing to do with which country they are from. If every British person was represented as fun, clever or whatever then that would become a stereotype of its own rather than reflection of real British people. So instead they each have to be an individual, so one English person will be whiney and one will be evil and so on and so on.

"whiney" and "evil" obviously representing the two poles between which English people's character is allowed to fluctuate...

Don't you people watch any of the CSIs or NCIS?

Beyond when I was last in America and people did the "oh I love your accent,where are you from" spiel,the reply "Wales" got the blankest looks known to man. Could hear the cogs turning and see tumbleweed pass by

I really hate the way English produced TV portrays Welsh people. As though we are all simple/very very odd and all sound like we come from Merthyr

Rumour is that IRL Julie Andrews swears like a Trooper and drinks like a sailor. So much for her posh image.

wouldnt it be loverly if it were true lljkk

I am a Canadian. Most of the time I cannot tell the difference between a Canadian and American accent. I'm a bit that several people above on this thread claim they can do it!

But I can confirm that a lot of us find it difficult to differentiate between the different accents you have in the UK. You have "British" accents, but we often aren't able to differentiate much beyond that, I suspect because we have little exposure to any of these accents and don't actually know what they are meant to sound like. We are just overwhelmed by the "differentness" I have gotten much better at accent identification since moving to the UK and actually hearing different accents on a regular basis!

I am also getting better at telling when non-English actors on TV have "bad" accents. DP doesn't need to point it out anymore

Piaviaso, you are the first Cannuck I've met who will admit they can't always tell.

There is no difference between the accents in Seattle and Vancouver. There is a definite difference between Kentucky and Toronto, though. LOL

I am a Canadian. Most of the time I cannot tell the difference between a Canadian and American accent. I'm a bit confused that several people above on this thread claim they can do it!

Yes, but think Katy has got it in one. If you know the specific regional accent it is easy. but generally North American "accentless" English all sounds pretty damned similar.

SO people are claiming to tell the difference but would only know on a few occasions.

It is pretty crazy, really, that there's a huge difference between Birmingham and Manchester accents, but none between Seattle and Vancouver. The distance between them is greater and they're entirely different countries.

Gotanygrapes I'm sure your DH sounds delightful but I'm saying my experience has been that when I've visited Glasgow I've found it hard to understand people, unlike elsewhere in Scotland. How would I know if they are speaking 'good' or 'bad' Glaswegian and wouldn't there be different views within the city on which is the more authentic version? I've no idea what your idea of 'correct' Glaswegian sounds like and am not about to insult people speaking in their own accent, so absolutely should not have qualified my comment with the word 'bad'. You may if you like. I'm just not that familiar with the nuances or hierarchies of Glaswegian, which was sort of my point.

I grew up in the north east of England and can follow strong NE accents that I think would beduddle many people but only up to a point, though that's more a dialect issue. With Scouse it's probably a mixture. Some accents are harder to understand than others I find and I am curious about whether people from other countries just think of them all as 'regionally accented British' (that seems to be the majority view here), or whether, if they really can't perceive a difference, they comprehend all or none equally well.

"Emily was wet and whiney and had no sense of humour"

Probably on netmums then.

I presume one of the reasons there are such big differences between regional UK accents even though only a few miles separate them is that once upon a time different dialects were spoken in these regions.

Lottie, I didn't at all say 'a good or bad accent'. I said an accent spoken badly which is an entirely different thing.
Oh and you say, 'unlike the rest of Scotland' Really? I would say the Aberdeenshire accent is probably the most difficult to understand and people from Dundee, despite being on the E coast, sound very similar to Glaswegians.