4 ms·

There's a flood of these mid-century instructional videos appearing the Web just over the past couple of years, right up to the present week. (I quite like the

by leoc 9y ago

There's a flood of these mid-century instructional videos appearing the Web just over the past couple of years, right up to the present week. (I quite like the Jeff Quitney account on YT https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM-kjdrQge9AACfB3MSRyrg https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM-kjdrQge9AACfB3MSRyrg , a fairly nice firehose of videos in good quality, which even seems to have some that aren't on the IA.) One thing I've taken from watching them is that US accents seem to have changed a lot in the past few decades: you hear presenters with accents that afaict don't seem to exist anymore. Jam Handy's is one, but there are more dramatic examples.

michaelbuckbee 9y ago
The TransAtlantic Accent! -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpv_IkO_ZBU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpv_IkO_ZBU
- leoc 9y ago
  But listen to how he pronounces the 'o's (in particular) in "and it couldn't get a good enough grip on the road" and "both rear wheels to the engine" https://youtu.be/yYAw79386WI?t=164 https://youtu.be/yYAw79386WI?t=164 : Handy surely didn't learn that from an elocution class teaching RP-lite. Is it a trace of an Irish accent? a Scandinavian-American "Lutheran" accent?
  - janzer 9y ago
    To be clear, I'm pretty sure the narrator in these films is not Jam Handy. There is an interview with Mr. Handy himself here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlDdE3Q5BWM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlDdE3Q5BWM Possibly interesting sidenote, to this day a large number of the audio/visual and staging companies in the Detroit area can trace their lineage back to the Jam Handy Organization. Although I have a feeling we may now be a generation far enough removed that many of them may no longer know it.
pavement 9y ago
You're referring to the Transatlantic accent, which was a contrived manner of speaking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent Another odd, acquired accent is the manner of speaking employed during air traffic communications, with elongated R sounds, as when pronouncing words like "roger" over poor signal quality. You can almost hear the air traffic control in mission control's transmission in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but only slightly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFSE4dUJYM8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFSE4dUJYM8

by leoc 9y ago

michaelbuckbee 9y ago

The TransAtlantic Accent! -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpv_IkO_ZBU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpv_IkO_ZBU

leoc 9y ago
But listen to how he pronounces the 'o's (in particular) in "and it couldn't get a good enough grip on the road" and "both rear wheels to the engine" https://youtu.be/yYAw79386WI?t=164 https://youtu.be/yYAw79386WI?t=164 : Handy surely didn't learn that from an elocution class teaching RP-lite. Is it a trace of an Irish accent? a Scandinavian-American "Lutheran" accent?
- janzer 9y ago
  To be clear, I'm pretty sure the narrator in these films is not Jam Handy. There is an interview with Mr. Handy himself here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlDdE3Q5BWM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlDdE3Q5BWM Possibly interesting sidenote, to this day a large number of the audio/visual and staging companies in the Detroit area can trace their lineage back to the Jam Handy Organization. Although I have a feeling we may now be a generation far enough removed that many of them may no longer know it.

pavement 9y ago

You're referring to the Transatlantic accent, which was a contrived manner of speaking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent Another odd, acquired accent is the manner of speaking employed during air traffic communications, with elongated R sounds, as when pronouncing words like "roger" over poor signal quality. You can almost hear the air traffic control in mission control's transmission in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but only slightly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFSE4dUJYM8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFSE4dUJYM8