The Mid-Atlantic "accent". An American linguistic construct until after WWII

[Overmind One]

I do not know how many of you here might have had relatives who spoke with this accent, but you will recognize it immediately in old shows with Katherine Hepburn, and you even hear a tiny bit of it from Princess Leia in A New Hope just before Alderon is destroyed from the Death Star. Endora from Bewitched spoke this exclusively on all 7 seasons of the show.

Sorta British sounding, but discernibly American, when you heard people speaking like this you were (allegedly) undoubtedly in the company of well-heeled citizens.


Hard to believe, but schools actually taught people to affect this speech in international company or society circles. It is not a regional dialect, it is an intentional construct of a dialect meant to convey a layer of refinement to one's persona. I found this interesting!

The motivation for this thread came from watching old Bewitched episodes (particularly Season 3). Endora and Maurice and many of Samantha's relatives spoke in this fashion exclusively.

 

[Gatefan1976]

They sound weird because they spoke "English", not American

 

[Overmind One]

They sound weird because they spoke "English", not American

Yes, quite right. It was a formalized form of English unique to Americans of a certain class...sort of like the King's English is for Brits vs Cockney or Welsh English. Your Australian dialect is unique to Australia, yet sounds somewhat similar to South African English to me.

This Mid-Atlantic accent is not regional. It is a purposely affected accent based upon a set of learned linguistic rules and did not arise naturally like our other regional accents from the South, the north east (Boston, New York and New Jersey), and the South West. I thought that was interesting, as it sometimes became necessary to send "common" women marrying well-to-do men to something called a "Charm School" to learn to speak in this fashion and to learn other affectations like how to sit and how to interact within "high society". It was an imitation of "Finishing Schools" in Europe. All of this has become socially irrelevant today, but the fact that it existed and fell from favor in my lifetime is a bit of trivia I find interesting.

This guy talks about where my head is at on this topic.


It addresses the notion that your spoken dialect is as much of a bit of "clothing" as actual clothing is. Conversely, unwittingly speaking with a Southern accent or "urban" accent or foreign accents can be a "placement factor" in the minds of others.

 

[Gatefan1976]

Yes, quite right. It was a formalized form of English unique to Americans of a certain class...sort of like the King's English is for Brits vs Cockney or Welsh English. Your Australian dialect is unique to Australia, yet sounds somewhat similar to South African English to me.

Even the South African Accent is affected by other languages. A "real" south African accent actually sounds more "clipped English" (Especially Dutch South African) than the Australian one which is extremely lazy and broad (more like yours actually ) , we just speak a lazy language fast

This Mid-Atlantic accent is not regional. It is a purposely affected accent based upon a set of learned linguistic rules and did not arise naturally like our other regional accents from the South, the north east (Boston, New York and New Jersey), and the South West. I thought that was interesting, as it sometimes became necessary to send "common" women marrying well-to-do men to something called a "Charm School" to learn to speak in this fashion and to learn other affectations like how to sit and how to interact within "high society". It was an imitation of "Finishing Schools" in Europe. All of this has become socially irrelevant today, but the fact that it existed and fell from favor in my lifetime is a bit of trivia I find interesting.

Hmmmm
I think that's more due to "class" being not based on birth, but wealth, especially in the US.

 

[shavedape]

Elocution lessons died out in the latter part of the 20th century. Today virtually no young person even knows what the word "elocution" means. If you say the word people will think you are talking about someone getting electrocuted. Seriously, they really don't know that elocution lessons (the study of formal speaking) was actually a thing not that long ago historically.

 

[Joelist]

However it started out, nowadays there are very definite regional accents in the US. Northeasterners, Queens, Southern, etc. Midwest also has an accent but it is a weirder one:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Northern_American_English

 

[Overmind One]

However it started out, nowadays there are very definite regional accents in the US. Northeasterners, Queens, Southern, etc. Midwest also has an accent but it is a weirder one:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Northern_American_English

Yep, that is what made the Mid-Atlantic accent such an interesting one, having been intentionally contrived for a specific reason. Like shavedape said, this elocution was a "thing" not that long ago, and it had been going for almost 100 years. And like Gatefan said, it was meant to convey wealth more than class. Eleanor Roosevelt spoke this way too. I noticed that in the beginning of The Phantom Menace, Queen Amidala spoke in this accent when dressed as the Queen, but dropped it when she was just being Padme.

The regional accents we have in the US arose naturally within those regions and have given us many variations.

 

[Overmind One]

Elocution lessons died out in the latter part of the 20th century. Today virtually no young person even knows what the word "elocution" means. If you say the word people will think you are talking about someone getting electrocuted. Seriously, they really don't know that elocution lessons (the study of formal speaking) was actually a thing not that long ago historically.

Today, elocution schools might be derided as being "Poseur Schools". Imagine, formally putting on airs in such a formal fashion just to be accepted within a socio-economic class. Today, it seems that many have gone the opposite direction, affecting street dialects just to fit within the social thuggery of the rap world. It's just so interesting to me how differently people will treat you if you speak a certain way.

 

[YJ02]

This Mid-Atlantic accent is not regional. It is a purposely affected accent based upon a set of learned linguistic rules and did not arise naturally like our other regional accents from the South, the north east (Boston, New York and New Jersey), and the South West. I thought that was interesting, as it sometimes became necessary to send "common" women marrying well-to-do men to something called a "Charm School" to learn to

yes exactly!!

at Pitt, I had a history professor who despite his best efforts, he couldn't shake himself of this accent

he grew up in Long Island where his parents were basically "wana-bes" to the entitled class but alwys found themselves on the edges of it instead

then taught him and his sisters to speak this way

but they guy was never entitled, his parents couldn't even afford to send him to college in the 60's-he volunteered for the army so he could get the then, gi bill

----------------

on the topic of America dialects-I have always found the aspect of regional affectations on English (I mean, it is interesting anywhere, but in America I find it moreso)

up here in north central PA-we mainly all speak like we are from Connecticut or upstate NY

this can be traced back to the migration patterns of people who first came to this area

the county (Elk) was mostly bought up by a guy from Philly named Ridgway (the same family of General Ridgway-the guy who replaced Mac Arthur in Korea)

he sent his agent to develop the place and they encouraged people to come over here from the rural areas of Connecticut and western Massachusetts where it was hard and expensive to buy land at the time

but drive an hour west or a couple pf counties to the south and you hear the sounds of voices that are "proper" for their Appalachian settings (we are at the very northern extremity of the Appalachian range)

when I was a teenager, in this town and the rest of the county we always said "soda" when referring to coke, pepsi, etc-go one hour down the road south and everyone said "pop" instead we would always cause a bit of mischief when my friends and I would go there to a restaurant and act like we had no idea when the waitress asked us what kind of "pop"we wanted.

one of my friends once responded to a very cute girl by saying "well, we don't have a lot of time, but I suppose me and you could make it a quick pop in the bathroom stall"

 

[YJ02]

anyone know what area/dialect of great Britain/Ireland has had the most effect on the development of American English? I am guessing Irish (the type of Irish that I believe is spoken in the Dublin area-hence, itself heavily influence by the Germanic old norse from when the Norwegians invaded and settled the area)

I could really get dragged down a deep rabbit hole looking for red herrings for a long time on this btw!

 

[shavedape]

anyone know what area/dialect of great Britain/Ireland has had the most effect on the development of American English? I am guessing Irish (the type of Irish that I believe is spoken in the Dublin area-hence, itself heavily influence by the Germanic old norse from when the Norwegians invaded and settled the area)

I could really get dragged down a deep rabbit hole looking for red herrings for a long time on this btw!

We're such a melting pot it's very hard to say. Even early on there were various influences for differing dialects of English.

 

[Overmind One]

We're such a melting pot it's very hard to say. Even early on there were various influences for differing dialects of English.

As it turns out, there was a similar contrivance of an accent created in England called "Received Pronunciation" (RP for short), created for the same exact reasons (socio-economic identification). It still defines the speech patterns of the Royals and is actually exactly what people are referring to when they say "The Queen's English". This accent was taught in public schools, then finally colleges (whose professors spoke in this accent), and into the new British Middle Class. I find this fascinating! This means that Patrick Stewart is only affecting his speech. His birth accent is an actual wicked Yorkshire accent. He is not changing it that much because it has been integrated into his persona. But it is not his original speech pattern.


So...all and all it was a very widespread FAD! Even in England. Another source of excellent modern examples of this speech is in The Cloud Atlas, and in the most recent remake of The Time Machine.

I can actually see this fad returning at some point. I consider Valley Girl dialect to be an affected accent too, since many girls only start sounding like that when they move to the west San Fernando Valley.

 

[YJ02]

We're such a melting pot it's very hard to say. Even early on there were various influences for differing dialects of English.

i guess i am looking more at the "mainline" colonial english of america

there were at least 2 mains; the southern from the english aristocratic (stemming from the 2nd and 3rd nobel sons, who were landless and without much inheritance or title in england and came to the american south--and the northern more common day speech of those who went to the northern colonies

of course we'd have to also allow for the influence of dutch in ny and nj

and i am speaking of pre-revolution immigrants

--------------
i have read in accts of the Adams' (John and Sam) that in their group of revolutionaries (mainly Sam's) there were ppl who insisted that colonists of New England begin affecting their speech to sound less (homeland) English

they were so committed to change they even changed their speech and other English customs--even with what they ate and drank as well

 

[YJ02]

As it turns out, there was a similar contrivance of an accent created in England called "Received Pronunciation" (RP for short), created for the same exact reasons (socio-economic identification). It still defines the speech patterns of the Royals and is actually exactly what people are referring to when they say "The Queen's English". This accent was taught in public schools, then finally colleges (whose professors spoke in this accent), and into the new British Middle Class. I find this fascinating! This means that Patrick Stewart is only affecting his speech. His birth accent is an actual wicked Yorkshire accent. He is not changing it that much because it has been integrated into his persona. But it is not his original speech pattern.


So...all and all it was a very widespread FAD! Even in England. Another source of excellent modern examples of this speech is in The Cloud Atlas, and in the most recent remake of The Time Machine.

I can actually see this fad returning at some point. I consider Valley Girl dialect to be an affected accent too, since many girls only start sounding like that when they move to the west San Fernando Valley.

English--"Anglish" old english/saxon--has gone through many changes,even before the Norman takeover

first there was a flattening of saxon dialects between the saxons, angles and jutes-who spoke the same tongue but with diff minor vocab and pronunciation

Alfred the Great-king of wessex and the only English monarch to be titled great-did a lot to unify the language and to create the ideal of oneness in the 'anglecynn(anglican)' ppl to include how they spoke

later additions included a lot of old norse/danish as the northeast of britain was entirely controlled by danes and ppl'd by danes and saxons whose languages were originally not too far apart, but they did manage to forge their 2 languages into one, mutually intellible tongue (a result the accents of northen england even till today?)

of course, the later norman takedown of the saxon monarchy forced Norman French on the ppl who never took up the language but insisted on old english, eventually forcing their norman overlords to begin using english- the mixture of some Norman French with Old English formed the middle english

and then the "great vowel shift" where scholars undertook major reforms to standardize pronunciations and spelling in english-the basis of modern english

but ppl still held on to their regional accents despite this top down insistence of language change

a lot of great material for Monty Python and the like in this history

 

[Overmind One]

i guess i am looking more at the "mainline" colonial english of america

there were at least 2 mains; the southern from the english aristocratic (stemming from the 2nd and 3rd nobel sons, who were landless and without much inheritance or title in england and came to the american south--and the northern more common day speech of those who went to the northern colonies

of course we'd have to also allow for the influence of dutch in ny and nj

and i am speaking of pre-revolution immigrants

--------------
i have read in accts of the Adams' (John and Sam) that in their group of revolutionaries (mainly Sam's) there were ppl who insisted that colonists of New England begin affecting their speech to sound less (homeland) English

they were so committed to change they even changed their speech and other English customs--even with what they ate and drank as well

YES. And they also sought to elevate uniquely American foods, products and architecture to a point beyond Britain. This article supports what you just said:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/29761/when-did-americans-lose-their-british-accents

Across the pond, many former colonists also adopted and imitated Received Pronunciation to show off their status. This happened especially in the port cities that still had close trading ties with England — Boston, Richmond, Charleston, and Savannah. From the Southeastern coast, the RP sound spread through much of the South along with plantation culture and wealth.

After industrialization and the Civil War and well into the 20th century, political and economic power largely passed from the port cities and cotton regions to the manufacturing hubs of the Mid Atlantic and Midwest — New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, etc. The British elite had much less cultural and linguistic influence in these places, which were mostly populated by the Scots-Irish and other settlers from Northern Britain, and rhotic English was still spoken there. As industrialists in these cities became the self-made economic and political elites of the Industrial Era, Received Pronunciation lost its status and fizzled out in the U.S. The prevalent accent in the Rust Belt, though, got dubbed General American and spread across the states just as RP had in Britain.

It's fun to put on this accent in public (like at a gas station or a 7-11) and watch the odd reactions to it.

 

[Joelist]

I think it is regionalized.

In the Northeast you have the British influence the strongest. Mid Atlantic is more Irish and so on.

 

[Overmind One]

I think it is regionalized.

In the Northeast you have the British influence the strongest. Mid Atlantic is more Irish and so on.

That is what makes this an interesting topic. It did not arise on it's own like the New England accents we have these days. It did not arise like the Southern accent, the Appalachian accent or the Mid Western accents or any of the naturally arising regional dialects. It was entirely crafted like the way Klingon behavior is crafted for Star Trek, or like Yoda's accent in Star Wars. Except that this was a socio-economic construct actually taught in American public schools and colleges as a lesson in itself.

 

[Joelist]

We need to get some region to adopt Klingon:

http://www.kli.org/

 

[YJ02]

We need to get some region to adopt Klingon:

http://www.kli.org/

I've been told they speak it in remote areas of the Alabama highlands...

 

[Gate_Boarder]

I think the Hill Billies of Scotland have a lot to answer for. Irish wise I think they came to the Eastboard first taking the prime areas. With the displaced Scots coming next I can see how they saw the Appalachins and figured this was the next best thing to being home.

With the "no English need to apply" routine I can see how dropping an English accent might come in handy if you are looking for work.