British Accent....

[RevolvingPivot]

Just watching the woman in the house across from....

I've seen it said on tv where people say British Accent or they are British.

Obviously Britain covers
Wales Welsh
England English
Northern Ireland Irish
Scotland Scottish

Or am I being thick???

Yeah 'British Accent' really means nothing - there's a lot of them!

I would describe myself as British though if asked (although it does depend on context), or 'from the UK' (which I suppose at least knocks out Northern Ireland from the possibles).

Very common for Americans to say that

Not sure what your question is though

It's generally a generic term for an English accent. Just as British people refer to an 'American accent' even though they have a wide variety of them.

And being pedantic Britain doesn't actually include NI.

I would describe myself as British though if asked (although it does depend on context), or 'from the UK' (which I suppose at least knocks out Northern Ireland from the possibles).

Huh?

I'm Scottish and find the idea of a British or Scottish accent a bit weird. There is so much regional variation across Scotland never mind the rest of the UK.

US residents would say British accent, they would not be able to distinguish the regional differences, just as some of us have to listen carefully to distinguish Scots from NI accent. I can’t tell US from Canadian.

@QuinkWashable

Yeah 'British Accent' really means nothing - there's a lot of them!

I would describe myself as British though if asked (although it does depend on context), or 'from the UK' (which I suppose at least knocks out Northern Ireland from the possibles).

How so?

It's the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

@QuinkWashable

Yeah 'British Accent' really means nothing - there's a lot of them!

I would describe myself as British though if asked (although it does depend on context), or 'from the UK' (which I suppose at least knocks out Northern Ireland from the possibles).

No it doesn’t. NI is part of the U.K.

Still, using “British” when unsure of exact accent is better than using “English” as a synonym for “British”.

I find it annoying as Americans say it as a blanket term. But then we would probably do the same for all types of American accent (or someone from any other country).

But whatever British accent someone has still falls into the category of 'a British accent'. Similarly, a Boston accent and a Texas accent are notably different but you still might describe either a Bostonian or Texan as having an American accent.

Also, I think some of the various British accents don't sound as different as we would think to American ears. I've lived in the US for many years now and I can't distinguish them as well as I used to.

I don't get why people think this is annoying...we all refer to accents in generalised terms. America has hundreds of different accents but we'd still say 'American accent'. Same for every country in the world really! I am sure there are massive variations in French accents but we'd still refer to any we heard that way.

Using 'A' British accent means using one of many. Using 'the' british accent is stupid but usually refers to a posh, southern accent.

I worked with two Australian guys who told me they each had a very distinct accent from the other. To my ears they sounded broadly similar, but I didn't want to be impolite so didn't say this.

So yeah, accents aren't as distinctive to other people as they are to the owners of those accents.

I suppose it could refer to ‘one of the many accents from that geographical area’

I have an accent roughly equivalent to people from the west coast of North America. It is not an American accent and I can clearly identify most Americans the minute they open their mouth.

It is harder though with Americans from the west coast.

DH is English born and raised, and I have visited England a lot, so my ear is more attuned to accents from the UK.

But usually I just know the person is from the UK and would say "English accent." Irish and Scottish are different.

I get mistaken for America quite a bit in England but lots of people say they can tell I am not.

@Classica

And being pedantic Britain doesn't actually include NI.

I don't know why I put that,

@LoveFall

I have an accent roughly equivalent to people from the west coast of North America. It is not an American accent and I can clearly identify most Americans the minute they open their mouth.

It is harder though with Americans from the west coast.

DH is English born and raised, and I have visited England a lot, so my ear is more attuned to accents from the UK.

But usually I just know the person is from the UK and would say "English accent." Irish and Scottish are different.

I get mistaken for America quite a bit in England but lots of people say they can tell I am not.

This is what I mean. You would say Scottish Welsh or English accent.

Even England itself has lots of accents, geordie, scouse, brummie, manc.

So saying English accent doesnt help much either.
They usually mean a posh Southern English accent.

Yes, but a Cornish accent is arguably just as different from a Geordie accent as a Scottish accent is from a Welsh accent. So presumably you'd also argue that it's silly to refer to an English accent, because there's no such thing?

We Brits seem to happily refer to 'an American accent', a Russian accent, a French accent etc, many of us probably without bothering to think that there are regional accentsin those countries.

I thought the exact same thing when I watched it!

I have a Greek friend on Corfu who learned English at school, and thought all British people sounded like the ones in her audio-visual lessons. Then she opened a bar and was dumbfounded when confronted with Geordies, Brummies, Glaswegians, Cockneys and so on and on. Some of the Brits with the strongest regional accents didn't even try to modify them to make themselves more understood. Several years later, nothing surprises her.

Lol. This reminders me of a very embarrassing encounter in a shop in Vancouver where the enthusiastic young sales assistant was delighted to hear our accents (me RP, DH a weird London/Irish hybrid) . He proceeded to tell us he was a drama student and he had mastered several British and Irish accents by watching tv. He regaled us with accents he had picked up from East Enders, Corrie, Gavin and Stacey, The Fall and a few others. Each one sounded exactly the same and we had to back away smiling making enthusiastic sounds.

I don't really get what the issue is, it's the same everywhere.

I'm Canadian, but not all Canadian accents are the same. Here on the east coast it's different than Ontario or the prairies. My own province has at least four very distinct accents and really more than that if you have a good ear. There are distinct accents you will fine in both English and French among French speaking peoples in different parts of the country.

I have a friend from western Canada who went as part of an internship to Scotland years ago. One of the other interns was from Georgia - the people where they were working in Scotland thought they sounded the same.

I don't really get the issue, only a practiced ear can tell regional accents easily and even if they can hear the nuances they'd be hard pressed to pinpoint the correct region. Same as a lot of UK people listening to a US accent. I can usually give a decent guess but I lived there for the best part of 10. years.