There's no such thing as a 'British' accent

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Today's horrible news about the apparent death of a US journalist is not being improved for me by the chronic news reports pointing out that one of the people responsible had a 'British' accent. It's bad enough when American networks use the meaningless expression. The man has an 'English' accent, surely?

I have not heard his accent seen the news but report showed pictures and it was reported he had a British accent not sure if clip has been shown elsewhere where you hear him talking (obviously not the whole video)

I am guessing he will hold a British passport so is British

Can not understand why you are getting annoyed about this considering the horrendous news story itself and It is a very concerning situation how many young men from the UK are involved

As an American, all British accents sound the same, with the exception of Irish and Scottish accents (and I can barely tell those two apart).

In any case, considering we're suppose to be brothers in arms and all that, hopefully he's caught and held responsible.

If the guy had been American, would you have accepted the use of "American accent"? Or would you have said "hang on, that's not right, that was clearly a Texas/Boston/California accent"?

To be fair to the OP, I think she was talking about the use of the term 'British accent' on British media.

Therefore I think she's right to question it.

Just now, I've listened to a broadcast of David Cameron and Barack Obama talking about this. And also the BBC's correspondent Frank Gardiner.

All British people are familiar with Cameron's accent. Very English posh. Some of us would be familiar with Gardner's - a bit posher than Dave's, btw.

I would describe Obama's as American. If pushed I'd say northern, east coast, educated.

But that doesn't mean to say that for a domestic audience you don't narrow it down. In fact, I think you should.

Tikimon so someone with a Geordie accent sounds exactly the same as someone who speaks RP to you ? I find that very hard to believe.

That's quite rude fussy. As a lot of Americans can't differentiate between Aussie/British accents I don't see why she should recognise a Geordie accent.

I'm American. President Obama's accent is primarily Western-Midwestern. Chicago is definitely in there as are hints of Kansas (his mother's native state). It is not East Coast.

I wouldn't have a clue about the accent Barack Obama has, so I really wouldn't expect Americans to place a British accent.

I'm not 'rending my garments'. Nor is anyone else.

However, it is an odd and inappropriate post when a man has died.

I have lived in the UK and have a good ear, and I still get some British accents wrong.

Irish accents are not British, they are Irish. Whole different country.

tikimon as an English person, many northern American accents sound the same to me, but not all of them do.

I don't think that was what the OP was trying to get at.

I could be wrong, but I think she was saying that for a British audience, we should be more precise. Just as a US citizen you might expect your news outlets to identify a regional US accent.

You can't say he hasn't got a welsh accent because it sounds English. I am welsh and was brought up and live in an area where you would say the accent was English but it's just the accent of the area. Therefore to say British accent is better.

Haven't read the whole thread, but it's not unreasonable to refer to an accent as "British".

In fact, it's a lot more accurate than trying to identify an accent from a particular county/region/city if you are not 100% sure exactly where the accent is from.

It's an umbrella term, if you like, and incorporates the whole variety of accents from the British Isles.

It's more about accuracy, probably. I think if they knew for sure that the accent was English, they almost certainly would have reported accordingly.

Very sad news. I fail how to see how reporting the accent as "English" could have made the news any better for you, OP [confused.]

What a bizarre post!

Have just read a few other posts. It sounds like it was particularly identifiable as English, perhaps.

Still, OP, don't get why it would make it all better for you if it was reported as English, but then I suspect I'm missing something and will read whole thread when I've got time.

Sorry if I've got the wrong end of the stick.

if he had been American, and the American media were reporting it, I think they would also just say American accent until they got more information. They would rather be general than get it wrong.

As an American myself, I might be able to tell an accent is 'not northeast' but it could be Florida, Kentucky, Texas, Ohio, I would have no idea. Better to be general.

I am really surprised anyone thinks an American should be able to tell the difference between regional English accents. Yes we might hear a difference but we would have no idea what it means, whether it's regional or generational or class or what have you.

I also don't think people should read too much into the accent here anyway. Plenty of people from the Middle East and elsewhere have very good British accents depending on how they learned the language, it doesn't mean they've ever even lived there.

I've been living in the UK for 10 years and I'm married to a native speaker, and for the life of me I still can't differentiate between most regional accents. I can hear RP, Scottish, Irish on a good day... anything else is filed under "I can tell it's not RP, but hell if I know if it's Lancashire or South Africa".

Bowlersarm read my post again. I never said she should be able to recognise a Geordie accent for what it is, merely that I find it very hard to believe that it would sound exactly the same to her as someone with an RP accent.

I've actually heard other Americans say that they can't tell the difference between all the British accents and they all sound the same to them...however speaking from personal experience as someone who actually has a Geordie accent and has visited numerous parts of the USA throughout my life I do find that hard to believe.

98% of the time when Americans have asked me where I'm from they either simply don't believe that I'm British because "you don't have a British accent" and won't be told otherwise and think I'm joking or they look surprised and say that they've never heard a British accent like mine before.

That's why I'm always at people who claim they sound the same to them because IME that isn't the case.

So, coincidentally, the just interviewed a professor of sociolinguistics on the BBC, to try and identify the accent - he went for "multicultural London English", and suspects the guy may not actually be a native speaker.

Fussy - I am British (from Oxfordshire) and I have that nondescript "southern England" accent. I've lived in the States for nearly 15 years and I can't tell you how many times people question whether I'm actually English. It seems if it isn't a strong London or northern or Royal Family type accent it's hard for many Americans to place. Last month a taxi cab driver in LA basically called me a liar for saying I was English (he asked where I was from) because he knew English accents and mine wasn't!

I also don't think people should read too much into the accent here anyway. Plenty of people from the Middle East and elsewhere have very good British accents depending on how they learned the language, it doesn't mean they've ever even lived there.

I didn't even think of that. That a person could just learn English and then pick up the accent it was learned in. I keep forgetting "American English" is not default learning accent outside our continent.

But that said...

Tikimon so someone with a Geordie accent sounds exactly the same as someone who speaks RP to you?

They may not sound the same if they're dramatically different, but I'd have no clue what they are either. I'd just know they sounded different, but I wouldn't hear one and go "Yep! That's a Geordie accent" I'd just know it sounded different than the other accents. So describing it as such would do nothing for me. As it is, I have no clue what either of those sound like.

I'm pretty sure if an American was reporting on an American accent, knowing the media, they'd jump the gun and just say they were American and make sensationalist headlines about it. But I don't think we'd really dissect where the dialect came from unless it was an obvious out liar like southern accents or Boston ones.

Tikimon but that's my point, they would sound different to you...you might not be able to go "yep, that's a Geordie/cockney/scouse accent, etc" (and I certainly wasn't implying you should...that would be silly) however you would be able to tell they were different even if you didn't know what kind of accents they were or even be able to put your finger on what made them different.

No rent garments this end - just pointing out it's crass as fuck.

Tikimon but that's my point, they would sound different to you...you might not be able to go "yep, that's a Geordie/cockney/scouse accent, etc" (and I certainly wasn't implying you should...that would be silly) however you would be able to tell they were different even if you didn't know what kind of accents they were or even be able to put your finger on what made them different.

Perhaps. I just know the ones I hear on TV, interviews, and movies all sound the same to me. Unless you have a standardized accent for media like we do. Our accents are all starting to sound the same though because of TV. Southern accents are becoming softer.

I was just trying to point out that if you said "British Accent" an accent would immediately come to mind. Whereas if you said a "Geordie Accent" I'd wonder what country they were talking about. But in America British = English. If you tried telling us an Irish accent was British we'd stare at you like you were stupid.

The Geordie accent is probably the main reason as to why it isn't helpful to talk about "English" accents when one really means the Queen's English. It sounds far more Scottish to the casual listener despite technically being an English accent.

Rainbunny "Last month a taxi cab driver in LA basically called me a liar for saying I was English (he asked where I was from) because he knew English accents and mine wasn't!"

That would have infuriated me, were you cross?

Regarding the OP, there's nothing wrong whatsoever with referring to the man's accent as British.

SaucyJack in general do Americans know about Wales being a separate country from England and that there is a Welsh language?