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Having a go: US parents say Peppa Pig is giving their kids British accents
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nucleogenesis 5y agoYeah hate to admit my kids watched enough of that and the Australian Bluey in the past few months she says some words and phrases with a heavy British or Aussie accent. Just things like the word “no” or short phrases like “grab the tawch (torch aka flashlight)”. It’s honestly offputting but I figure when she has more time with random American kids in playgroups she’ll sound like an American again sooner or later.
- 12ian34 5y agowhy do you find it off-putting?
- treeman79 5y agoSwap the word “the” with raisin. “To” with cat It makes following raisin conversation quite difficult. Raisin cognitive load is upped significantly trying cat keep up raisin conversation.
- yladiz 5y agoWhat? And not what because of your sentence but I didn’t get the point.
- carrolldunham 5y agoactually by the start of the second sentence of your demo i found i'd adapted
- tyleo 5y agoThis example is so extreme and unrealistic as to be a straw man. The differences in language are not nearly so pervasive.
- ChrisRR 5y agoIt's nowhere near as bad as you're making it out to be. As a Brit, we get a ton of American TV and no-one bats an eyelid understanding flashlight, sidewalk, apartment, etc.
- bitlax 5y agoCan confirm "to-mah-to."
- mc32 5y agoUnless the exposure is kept up, all this will go by they wayside by the end of first grade.
- fogihujy 5y agoAmericans complaining about TV teaching their kids foreign accents... Payback's a b***, eh? ;)
- MikeDelta 5y agoBetter than speaking like the Teletubbies do. The Dutch have developed quite a good English because of English-spoken TV during their youth, with a fairly neutral accent.
- tyleo 5y agoI actually find this fun. I worked in the UK for awhile and I mentioned that many Americans find British accents charming. I asked if they felt the same about American accents to which I heard, “No, they just sound monotone.”
- zibzab 5y agoBack in the days when people could pay $$$ to change the voice of their cars GPS, the most popular soundpack in US was "the British butler". On the other hand, "surfer dude" was pretty popular in Europe. Not sure how to interpret that one...
- httpsterio 5y agoHah, I used Surfer dude for a long time when I had a Nokia Windows Phone with Here maps. Seems like a lifetime ago.
- zxcvbn4038 5y agoI would pay any amount to make my GPS sound like Samuel L Jackson. “Turn right NOW Mother…!” “Did I stutter Mother…?!” “I know a stupid Mother… that better take that 3rd exit of the roundabout!” Biggest disappointment of my new Garmin is that they no longer offer the British voices. I got accustomed to the “take the slip road on the left…” every time I got into the highway. But I can’t really complain overall, I tested it out by driving around Washington DC where roads layouts and intersection configurations are just insane and it’s lane assist was spot on, I actually enjoyed the drives.
- Scaevolus 5y agoNot GPS, but you can get his voice for a subset of Alexa interactions: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089NGHR7K https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089NGHR7K
- ChrisRR 5y agoAnd yet most people in the US seem to think there's a single British accent, which is simply not true. Maybe if they heard a scouse, or geordie, or black country, West country, bristol, etc. they wouldn't even recognise it as a british accent
- stolenmerch 5y agoCan confirm. At the height of Peppa, we had a long (and hilariously fun) conversation with our 4 year old about whether the word 'lever' was pronounced "LEE-ver" or "LEH-ver". He also likes to ask if we'd like to "have a go" and other little Britishisms.
- Normille 5y agoThe French are renowned for being over-protective of their language. But I've been surprised at how fragile Americans also seem to be about their version of English. Several times, I've downloaded ebooks off the intarwebs, written by British authors, and found that they were the US published edition and had all the spellings and even vocabulary changed to American versions. It's very disconcerting to read a British authored book set in London where people notice the 'colors' of things, step down off the 'curb' and open the 'hood' of their 'auto'. I wonder why this is? I've never read a UK published edition of a book by an American author which didn't retain the US spelling and vocabulary. Why are Americans so fragile about this kind of thing?
- gumby 5y agoFamously "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was published in the US as "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" because some apocryphal market research said that US kids wouldn't get the reference and would be turned off by the reference to "philosopher" While the title was changed I find it hard to believe a significant number of 8 year old kids had even heard of the profession "philosopher" much less had any opinion positive or negative.
- MR4D 5y agoNo argument with your statement, but wanted to say that I think any kid - American or otherwise - would find a Sorcerer cooler than a Philosopher. I would have to think that this alone would cause a change in title.
- inglor_cz 5y agoWell I am 42 and I would find a Sorcerer cooler than a Philosopher. With a few exceptions such as Diogenes.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- zxcvbn4038 5y ago
- gumby 5y agoAustralian has become heavily influenced by US TV over the past few decades. I think it's OK...as the result is hardly universal. My otherwise awesome US girlfriend is indeed offended* by Australianisms in my speech. Nevertheless she has unwittingly absorbed some terms like brekky and duna. * literally offended sometimes. The other day I learnt about one: using the word "mummy" when speaking to her kids. Apparently where she grew up (Manhattan) the word was used as a pretentious (or pejorative) word. How would I have known that? And how would she have known my use was innocent?
- mbStavola 5y agoI grew up in a borough adjacent to Manhattan, but I'm not quite sure what's offensive about "mummy." It's not something we use, but it's not something we'd take issue with either (though it'd be a little out of place). The only thing I can think of is it's proximity to mammy[1], which IS offensive, but it's clearly a different word with very different connotations. I'm curious as to her line of thought here! [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammy_stereotype https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammy_stereotype
- saltcured 5y agoThis pejorative form sounds familiar to me from the US west coast too. As far as I understand it, the derivation is pretty much a conflation of WASP/blue blood/snob which kind of resonates with one thin American stereotype of Brits. Depending on context, I think it could imply the accused is infantile and/or positioned by nepotism...
- tibbydudeza 5y agoThe oddest one for Americans when getting directions is "just turn left at the robot". The etymology of the word derives from a description of early traffic lights as robot policemen, which then got truncated with time.
- thedanbob 5y agoI first heard this term from some visiting South Africans. My immediate response was, “A robot? Where?!” followed by great disappointment.
- zeristor 5y agoBy British accent one assumes they mean Received Pronounciation, RP. It’s sad to see all the regional dialects blending into an amorphous English, perhaps we need a Campaign for Real Accents, could call it CAMRA. I recall an interview with the Blue Peter presenter John Noakes regretting changing his Yorkshire accent to RP so he could work as an actor.