Pajiba

Thank you, Dustin, for giving us a (ever so slightly) paraphrased version into to the Wikipedia page on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_English

Er, uh, er, that should read "version of the intro to..." Er, uh, er.

(YOU'RE WELCOME. DR

People useta talk funny!! Fo' Shizzle!!

THANK YOU!!!!!

I actually started to believe EVERYONE talked like that once upon a time. That everyone had this glamorous way of speaking and it just kind of died out, sort of like chivalry and cassette tapes.

you're forgetting tv's most famous mid-atlantic english speaker: aunt bee on the andi griffith show!

thank you. that explains a lot.

is this the same accent as the 60's "narrator guy accent"? you know those old vinyl records that you'd get when you bought a hi-fi system, the one that would explain how to set up and use it. there'd be a man saying stuff like "this is stereophonic sound." same guy would also narrate old nature documentaries on PBS.

An interesting article but a little rude... I understand it was taught buuuut... it isn't a made up accent... Hepburn was a wealthy society gal from New England... Cary Grant otherwise known as Archie Leech was British and John Barrowman and Scotsman raised in the US and London! It's the way they speak!!!

And agreed- it isn't a "made up accent" any more than any accent that organically comes about from the synthesis of two or more existing accents is.

It's gained a reputation for being snobby and affected because it was often imitated by people wishing to affect the impression of status, but its origin is, as the name suggests, simply the melding of British received pronunciation and northeastern American English.

Buckley, for instance, was born in the UK to Brit parents and moved to the US as a child. Hepburn was wealthy and a New Englander in a time when the majority of wealthy Americans either held strong business and social ties to the UK (still the world's dominant economic power) or where themselves of English descent and as a result may have spent time on the other side of the Atlantic.

There was a SNL skit a ways back (Dana Carvey times) that parodied this affected "movie talk" perfectly. Wish I could find it... do any of you remember what I'm talking about? Not the "It's A Wonderful Life" parody, but around that era.

RP is just plain nutty.

When I first heard her in Casino Royale, I immediately thought that Eva Green's English accent was a throwback to the tones used in classic films. The way she rolled around "Mister Bond" in her mouth was just delightful.

My mother and father are classically trained actors -- Master's degrees in Speech and Interpretation -- and as a result, my siblings and I can turn on the precise diction very easily. The liquid "u," the slight roll to the "r" in "three" -- all that jazz. My sister's classmates thought she was English in elementary school because she had such a precise way of talking. I tend to talk that way when I lecture, only because it's easier for other people to understand, and it does give a little more punch of authority behind what I say.

My dad's family is from the South, but you certainly can't tell when he talks. He beat that accent right out of himself. And he can give one hell of a Shakespearean monologue.

Agreed about those you listed. BUT, what is with Jimmy Stewart. That isn't Mid-Atlantic English. That's something totally different.

Jimmy Stewart's accent is classified as "exaggerated Midwestern."

Now listen up, you. I've had enough of your guff, see? Nyar!

This is interesting! I have also wondered forever WTF that accent was.

I have always wondered about this. I really enjoy classic movies and always wondered why all the actors, especially female actors, sounded pretty much the same. It's a very distinct way of talking and I'd wonder, Did everyone in the 1950s sound like that?

Thank you so much for this. I'm a huge old movie buff (TCM I love you), and I've always wondered about the odd way many stars spoke back then. Now I know why.

I was a theatre major in college and we had to learn what was called Standard America, kind of a British-lite. It was mostly for productions of the ancient Greek plays and playwrites like Ibsen, Chekhov, etc.... the classics. But mostly mostly for Shakespeare.

The thinking, as I remember it, was that it's such heightened language that to speak in one's normal voice wouldn't do it justice. It's grand, therefore all must be grand, but I never felt it was taught in a pretentious way. It wasn't as exaggerated as old movies though, more like very crisp and slightly fancier newscaster-speak. Accent-less.

Buckley, for instance, was born in the UK to Brit parents and moved to the US as a child.

I was born in New York to American parents, dammit.

@alyse: Yup. She was born in Belgium, lived in England for a bit, went to Holland with her mother and moved back to England after the war.

Dustin you forgot to mention that in the late 1920's and early 1930's with the advent of sound, a lot of Stage actors were signed with the studios. They were signed precisely because they were already vocally trained.

I grew up in New England and have been told that I speak that way by people from other parts of the country. Also, I'm told I use old fashion words for things. I was brought up by my grandparents so that's where that penchant comes from. Watching TCM just makes it more prevalent in my speech patterns.