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Why are so many young Americans adopting fake British accents?
- andybak 3y agoI'm British and this article still made a lot of sense. I probably have "exaggerated posh" and "exaggerated cockney" modes that I use for similar reasons.
- arethuza 3y agoI'm old enough to recall that being unwise enough to use anything but a "proper" accent in school would result in sudden violence from teachers.
- kitd 3y agoMy father was instructed in no uncertain terms that if he wanted to get anywhere in the legal profession in the 1960s, he'd have to drop his Welsh accent. This was in Wales.
- Symbiote 3y ago"Some UK accents will hold you back, no matter how smart you are" (2019) With a Birmingham accent being worst. https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/uk-accents-hold-you-back-3581810 https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/uk-accen...
- kevin_thibedeau 3y agoWhy are so many young British men suddenly unable to pronounce th's?
- bloak 3y agoWhat are they saying instead of th, when did this start, and is it particular parts of Britain or particular social groups? (Using f/v instead of th has long been a feature of some London dialects, and using t/d instead of th has long been a feature of some Irish dialects, and young children often use f/v instead of th, I think. Jocular references to "the youf" have been around in print for a while.) EDIT: Of course there's also Jamaican pronunciation with t/d instead of th!
- arethuza 3y agoAs an aside, the dialect I used in my youth used "f" a lot - fit, fa, fan and far for what, who, when and where. Leading to "Fit fit fits fit fit" making sense...
- urubu 3y agoThere is a technical linguistic term for it - th fronting: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th-fronting Apparently it's been around for quite a bit of time.
- andybak 3y agoIf you tell us what they say instead then I can probably give you some insight. There's "bovvered" or there's "what da hell" or there's "fankyou"... I can probably think of several more dialects where "th" is replaced with something else.
- nicktelford 3y agoThere's nothing sudden about it. Many regional (mostly city) accents have common mis-pronounciation. "th" being mis-pronounced as either "f" or "v" was extremely common in the area I grew up 20+ years ago, and I'm sure it predates me.
- PrimeMcFly 3y agoI'll take that any day over some of what passes for dialects in the US.
- globular-toast 3y agoI believe this is a sign of a hearing problem. Some children are unable to hear a strong difference between certain sounds so, to them, they are speaking the same as everyone else. It used to be that those children would be identified and given special help to allow them to hear better. I remember having eye and ear tests at school. Maybe this has stopped now? The tragedy is that this is a huge dividing factor in the UK. In all the places I've worked the vast majority of people use the distinct "th" sounds. Use of "f" and "v" sounds is, to use the current terminology, a "red flag".
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoDoesn't seem likely to me - it's common with specific strong dialects and often associated with working class people. As it's regional, I don't see it being a hearing related issue (not that I think it's an issue anyhow).
- nelox 3y agoI agree. Most speakers could probably switch to any manner of accent at will.
- elros 3y agoYou mean a red thlag?
- lozenge 3y agoThat's classism, Britain is a very classist country.
- eth0up 3y agoWhy have Americans always been unable to pronounce the intervocalic T? Bread and budder? WTF? I'm an author; I love horseback writing? I'm tired of wading for the flood? I want to ride my modercycle? It's so pervasive that we really ought to update our dictionaries to replace these, now phantom, "t"s with proper "d"s. Think of it as antipsychotics for a batshit crazy language. I'm American. But this has always been annoying, along with most of the eN language. To cast a cynical eye on the bright side; it seems both the "t" and "d" will soon be obsolete as the entire eN language is refined to tonal variations of our most common word/punctuation/expression/noise, "like". I may be mistaken, but I believe there's evidence that new humans are forming a "like-gland". The sound will become as natural and necessary as that of frogs bleating* after rain. *Yes, bleating, not bleeding.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoReminds me of going into a shop while visiting the U.S. and trying to buy some batteries. The employee struggled with my english accent, so I had to try to explain what batteries where. He eventually understood and exclaimed "oh, badderies!".
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- yamtaddle 3y agoI've got a friend with a story from his high school job at a retail store, about his having to translate for the other workers so they could figure out WTF this British guy was asking for. "Batcheries" [EDIT] That's not me trying to, like, contradict or counter your story—occurred to me it might come off that way. I just think it's funny that that specific word has so many cross-accent issues.
- tgv 3y agoThe t can also disappear. I've heard people say "twenny" instead of "twenty". Perhaps because "twendy" sounds more like Elmer Fudd giving Bugs Bunny decoration advice.
- 3y ago
- zabzonk 3y agostrange that so many british performers have put on american accents!
- drcongo 3y agoThat's called acting.
- zabzonk 3y agoi was thinking of pop and rock singers
- astrange 3y agoBritish actors are generally good at American accents[0], but not the other way round. That new Zelda game what came out yesterday has surprisingly poorly directed voice acting in general, but especially Zelda herself, who in a sea of American accents is a Canadian-American actress doing an ultra-fake British accent where half the time it still has American vowels. [1] except David Tennant, who thinks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gp9K-rMdxg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gp9K-rMdxg sounds Californian
- arethuza 3y ago"British actors are generally good at American accents[0], but not the other way round." Probably helped by trying to get voice controlled technology working - particularly lifts.... ;-)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dmje 3y agoHilariously the view from the UK side of the pond is that all our young people now have these terrible manufactured US accents...
- ergvgdvgrd 3y agoI thinks it's possible with the access we both have to the other country's media via Netflix, prime, Hulu, et c., that our accents re-merge. When I was a kid, British accents were a little harder and Scottish accents were impossible, but after 15 years of Netflix, I don't even notice British accents anymore and Scottish accents are noticeable, but understandable.
- denton-scratch 3y agoWhen I was a kid, no way could I understand a Geordie accent. I was raised with a RP accent, but I lived in Liverpool; I could understand ordinary scouse fine. But my mates would sometimes launch into a very broad scouse accent to tease me; I could only just understand that. Things have changed. Nobody nowadays speaks Geordie with the very broad accent that I couldn't understand as a kid.
- hajile 3y agoPerhaps we need to bring back the artificial Transatlantic Accent they used to use all across Hollywood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent
- drumhead 3y agoYes, you hear that a lot with teenagers in the UK, especially streamers, who dont even live in the US and havent been within a 3000 miles of it. Maybe we just like each others cultures so much?
- herbst 3y agoI never understood that either but that's also common for Swiss or Austrian streamers who adapt a near to perfect German even thought most people would understand them, or at least would understand a light version of their dialect.
- rhymeswithjazz 3y agoI thought this was going to be another article about kids watching Peppa Pig. My three year old has a sort of mixed vocabulary, but mostly from watching Matilda, the Musical on repeat.
- boomboomsubban 3y agoIt eventually is another article about kids watching Peppa Pig, they just start with other anecdotes.
- rhymeswithjazz 3y agoYeah, just finished it. It's a funny thing. My kids haven't watched a ton of Peppa Pig, but they all have managed to pickup what I'd call 'different' pronunciations and vocabulary than a lot of their peers.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoI assumed Peppa Pig is outdated and we would be getting Australian accents from Bluey.
- orthoxerox 3y ago> The “Peppa effect” had them speaking like the show’s cartoon pig, saying “Mummy” instead of “Mommy” I've thought "mommy" vs "mummy" was a spelling difference. The words sound the same to me, /'mɐmɪ/.
- worldblue 3y agoI've always thought the difference is more pronounced with the short forms, "mum" vs "mom" (and the red underlining of the latter reminds me of my biases!). I don't think I've heard an American pronounce "mommy" though, so I can't say for certain.
- Symbiote 3y agoI think the audio sample here sounds completely American, as it claims to be: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mommy https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mommy But either pronunciation of "mummy" (embalmed corpse) is how I would address my mother as a child: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mummy https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mummy
- wink 3y agoGuess it's the right time to smugly lean back as a continental European and point to your absolutely disgusting freeform mix of AE and BE terms, pronunciation and spelling, the only saving grace usually having decided to be consistent with o vs ou, at least in a single document or conversation :D Also yes, I think we mostly learned Received Pronunciation in school but at least half of the people diverged towards American (in words like "can't") pretty soon and I honestly couldn't tell you if I'm still being consistent, 20 years after school and using English for a huge part of my working life, as a software developer.
- codethief 3y agoAnother continental European here (also software developer). I know most non-native speakers will never learn "proper" English pronunciation (whether AE or BE or Australian English I don't care) and international English is here to stay but, man, the many ways in people butcher English pronunciation (not because they pronounce everything as in their mother tongue – that's fine – but because they actually try to put on a native AE or BE accent) still makes my ears bleed on a daily basis.
- Al-Khwarizmi 3y agoPronouncing English literally as if it were Spanish, French, etc. would make it impossible to understand. Every non-native English learner tries to imitate natives, to the best of their ability. I don't think there's any other way to learn. Some people relax and stop trying to improve once they notice that they get to a level where they are understood, though. And then, one can be aware of one's limits (I don't think I'll ever get to distinguish "ice" and "eyes", so I don't even try anymore). What you describe seems to be some kind of linguistic "uncanny valley" effect.
- codethief 3y agoYes, that's probably a much better way to put it. Thank you :)
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
- xchip 3y agoYet another article talking about trends based on questionable or cherry picked anecdotes.
- MetaWhirledPeas 3y agoYeah, what qualifies something to be a trend? Been in the US my entire life, and I've never heard someone casually putting on a fake British accent.
- joshstrange 3y agoI hate these articles with a passion, they make me think so much less of the "news" org putting them out. Another headline I saw recently on HN that drove me nuts: "Paper map sales are booming" [0] - with a subtitle of "Fans say physical maps—though less efficient than digital options—enhance one’s journey. Among devotees: a surprising number of millennials and members of Generation Z" - Bullshit. Subtitle should have been "as art", almost no one, especially Gen-Z is using paper maps as actual maps. Also all the articles about "people are going back to flip/dumb phones" no they aren't. You found a handful of people who did it, half of which I doubt are still doing it 1-2 months later and you want to pretend it's a trend. It's so tiring. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34469378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34469378
- yamazakiwi 3y agoI have yet to see a good article that lists any generation in the title.
- lloydatkinson 3y agoGlobalisation and it's consequences
- wheybags 3y agoMy dad has been doing this since the 1950s, and I'm willing to bet his dad was since the 1910s. We're from Ireland though, is putting on a funny accent really a new thing in the us?
- okonomiyaki3000 3y agoThis seems dumb but harmless unless they're also saying "maths". Then it's a sign of the apocalypse.
- sfpotter 3y agoAs a mathsematician, I have no problem with this.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoThat's the only correct way of contracting "mathematics". "Math" is surely a contraction of "mathematic" which is nonsensical. Also, do people in the U.S. study physic?
- ergvgdvgrd 3y agoFor your next act, defend the British pronounciation of "Worcestershire".
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoI don't think I can. The pronunciation of "Gloucester" (gloster) and "Leicester" (lester) follow a similar scheme for the "-cester" bit which leads to "Worcester" being pronounced "wooster", but Worcestershire sauce is often pronounced "wooster sauce" which doesn't make much sense. Apparently, Frome in Somerset is one of the hardest place names to pronounce in England, though it certainly doesn't compare to some Welsh towns. (I say it as "froom")
- wink 3y agoI mean, Sir Terry was British after all. cf https://wiki.lspace.org/Jonathan_Teatime https://wiki.lspace.org/Jonathan_Teatime
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoIt amuses me when english words are pronounced differently to make them seem posher. We have a nearby town called Yate (rhymes with gate), but the posh version rhymes with latte.
- zeynepevecen 3y agoBecause they only know English. Let me explain a bit. I’m a bilingual person, since I’m not living in a English speaking country and I’m 21. They’re saying that switching accents are their defend mechanism or coping mechanism with serious situations. Well, when I say this i think I’m talking for most of the bilingual people, our defend mechanism or us “being playful” is adding some English words into the sentence or switching to English. So it is not something to be shocked
- xxs 3y ago>Because they only know English. We don't know that (and the article is quite low on the quality scale expected from Guardian). I speak three languages, and I don't see a reason to mix. Of course, you might be right, but also that's a one trick point. You will be called for being pretentious or just obnoxious.
- trasz4 3y agoSometimes there is a reason to mix, when the word in one language doesn't quite match the meaning you want, but in another it does. Like, for example, in Polish "security" and "safety" are the same word ("bezpieczeństwo"), so it would become weird when you're talking about the difference between them. But I feel like this article is about something else. We don't think in terms of words, we think in terms of phrases, and when we remember those phrases it's not just their literal meaning, but also the context, and this can include the accent they were heard in. In the ideal world we'd just play the sample that we have in the head, but we don't have that yet.
- denton-scratch 3y ago> the quality scale expected from Guardian It's taken a tabloid turn (not just in terms of the page format). It's got noticeably worse, even in the last 6 months. It's packed with "listicle" articles ("10 reasons..."), and it's moving rapidly to the right, politically.
- eequah9L 3y agoI don't think it's anything "reasonable". Like, OK, there might be objective reasons why you need to clarify which technical term you mean by a word that has multiple meanings in your native language, and use (typically) English to clear it up. But I think most of the time it's just seen as hip, interesting, an extra flavor (flavour?). I do this occasionally -- sprinkle a foreign phrase here and there in my native Czech when I see that it fits and the other party might get it. More if I'm drunk. Some of my friends do it as well, in some social settings a number of jokes could be foreign language references. On the other hand, some people find it infuriating, as you note.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- clnq 3y agoBecause so many British are picking up American accents. And so many other accents are being picked up by other people. It's a globalized world.
- doublerabbit 3y agoI hope not. As an Englishman I would hate to pick up a dry-monotonic accent misrepresenting data and router.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- petercooper 3y agoI'd love to hear this. It's not something I've noticed in my plentiful YouTube watching, etc, but I think it'd be an interesting development. The English-inspired "posh" American accents of yesteryear are beautiful, I think. The similar thing that stands out to me like a sore thumb (and I appreciate this is all on me and anyone can talk however they like!) is when British people keep their accent but drop their "t"s to "d"s when speaking in public/on YouTube/podcasts/etc. ("Bedder" instead of "better", for example.) It doesn't seem to be a youth only thing, a lot of British speakers at tech conferences seem to do it, but it's not how we'd talk amongst ourselves in the UK. I wonder if it's something to do with subconsciously reducing plosives which often come out bad on mic?
- denton-scratch 3y agoI'm a brit; in general my accent is RP, but I say "bedder" (and I don't speak publicly). I think it's just laziness.
- igetspam 3y agoI adjust my speech patterns based on the audience. I've done it since I was a kid. Different groups of friends speak differently and convergence ensured I wouldn't stick out as weird. It wasn't an entirely conscious decision but I've always been fully aware of it. This seems similar although more pronounced and I didn't use accents.
- stonogo 3y agoThe term for this is "code switching" and it's a fascinating area of study.
- yamazakiwi 3y agoThey could be code switching in this example but I think their comment is better defined by Linguistic Accommodation.
- walthamstow 3y agoPoor Dominic West, he'll never work again.
- denton-scratch 3y agoI'm re-watching The Wire. He's supposed to be a cop from Baltimore; I suspect his accent wouldn't be recognisable as a Baltimore accent to anyone familiar with it. I think he actually struggles to sound authentic as any kind of US accent. I think he's great in the part, though.
- MetaWhirledPeas 3y agoI'm not from Baltimore, but I watched the entire series and never thought he sounded off in any way. So it was good enough to fool me. Daniel Craig sounding like Foghorn Leghorn, now that's another matter.
- imbnwa 3y agoAlmost no one in the cast, including the Americans, save for the 3 actors from the area (Robert Chew as Prop Joe, Felicia Pearson as Snoop, Anwan Glover as Slim Charles) even tried putting on a Baltimore accent. Wood Harris and Idris Elba were supposed to be dealers from the Baltimore projects, but Harris just spoke in his Chicago AAVE accent and Elba sounded like a guy from New York City (his accent even breaks pronouncing the word 'responsibilities'). Lance Reddick sounded like Lance Reddick. Robert Chew tried coaching the kids in season 4 in a Baltimore accent and dialect but the accent didn't seem to land. I do wish David Simon had enforced accents as strongly as he did with Treme.
- denton-scratch 3y agoHmm. I suspected something like that. I can't understand Snoop at all. I've watched this stuff more than once. I still can't make sense of what she says. I know the actress is the real thing. I thought she was a bloke with a high-pitched voice the first couple of times I watched it. I guess her making like a bloke is part of the character's backstory.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kbos87 3y agoI was on public transportation this morning, about to reach my stop, and I needed to ask a woman who was blocking my way to the doors to please excuse me. The train was quiet, I was right behind her, and I had the feeling that I'd startle her. As the train rolled into the station, a thought popped into my head that I've had before - a friendly British accent would be disarming in a moment like this! It was a passing thought but an organic one, so it's funny to now read this.
- VWWHFSfQ 3y agoyou thought politely asking someone to move so you could exit the train would startle them? and then you thought you might do it in a fake british accent?
- jononomo 3y agoYes, you read that correctly. And it makes perfect sense if you think about it.
- snacktaster 3y agoI don't know if it's Gen Z specific but I think people now just have a very difficult time interacting with strangers in public. It's kind of a bizarre phenomenon of the digital age.
- flangola7 3y agoSome of us late gen xers were ahead of the curve and had a very difficult time with strangers before the internet. Born too soon I guess
- kbos87 3y agoYes and yes. It's uncommon where I live to talk to people on the train - and being a bulky 6'4 male, whether I like it or not, I have a lifetime of experience that it's startling for women when I appear behind them without them realizing. It was a passing thought I found funny in the moment. I think it might say something about the reason why some segment of the population is apparently doing this.
- rsynnott 3y ago> affecting an accent has become a Gen Z verbal tic Also other generations. For instance: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_girl#Valleyspeak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_girl#Valleyspeak - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent Novel sociolects aren't something that gen z has just invented; they show up from time to time.
- MrOwnPut 3y agoI'd pick fake British any day, though I haven't heard any prominent use. Valley/Uptalk is the most annoying. Everything is a questionnn. No matter whaatt. Those are mostly regional accents btw, not generational.
- rgrieselhuber 3y agoOr people can just not speak in uptalk.
- MrOwnPut 3y agoThat'd be nicesuhh?
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago> Or people can just not speak in uptalk. What's uptalk?
- BrianB 3y agoNot much, what's up with you?
- pdntspa 3y agoOr yall can just stop caring and put mental effort into worrying about things with substance instead of how people talk.
- Freak_NL 3y ago
- bitwize 3y ago> “If you like to think of yourself as somebody who’s easygoing, you might adopt a certain voice to express frustration, because you don’t feel totally comfortable with that part of yourself that complains,” he said. Fred Rogers was reported by his children to express frustration or annoyance in Lady Elaine Fairchilde's voice rather than his own.
- pbj1968 3y agoThe one that gets me is the soft double T sound they’re all making now. Button sounds like “buh-hen.” It’s borderline baby talk.
- nmeofthestate 3y agoAre you talking about a glottal stop? I've noticed young Americans using it a lot more on Youtube.
- pbj1968 3y agoThat is indeed what I am referring to. Thank you for teaching me the name of this lunacy.
- elliottkember 3y agoI’m from New Zealand. It’s staggering how many people in the US will repeat what I say back to me in a British accent. It’s hard to be annoyed because they’re “just having fun” but my god does it get old. Fortunately I can do a bit of California surfer dude right back and that usually gets the message across
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoI was taught by a kiwi friend how to tell apart Australian and New Zealand accents - just get them to say "fish and chips". "Fush and chups" - New Zealand. "Feesh and cheeps" - Australian
- nelox 3y agohttps://youtu.be/ZdVHZwI8pcA https://youtu.be/ZdVHZwI8pcA
- OJFord 3y agoThat's great actually, because it also works for South African (I often have a hard time with SA vs NZ) - 'fish and chips' with very short 'i', like it's reluctantly put in at all, I think.
- LouisSayers 3y agoThe whole fish and chips thing is well overdone... If you want to tell Aussies and kiwis apart, listen for "Chance" and "Dance". Kiwis will say the 'a' like in the word "aren't", whereas Aussies will say it like the 'a' in "ants". Much more discrete to ask about dancing than fish and chips ;)
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoWell now I'm confused as Aussies tend to pronounce "ants" as "eents"
- 3y ago
- philonoist 3y agoI love the British accents so much, I would put months of practice if I could. Their wit and dry humour parallel closely to mine in daily lives. The other day we were mocking Brits on received pronunciation or what people call the 'royal posh talk'. Oh god, their novels are too fun when adapted into play, drama or theatre. My nephew had so much fun, it consumed the whole afternoon and evening in a jiffy. Anybody who grew up in different mother tongue will appreciate Brits and their culture, language being just the start.
- denton-scratch 3y ago> what people call the 'royal posh talk' That's not RP. RP is the accent of the older BBC news anchors. The aristocracy speak (or spoke) a horribly strangled accent: "Ee-aw, heelyaw, Meekyeh!" -> "Oh, hello, Mickey".
- jjgreen 3y agoThe common aristocratic phrase "There's a trite in my trizers" translates to "there's a trout in my trousers" (apologies to Steve Bell).
- atchoo 3y agoNot bad, I read your comment in an English accent. Too much positivity though. We can only give that level of enthusiastic complement as an insult. Your "so much fun" and "too fun" makes me think of "such fun" which is a complicated phrase now I think about it. It's rarely used to express something positive about having fun... Even just the word "fun" is rarely used positively. If an English person ever reacts to something with "well isn't that fun", be worried. Oh, and jiffies are passed rather than consumed. Don't ask me why.
- philonoist 3y agoThe nature of sarcasm is such! Always a way to learn! Thanks!
- DrThunder 3y agoMy sister married a guy from the UK. She lives there now and has mishmash of midwestern US / southern UK accent. It's the most ridiculous sounding thing ever. UK people can't figure out where she's from and US people can't either.
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y agoWeird
- glitchc 3y agoIf by young Americans, they mean young American males, the answer is obvious: Young American females find a British accent sexy.
- justinator 3y agoBritish accents are heavily localized and class-based. I don't even know what a fake British accent means honestly. People in GB can spot an accent and a fake localized accent quite easily, and act accordingly. I think Americans are just parroting pop culture from GB, and doing their best to sound, I dunno: posh or proper or whatever. It would be like someone in Kent trying to sound like a Wyoming cowboy. As the kids say: cringe.
- Brajeshwar 3y agoI think when people outside refer to "British Accent", they meant the Received Pronunciation accent, common on TV/Movies.
- justinator 3y agoMost American actors do a terrible job with British accents, to the point that it becomes a meme in of itself.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y agoWhereas most (not all -I'm looking at you, Daniel Craig) British/Australian/Kiwi actors do a great job of adopting American accents. My favorite is Margot Robbie's over-the-top "Brooklyn" accent for her Harley Quinn character.
- emaginniss 3y agoI thought his Foghorn Leghorn impersonation was fantastic
- devilbunny 3y agoThere are ample rea$on$ why non-American actor$ can do decent American accent$. It opens up American roles for them. Nobody is going to cast Brad Pitt as a Brit, an Australian, or a Kiwi. He's a fantastic actor, but they're going to use the homegrown talent. So there's no incentive for American actors to really learn another accent. Instead, we get a mountain of non-American actors doing mostly-good-but-sometimes-awful accents because that's where the money is.
- RHSman2 3y agoChristian Bale
- Brajeshwar 3y agoI think this is everywhere where English is more common. I live in an Indian city with many Indians (and others, including ex-pats) from all over. So, the kids default to English as the common language. Their exposure to TV/Movies of both the US and the UK influences how they speak - not just the accent but the words they use, which are, at times, not how a “common English-speaking-Indian” speaks. And yes, my daughter grew up on Peppa Pig and had a British-ish accent. She has since mellowed and now has a more neutral accent. Her best friend is an American, but she didn’t pick up on that one. Our family is from a remote corner of India, and we always had an accent. I grew up in a school run by a British soldier and his wife (he stayed in India after the war). In the last 20 years, I have worked primarily with American and British clients, which influenced how I talk, and I also learned a lot along the way. However, I find it hard to converse with the Scots; I am OK if I pay attention to the Australians and am highly comfortable with Jap-lish. I now believe that there is nothing called a “fake accent.” All the third-culture kids pick up talks from all over the world, and they know the Internet colloquial more than their immediate geographical and cultural norms. I speak three languages fluently, and I modify how I talk to make the listener understand better. The way I talk Hindi to an Indian from the north or west is different from how I speak to a South Indian. With English, not necessarily the accent, my muscle memory kicks in, which picks up and uses different ways of saying specific words and expressions depending on the listener. It is OK to have any accent - play with it - there is nothing fake about it. :-)
- zdragnar 3y agoIf you learn a language from someone with a particular speech pattern, you'll adopt it too. That's fine, and normal. I don't think that's what the article is talking about, though. These kids are adopting an affectation different from the way they learned the language. Your average American kid doesn't have much, if any, access to British media or people aside from a few popular shows they might pick up online. It's not a courtesy based on context.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y agoI used to have a British accent, when I was a kid, but have lost it. I now have a really weird accent (or so I'm told), that involves bits of British, Southern, and New York.
- mrangle 3y agoFor the same reason that children adopt virtually anything. Within the context of their general development, children are undergoing a long process of constructing their social architecture. Which often entails a long stint of unsophisticated and ruthless social climbing. Therefore, anything that is presented to them as being socially advantageous stands a chance of being adopted. It isn't much different in nature from blue-blood adults consciously adopting the Mid Atlantic Accent.
- kkylin 3y agoNot what the article is talking about, but for kids of a certain age, Harry Potter might have something to do with it.
- amelius 3y agoIt's much better than the American accent, imho.
- rayiner 3y agoWhat’s fascinating to me is that an entire generation of Americans in the early/mid-20th century adopted a fake British accent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent.
- handedness 3y agoAs if RP itself wasn't already enough of an affectation.
- alexambarch 3y agoFor the record, "188,000 views on TikTok" is not that many for a single video to reach, let alone an entire search term's worth of videos. As a zoomer reading this article I can tell you this very literally boils down to "funny voice = funny joke" and you could just as easily swap out the british accent for a Kermit impression. The popularity of british reality TV has exposed the young americans that watch it to funny sounding british slang (e.g. "fanny flutters") and now those sayings are making their way into jokes. I promise you no one except for the Miami content creators and former reality TV cast members quoted in the article are slipping into British accents at Burger King.
- yamazakiwi 3y agoI agree and Americans have been quoting funny British lines from media for decades.
- teawrecks 3y agoWould that it were, would that it were!
- drc500free 3y agoIf anything that data point proves that this isn't a trend. I searched "funny elbow" and saw more than 188k views. In other words "fake british accent" is less of a trend than "funny elbow," which is two random words I put together. It's interesting how much reporting about TikTok depends completely on the audience having zero exposure to TikTok.
- imwillofficial 3y agoDon’t give them ideas!
- alewi481 3y agoThis reminds me of those trashy articles like the ones Microsoft peddles on their Windows 11 widgets tab. They basically take a few tweets with just a handful of likes and create an entire article around them. The buzz that they are drumming up feels artificial and contrived. And if the author was really lacking in integrity, they could just set up anonymous Twitter accounts and conjure up the posts themselves.
- jameshart 3y agoThis was an affectation that Bart Simpson used to use way back in golden-era Simpsons - in almost exactly this kind of ‘defense mechanism’ kind of way. It’s been confusing people for years: https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/114329/why-does-bart-simpson-frequently-speak-british-sentences-in-the-classic-the-simp https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/114329/why-does-b...
- heywherelogingo 3y agoSounds like they're not adopting an English accent as much as they're adopting a Hugh Grant awkward persona.
- avereveard 3y agoI mean people finally learning proper english can't be that bad, labeling it 'fake british' just seems anticultural
- throwaway743 3y agoThis is brainrot
- flanbiscuit 3y agoSo this article claims "so many ..." and cites 6 examples (I'm not counting Madonna). And maybe statistically they represent more, but I feel like this article is just someone looking to write something about nothing. I'm not on TikTok and Twitter much (just instagram), so it could be a trend and I'm just not seeing it. Speaking of the Madonna example, I'm not sure it's fair to lump her into this because this article seems to be focusing on people who have never lived anywhere in the UK, they are just mimicking what they've heard on TV/Film. A lot of people made fun of Madonna when she started speaking with a British accent but she at least _lived_ there for a long time, and doing so can definitely affect your accent. I've known it to happen the other way around. I've had British friends who lived in the US tell me that their friends back home would make fun of them for their new Americanized accent.
- tqi 3y agoWhy? Probably for the same reason journalists love writing trend pieces about manufactured narratives, attention and clicks?
- damnesian 3y agoCould be kids coming of age who had parents who were themselves raised on (in particular) British comedy. In my own case it would be the inestimable influence of Monty Python. Younger adult Americans's parents maybe quoted the Parrot Sketch, or offered to give their kid lupins when they were ill, or perhaps demanded a shrubbery if they don't want to do their chores.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dkarl 3y agoIt's interesting that there are a variety of English accents, with differing connotations for Americans. YouTube channels that make informative, content-driven videos tend to demand English accents from their voice talent. For videos about nature, history, technology, geography, any content where a viewer's enjoyment and engagement will be improved by trusting the video's sincerity and veracity, (certain) English accents rule. But the article mentions young Americans adopting (presumably different) English accents when they are aware of being insincere or demanding. To some extent this must be down to Americans receiving English class stereotypes and internalizing them as different roles they can play.
- tcfhgj 3y agoBritish English is like music in my ears
- mellosouls 3y agoWithout actual evidence of a significant increase in adoption of the accents (its all anecdotal here) this seems like a bit of a fluff article that is designed to reassure Brits we are still relevant and cool and influencing other cultures in a harmless way that Guardian readers can get behind.
- JoshTko 3y agoI'm mostly concerned on how this made it to Hacker news front page.
- mmcgaha 3y agoForced accents have been going on for a long time with kids. Just yesterday I was watching local news from the area where I grew up and a girl from my high school years was being interviewed. In her teens, she had a non-local accent that I always envisioned as california stoner. Well apparently she was working hard faking that thing because she has a full on upstate south carolina accent now.
- ilikecakeandpie 3y agoI think NPR had something on this on "Wait, wait, don't tell me" a while ago. Some researchers were linking it to kids watching so much Peppa Pig that they developed at least a slight British accent
- whimsicalism 3y agoI am Gen Z and pretty tuned into the cultural milieu. This is not a thing, this is just a clickbait article. You can also tell by the fact that they are only interviewing reality show people & vloggers.
- imwillofficial 3y ago[flagged]
- DontchaKnowit 3y agoThis is such a goofy take. I am a millennial and I remember doing a british accent all the time as a kid as a joke. And so did my boomer parents. It's not that complicated
- thdespou 3y agoHow can someone fake an accent especially a UK one? you need to have lived in the UK to make it believable.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- qingcharles 3y agoYou definitely don't. It's called acting. I was married to an actor who had no problem with speaking in "RP". And when I was in jail here in the USA my American cellmate managed to impersonate me so well that he could talk for me through the walls to the other prisoners.
- jmoak3 3y ago(American here) I knew a girl in college who was very sheltered: she was homeschooled in a rural setting by wealthy ultra-religious parents up until college. Her only outlet was british television. She's spoken with a badly formed british accent as long as I've known her. I learned katakana as a middle schooler because I would wake up at 4am to watch anime on youtube on the family computer, so none of this surprises me. Indoor kids can get weird :) I didn't see any data in the article on this but I'm under the impression that we're making more indoor kids.
- ttjjtt 3y agoI heard a young woman chatting to her colleague yesterday and switching between American and British, maintaining an hyped ultra affected tik tok influencer tone all the time. I try to have no judgement on that but I can’t help but feel twinges of concern at people embodying what’s good for the platform algorithm . Taught and moulded by the platform. This is obviously reflected in people paying for their irl faces to look much more the digital filter. This seemed to be case for the person I described tbh
- jlarcombe 3y agobeen a thing since at least 2000, according to Don Caballero: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKN1Vwm29Vc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKN1Vwm29Vc
- qingcharles 3y agoI can't speak for anyone else, but as a British male living in the USA I can testify that having my accent gets me a large amount of friendly attention from American women. I tell people all the time they should fake an accent for that reason alone. Oddly, every American actually assumes I am Australian. Strewth!
- userabchn 3y agoI was once at a restaurant beside a girl and her parents and a friend of the parents. All were American, but the girl, who had just returned from spending one semester at a university in England, spoke with a strong RP accent. Similarly I met someone (who was starting graduate school) from Texas who had just spent a summer in Germany, and spoke with an exaggerated German accent. I don't understand how they didn't realise that it made them seem foolish, rather than, as they seemed to hope, interesting and sophisticated.
- wolverine876 3y agoAt least they had a sense of humor.
- DoreenMichele 3y agoSome people just soak up accents and aren't intentionally trying to "have" one.
- garbagecoder 3y agoMy daughter can do a flawless Peppa Pig and it's hilarious.
- nobodyandproud 3y agoBoston accent 2.0?
- bdcravens 3y agoProbably for the same reason that some suburban US kids try to talk like they're from the hood.
- whimsicalism 3y agoThis is practically becoming a new dialect.
- mattlondon 3y agoPeppa Pig. 'nuff said
- d--b 3y agoI blame Kit Harington, but really it doesn’t ma’’er…
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- notjustanymike 3y agoThis is not a new phenomenon; some thirty years ago I had moved from Europe to America only to be amused by my 12 year old punk friends ("Punk"...aka Green Day) putting on fake British accents.
- zeristor 3y agoI suppose I’ve been living in London too long, but I can discern people who e grown up in Barnet, and others in Leytonstone. I guess other parts of London have subtle dialects too, but I’ve not worked those out. Can dialects like that survive the onslaught of Estuary English?
- WalterBright 3y agoI'm working on my Ahnold accent. Too dah choppah!
- WalterBright 3y agoMonty Python had this effect a couple generations ago.
- ryanmcbride 3y agoEvery article about tiktok trends written by someone who doesn't use, or is a casual user of tiktok, always sounds so out of touch. This one included.
- tracker1 3y agoWhen I'm surrounded or talking to someone with an accent, I tend to take on that accent. I don't always realize it at the time and it's totally subconscious.
- rlewkov 3y agoello guvnuh
- Suppafly 3y ago"Why are so many young Americans adopting fake British accents?" They aren't.
- zeristor 3y agoThis is much more like it. “Old, Traditional British Accents (South East)” https://youtu.be/5S8JR4eJAXA https://youtu.be/5S8JR4eJAXA
- shermanyo 3y agoI haven't seen it mentioned here, but Drill Rap from the UK has had an explosion in popularity in recent years. Hip-hop has always been a huge trend setter in American culture, and for once, one of the strongest influences to the current sound is coming from Brittain. I've heard the "drill rapper" accent filtering in over the last year especially as a lot of local artists and fans jump on the trend. Just an anecdotal observation.
- eggy 3y agoBorn and raised in Brooklyn, and old enough to remember when the Brooklyn accent was a detriment on job interviews, yet I've bumped into a bunch of people who sound almost like they're from Brooklyn, but they have only lived there for a few years from the midwest or other areas. Southerners tend to maintain their charming lilts. There are enough transplants, that it is not because they are being inundated with the accent, so I wonder what gives? We used to mimic Monty Python episodes and movies when I grew up in 60s and 70s in Brooklyn. Hilarious stuff. Eerily relevant skit from The Life of Brian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFBOQzSk14c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFBOQzSk14c