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> I think Americans are just parroting pop culture from GB, and doing their best to sound, I dunno: posh or proper or whatever Agreed with your take, but there

> I think Americans are just parroting pop culture from GB, and doing their best to sound, I dunno: posh or proper or whatever Agreed with your take, but there is another reason as well - just the whole "rubbing off" effect. I've seen quite a ton of comments in more serious/non-joke threads all across social media (including HN), talking about people from all across the western europe getting pseudo-american accents (usually something generic in-between or more general like californian, not anything like the boston one lol) from consuming so much american media. And that includes countries where english was already the de-facto primary language, such as the UK. So it seems like it goes in both directions. Anecdotally, as someone for whom american english (and english in general) wasn't the first language (but has been the primarily used language 99% of the time for the past 15 years), I definitely get the occasional slips of pronunciation if I watch a lot of british english media. That is entirely unintentional on my part though, and I correct rather quickly and return back to the baseline in a couple of days. With this in mind, I wonder if there is data available that plots these incidences of "fake british accents" against worldwide consumption rates of british-english-heavy media. I suspect there would be a statistically-significant correlation.

stevekemp 3y ago
I moved to Finland, from the UK, and I can identify many of the local people as having grown up listening to American TV. It's a little disconcerting to hear American words ("fall", not "autumn"), and New York accents from people who've spent their lives in Helsinki. Still I come from the UK, and for me it's easy to place which part of the country people spent their formative years - sometimes even which half of a city somebody has grown up in, let alone the changes you hear across 20-25 miles. (I'm doing my part, raising a child born in Finland to understand Rab C. Nesbit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc4gB89LN7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc4gB89LN7o It's also a well-known fact that Scottish accents aren't easy for voice recognition - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbDnxzrbxn4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbDnxzrbxn4 )
- FanaHOVA 3y ago
  > It's a little disconcerting to hear American words ("fall", not "autumn"), and New York accents from people who've spent their lives in Helsinki. Why is it disconcerting? Should people adopt a British accent simply because it’s closer geographically even if most English media they consume is American?
  - stevekemp 3y ago
    I can recognize my bias, but I grew up in the UK and so to me English is British-English. Words like "fall" are something I've only heard on TV until moving here. (Or when visiting America.) I appreciate American media is global these days, so people will pick up on the dialect, but it's still a little alien to me. I could hear "fall" a hundred times in films, but if everybody I ever spoke to about autumn holidays said "autumn" that's the one that feels more natural to hear.
- pbhjpbhj 3y ago
  One child in a family of my acquaintance uses Americanisms, despite heavy correction from their siblings. I think it's a 'Netflix Effect', it's cheaper to buy USA programming than make British-English voiced programmes. Aside, try "Scotland the What" if you're interested in some different Scottish accents (I think they're mainly Highland, Doric Scots).

stevekemp 3y ago

I moved to Finland, from the UK, and I can identify many of the local people as having grown up listening to American TV. It's a little disconcerting to hear American words ("fall", not "autumn"), and New York accents from people who've spent their lives in Helsinki. Still I come from the UK, and for me it's easy to place which part of the country people spent their formative years - sometimes even which half of a city somebody has grown up in, let alone the changes you hear across 20-25 miles. (I'm doing my part, raising a child born in Finland to understand Rab C. Nesbit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc4gB89LN7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc4gB89LN7o It's also a well-known fact that Scottish accents aren't easy for voice recognition - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbDnxzrbxn4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbDnxzrbxn4 )

FanaHOVA 3y ago
> It's a little disconcerting to hear American words ("fall", not "autumn"), and New York accents from people who've spent their lives in Helsinki. Why is it disconcerting? Should people adopt a British accent simply because it’s closer geographically even if most English media they consume is American?
- stevekemp 3y ago
  I can recognize my bias, but I grew up in the UK and so to me English is British-English. Words like "fall" are something I've only heard on TV until moving here. (Or when visiting America.) I appreciate American media is global these days, so people will pick up on the dialect, but it's still a little alien to me. I could hear "fall" a hundred times in films, but if everybody I ever spoke to about autumn holidays said "autumn" that's the one that feels more natural to hear.
pbhjpbhj 3y ago
One child in a family of my acquaintance uses Americanisms, despite heavy correction from their siblings. I think it's a 'Netflix Effect', it's cheaper to buy USA programming than make British-English voiced programmes. Aside, try "Scotland the What" if you're interested in some different Scottish accents (I think they're mainly Highland, Doric Scots).