EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
General => General Technical Chat => Topic started by: Zero999 on December 16, 2018, 08:05:09 pm
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This has been discussed before, but I don't remember anyone uploading any samples. This is me saying the word solder in four different ways. The American one is probably not very authentic, as accents aren't my strongest point. You may have difficulty in distinguishing between the UK variants, especially if you're not from the UK, so listen carefully.
There's no right or wrong way. For those who live or spent their formative years in South East England, if you can, please record yourself and listen back, before choosing an option. It's possible your accent is different to what you believe as #3 is stigmatised, so there may be a cognitive bias to select #2 or #4.
#1 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/pronunciation-of-the-word-solder/?action=dlattach;attach=598129)
#2 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/pronunciation-of-the-word-solder/?action=dlattach;attach=598132)
#3 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/pronunciation-of-the-word-solder/?action=dlattach;attach=598135)
#4 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/pronunciation-of-the-word-solder/?action=dlattach;attach=598138)
EDIT: None of this really matters as long as we can understand one another. This thread isn't supposed to be about language snobbery, but a bit of the usual banter is good to see.
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Soldier. And the iron is referred to as a leftenant ^-^
Really it is pronounced sodder. It melts using a sodding iron. The wick is known as sod off!
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The correct pronunciation is "electronics glue".
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Correct pronunciation should make zero difference on this international forum as long as we can understand what is meant and help each other. Those who agree can signify by not voting on this poll.
However soldering technique and safety are great topics for forum resources.
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I just call it fun. Speaking of accents, I am from Texas so when I tell friends and family "I'm gonna go have some fun.", they know that I mean soldering electronics. :-+
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I pronounce it like the SE UK sample, but who cares? For the record, my normal accent is GA accent, with a tinge of Asian accent. Imagine Asian native English speakers.
I had a roommate when I was freshly graduated who happened to be a Jamaican Chinese fella. When you hear a Jamaican accent come out of the mouth of a guy of obvious Chinese-extraction, that will give you pause.
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I pronounce it like the SE UK sample, but who cares? For the record, my normal accent is GA accent, with a tinge of Asian accent. Imagine Asian native English speakers.
I had a roommate when I was freshly graduated who happened to be a Jamaican Chinese fella. When you hear a Jamaican accent come out of the mouth of a guy of obvious Chinese-extraction, that will give you pause.
When I visited England, a couple places we went to get fish & chips were these little hole in the wall Asian restaurants. The British accent mixed with the Asian accent was a real strain my head to decipher. For some reason I have very little difficulty with most European accents but Asian/Indian I struggle to understand.
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The mispronunciation of the word SoLder is part of the coloUrful variation and catalogUE of abuses hurled at the English language in written and spoken form by one of its former colonies.
Unlike we Australians who would never do a thing such as that :-DD
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Well I pronounce as "sodder" and I damn sure ain't gonna change it at this point. >:(
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For some reason I have very little difficulty with most European accents but Asian/Indian I struggle to understand.
After 4 years in US, I now have no problem talking with Indians.
And if you wonder, I'm surrounded by 45% Indians, 35% Chinese/Taiwanese/Malay/Singaporean, 10% Koreans/Japanese, 5% Americans and 5% Europeans.
Working with Indians I've gotten better at it but it's still a struggle. I always feel rude asking people to repeat themselves but there's not much I can do.
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Are you gents in the US referring to Indians from India, or native Americans badged as indians? :-//
Do either, neither or both pronounce it as sodder or soLder ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ3fjQa5Hls (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ3fjQa5Hls)
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Well I pronounce as "sodder" and I damn sure ain't gonna change it at this point. >:(
... and furthermore, GET OFF MY LAWN! >:(
:-DD
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Well I pronounce as "sodder" and I damn sure ain't gonna change it at this point. >:(
... and furthermore, GET OFF MY LAWN! >:(
:-DD
Wouldn't that be Sod of my Sods? ;D
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Well I pronounce as "sodder" and I damn sure ain't gonna change it at this point. >:(
... and furthermore, GET OFF MY LAWN! >:(
:-DD
LOL, and a sign banged into the lawn :-*
"Trespassers criticizing/criticising pronunciation of SODDER, will be shot ! TWICE!!"
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:rant:
Well I pronounce as "sodder" and I damn sure ain't gonna change it at this point. >:(
... and furthermore, GET OFF MY LAWN! >:(
:-DD
LOL, and a sign banged into the lawn :-*
"Trespassers criticizing/criticising pronunciation of SODDER, will be shot ! TWICE!!"
Yea!
And also - Close the front door! You want me to air condition the whole damn neighborhood!
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I can hear my bitingly sarcastic grade 4 teacher, 'How many times young
(insert surname) do I have to tell you there is an ' L' in solder, or do I have to prise your ears apart with a bread knife '
He was a hard nut, I think a drill sargent in a previous life. Never saw him hit anyone but he ruled that classroom!
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Closest to what you call "American", but your pronunciation sounds like "suh-DURRRR" with almost a San Fernando Valley ("Valspeak") accent.
After careful parsing of how I pronounce it, it seems I can best describe it as "SAh-der". I can even feel my tongue and the back of my throat form an ever so slight "l" that is unpronounced between the syllables. If I force the pronunciation of that "l", it becomes "SAl-der".
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Closest to what you call "American", but your pronunciation sounds like "suh-DURRRR" with almost a San Fernando Valley ("Valspeak") accent.
Yes, I didn't think my US accent was very good. I just Googled San Fernando Valley and I suppose it makes sense. I was probably emulating the accents on trashy US TV programmes, I used to watch as a teenager, when I was more receptive to accents.
After careful parsing of how I pronounce it, it seems I can best describe it as "SAh-der". I can even feel my tongue and the back of my throat form an ever so slight "l" that is unpronounced between the syllables. If I force the pronunciation of that "l", it becomes "SAl-der".
Interesting. I suppose everyone will pronounce the o slightly differently. There are too many to list, so I went with the two most common variants of o sold and soul and whether the l silent, like a w or clear.
I say #2, the boring old British received pronunciation.
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(https://images.ctfassets.net/lufu0clouua1/Tr9lRGHXCS6GU4Kc8Qkg0/2f3a25a99c3f54c867ef5f8350aca5a3/King-Salmon.jpg)
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(https://images.ctfassets.net/lufu0clouua1/Tr9lRGHXCS6GU4Kc8Qkg0/2f3a25a99c3f54c867ef5f8350aca5a3/King-Salmon.jpg)
Yes, there are silent "L"s in plenty of words: would, calm, chalk, yolk* etc.
I think the reason why many people find the American pronunciation of the word solder amusing is because it sounds rude.
EDIT:
*yolk
That's an interesting one. At first I thought I got it wrong and was confusing it with yoke, a totally different word, but I've done a bit of research and found some people pronounce the L in yolk and others don't.
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You know what I hate? Me trying to figure out the pronounciation of english words up to a point I get to thinking I must be getting Alzheimers because I never can remember the right way.
Only to figure out you folks do it differently depending on which side of the pond you are |O :palm:
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You know what I hate? Me trying to figure out the pronounciation of english words up to a point I get to thinking I must be getting Alzheimers because I never can remember the right way.
If people understand you, then your pronunciation is adequate.
Only to figure out you folks do it differently depending on which side of the pond you are |O :palm:
Worse than that, three of the variants listed, numbers 2 to 4, are from the same country! ;D
Do any other languages have such a great variety, in terms of pronunciation, as English?
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Worse than that, three of the variants listed, numbers 2 to 4, are from the same country! ;D
Do any other languages have such a great variety, in terms of pronunciation, as English?
Give Sodder a good Southern USA Drawl and I reckon you could spell it Saderr ;D
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Anything except #1
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...Give Sodder a good Southern USA Drawl and I reckon you could spell it Saderr ;D
A few southern gents on Youtube give it the full throttle with SAR-DUR-R-R
I reckon an afternoon with a few rye and beer chasers to loosen the tongue (and break the 'suspicious foreigner' ice ???), with no tempting ladies in the bar to distract proceedings... :-* :-* :-*
I would have them saying at the least SAR-L-DUR-R-R = fixed! :clap:
Good enough for hot iron wielding aussies, americans and canadians hey? :-+
Then we can mosey on over to the ladies and see how well they fare with the 'L' thang... ;D
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According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the origin of the word solder is from Old French soudur in the early 14c, already pronounced without the -l-. Soudur itself has its origins in the Old French word soldure, from the Old French verb solder. The loss of -l- in that position is a regular feature of Old French (in modern French these words are soudure, soudage, souder, etc., all without the -l-).
The spelling solder was reintroduced later in the 15c in English.
So it is possible that the Americans pronounce the early version of the word as it was introduced in English in the early 14c, while those who pronounce it with the -l- follow a more phonetic approach dictated by the reintroduction of the word in the 15c with a different spelling.
It is known for a fact that the variants spoken by (ex-)colonies sometimes preserve some archaic features of the language of their (ex-)metropolises that were current at the time of their colonization.
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In the case of English, when one variant has retained an original form (or something noticeably closer to it) and the other has a newer form, it’s usually American English that’s retained the original form. (It’s why I find it so irritating when snobby brits accuse Americans of “corrupting” “their” language, or of being lazy, when in fact it was British English that changed away from the “original”, or rather, our obsolete common ancestor dialect...)
In any case I find it ridiculous to start a thread to rehash this sorry discussion. It never goes anywhere, and it happens spontaneously anyway on every single video about soldering that has an American speaker, without fail.
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Latin to French to English with the spelling settled into common usage as Solder by the 14-15 C. USA settled in the 1600's by the Poms with a goodly series of incursions by the French settlers who stayed may be closer to the truth of why the pronunciation is as it finished up in modern times in spite of the English spelling sticking?
The English remained not very good friends with the French for quite a while so french was on the nose like mouldy cheese as the English we have come to know became more established as an independent one. So the chances of English reverting to French words or pronunciations wasn't very high I suspect.
Just a possible theory and just so long as the bits stick together it doesn't matter that much either way.
Having a bit of banter or poking fun at accents about it shouldn't result in any serious butt hurt for anyone. Even the most neutral 'Swiss' with the different accents and dialects used across the country I am sure make their way into banter and humor.
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Yes, there are silent "L"s in plenty of words: would, calm, chalk, yolk etc.
Interesting variation on the theme. This American, at least, uses a silent "L" in would, pronounces the "L" in calm and yolk, and is ambivalent on the sound in chalk. Pure silent on solder. I am sure if we were linguists or pursued this further we would find long lists of words where the "L" is elided or not in different parts of the English speaking world.
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Something I find interesting is the way American English lost any sign of the British accent at some point quite a long time ago, despite the fact that the USA started out as a British colony. Countries like Australia that started in a vaguely familiar fashion retained an accent that while distinctly different, sounds much more British than American.
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In the Australian case we have the BBC and American Movies to thank or not thank ;)
When you get to the Outback and in particular Queensland 'Owaryougoingmaaaatte orrightA' would maybe give you a different view ;) There it is a lack of much media of any sort until the last 20 or so years so. The first time I was in Chicago for work a fair number of people couldn't understand what I was saying until I had to make a conscious effort to slow down and use better Pommie Diction :-DD
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Do any other languages have such a great variety, in terms of pronunciation, as English?
We have dialects that make people 100km from my location near impossible to understand sometimes.
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In the case of English, when one variant has retained an original form (or something noticeably closer to it) and the other has a newer form, it’s usually American English that’s retained the original form. (It’s why I find it so irritating when snobby brits accuse Americans of “corrupting” “their” language, or of being lazy, when in fact it was British English that changed away from the “original”, or rather, our obsolete common ancestor dialect...)
In any case I find it ridiculous to start a thread to rehash this sorry discussion. It never goes anywhere, and it happens spontaneously anyway on every single video about soldering that has an American speaker, without fail.
Yes, American English is more like old English.
I think the accusation of laziness is mainly from the upper class because the Americans drop their "T"s everywhere, but as I'm sure you know, "T" dropping is common in British English as well and seems to becoming more widespread. I doubt it's purely anti-American as I've heard people refer to the Australian accent as thick, stupid, lazy etc.
I had no intention of offending anyone. I've stated my position on language snobbery before (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/soldering-standards-on-youtube/msg2032861/#msg2032861) (it's bad, no one owns English and the Brits have no right to moan). I decided to make this thread because no one posted any samples. If you don't like the it, please ignore it.
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Yes, there are silent "L"s in plenty of words: would, calm, chalk, yolk etc.
Interesting variation on the theme. This American, at least, uses a silent "L" in would, pronounces the "L" in calm and yolk, and is ambivalent on the sound in chalk. Pure silent on solder. I am sure if we were linguists or pursued this further we would find long lists of words where the "L" is elided or not in different parts of the English speaking world.
Dough, I got yolk wrong. That's not a silent L. I was thinking of yoke, a totally different word! English is confusing!
EDIT:
After a bit of research, I've discovered some people pronounce the L in yolk and some don't!
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Having a bit of banter or poking fun at accents about it shouldn't result in any serious butt hurt for anyone. Even the most neutral 'Swiss' with the different accents and dialects used across the country I am sure make their way into banter and humor.
Lucky for me I’m not a “neutral Swiss” (not that the Swiss are neutral, quite the contrary!), I’m an American living abroad (with a minor in linguistics). The reason I react to this issue is that I have repeatedly had “snobby Brits” very aggressively attack American English, claiming that we are lazy speakers, that we don’t have the right to call it English, etc. — both online and in real life. It’s not “butthurt”, it’s frustration at the frequency of these arguments, which are anything but banter or humor, the initiators are frequently quite serious in their disdain for American English.
And it just gets ridiculous that 100% of soldering videos by Americans have half the comments from angry Brits complaining about the pronunciation, the usual argument being “lazy Americans, it has an L, so you must pronounce the L!!!!” To the usual counterexamples like could, would, walk, talk, etc., and to more extreme examples of non-obvious pronunciation (e.g. colonel), they usually just ignore it and repeat their position.
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Lucky for me I’m not a “neutral Swiss” (not that the Swiss are neutral, quite the contrary!), I’m an American living abroad (with a minor in linguistics). The reason I react to this issue is that I have repeatedly had “snobby Brits” very aggressively attack American English, claiming that we are lazy speakers, that we don’t have the right to call it English, etc. — both online and in real life. It’s not “butthurt”, it’s frustration at the frequency of these arguments, which are anything but banter or humor, the initiators are frequently quite serious in their disdain for American English.
And it just gets ridiculous that 100% of soldering videos by Americans have half the comments from angry Brits complaining about the pronunciation, the usual argument being “lazy Americans, it has an L, so you must pronounce the L!!!!” To the usual counterexamples like could, would, walk, talk, etc., and to more extreme examples of non-obvious pronunciation (e.g. colonel), they usually just ignore it and repeat their position.
Not sure if it is still the same in Switzerland but a good Swiss mate of mine said neighboring valleys could have trouble understanding each other like Ice-Tea put for Belgium.
Pronunciation for me is oh someone has an accent different to me and poking fun at Sodder goes back to the films we watched at Secondary School Electronics in the pre video era :o . Australians are as bad as any other English language speakers on the pronunciation front including the Poms them selves.
The intentional dropping of letters in spelling the words on the other hand :horse: :-DD
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Something I find interesting is the way American English lost any sign of the British accent at some point quite a long time ago, despite the fact that the USA started out as a British colony. Countries like Australia that started in a vaguely familiar fashion retained an accent that while distinctly different, sounds much more British than American.
It’s because we never had it to begin with. American English is a) based on the English of the English settlers of the 17th and 18th centuries, from all over England, as well as b) massively influenced by the English of the Irish settlers that came later. (Many native Dubliners speak a dialect so similar to American English as to be indistinguishable by most native English speakers.) The most prominent British feature that was kept in some US dialects is the non-rhotic (“silent”) R in both Southern and New England dialects. (And Appalachian mountain dialect has influence from Scottish English.)
The main mistake you, like most people, make is to essentially assume that British English stayed the same, while American English changed a lot. But why would English in Britain remain unchanged for 400 years? It didn’t. In fact, it changed more than American English did!! (French had the same thing with Quebec: the French in their former colony changed less than the French in the homeland!) When Hollywood makes a movie set in the middle ages and everyone is speaking something similar to the Queen’s English, it’s completely wrong — language historians say that it should sound much more like American English. whether the movie takes place in the New World or in medieval England.
The other British colonies were colonized in a much more ongoing fashion: they had settlers coming in from Britain until much later. Their closer ties to the homeland meant more pollination by modern British English. (Canada is a great example of this, having the same roots as American English, but with the continued British influence. So you get much the same foundation as American English, but with some distinctly more-British sounding pronunciations on a few words, e.g. “again”.)
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From my perspective, yolk and yoke are pronounced exactly the same. No 'L' in either pronunciation.
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Not sure if it is still the same in Switzerland but a good Swiss mate of mine said neighboring valleys could have trouble understanding each other like Ice-Tea put for Belgium.
For sure, people say that “every valley has its own dialect” and that’s not altogether wrong. However — with the big exception of Walliserdüütsch (Valais German) — they’re all mutually intelligible for the most part.
There’s a website called the “Chuchichäschtli-Orakel” that asks you how you pronounce 10 Swiss German words and then spits out which dialect you speak. For me, it very correctly says “City of Zurich”. But then someone else made a similar website just for the city, and with me, it indeed correctly pegs mine as “south east, lakeside”, which is precisely the neighborhood where I lived when learning Swiss German!!! :o
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From my perspective, yolk and yoke are pronounced exactly the same. No 'L' in either pronunciation.
Yes, there's some variation in the pronunciation of the word yolk, hence my confusion. I've edited my posts.
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From my perspective, yolk and yoke are pronounced exactly the same. No 'L' in either pronunciation.
Yes, there's some variation in the pronunciation of the word yolk, hence my confusion. I've edited my posts.
I find the variation of dialects interesting, I suspect because in my state (South Australia) it doesn't vary much by district, so a little difference is interesting. Often there is also a bit of a story behind it as well.
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From my perspective, yolk and yoke are pronounced exactly the same. No 'L' in either pronunciation.
Yes, there's some variation in the pronunciation of the word yolk, hence my confusion. I've edited my posts.
I find the variation of dialects interesting, I suspect because in my state (South Australia) it doesn't vary much by district, so a little difference is interesting. Often there is also a bit of a story behind it as well.
"Crow eaters" did have some strange terms, like "buckboard" instead of "ute"(pickup truck to non-Oz
Folk).
I think that one has just about died out, though.
They eat some strange food, too, like "pea floaters".
In WA, it freaks us out when "t'othersiders " call Albany "Orlbany", or Derby "Darby".
When two "Footy" teams from the same city play each other, it's a Derby, not a Darby!
Same goes for the town up North.
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Maybe we should make a soundboard with regions and pronunciations. Or a video that cycles through all of us saying 'solder'.
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Some more words where the l can be silent or not depending on where you live, or where you learned English.
balm, salmon, walk, talk, folk, calf and half.
My personal dialect has some strange didos in it. I clearly use the "L" in walk, but don't in talk. And in several of the words that have been listed I will omit the "L" in relaxed speech, but use it when speaking more formally.
For a view on how outsiders feel about this, I found this rule on a European English language instruction site.
"The "L" is silent when it follows the vowels a, o, and u." It then goes on to list exceptions. Apparently in continental Europe it should be sodder. ;)
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I’m an American living abroad (with a minor in linguistics).
Another EE with an interest in linguistics? What are the odds?
And it just gets ridiculous that 100% of soldering videos by Americans have half the comments from angry Brits complaining about the pronunciation, the usual argument being “lazy Americans, it has an L, so you must pronounce the L!!!!”
When I first heard the American pronunciation of solder I found it as strange as listening to "Hermione" for the first time in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
Given the polemic, I decided to investigate. Now I can accept the American version without reservations.
The main mistake you, like most people, make is to essentially assume that British English stayed the same, while American English changed a lot. But why would English in Britain remain unchanged for 400 years? It didn’t. In fact, it changed more than American English did!! (French had the same thing with Quebec: the French in their former colony changed less than the French in the homeland!) When Hollywood makes a movie set in the middle ages and everyone is speaking something similar to the Queen’s English, it’s completely wrong — language historians say that it should sound much more like American English. whether the movie takes place in the New World or in medieval England.
The other British colonies were colonized in a much more ongoing fashion: they had settlers coming in from Britain until much later. Their closer ties to the homeland meant more pollination by modern British English. (Canada is a great example of this, having the same roots as American English, but with the continued British influence. So you get much the same foundation as American English, but with some distinctly more-British sounding pronunciations on a few words, e.g. “again”.)
You bet your bottom dollar that the same thing happened to other New World languages (Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch).
Like in the English case, things get really worse when these ex-colonies start to produce content (books, music, videos, films, etc.) using all those (in the current perspective of the ex-metropolises) "archaic", "regional" or "less prestigious" features and "invade" their ex-metropolises.
The accusations of ruining their once pure and heroic idiom abound.
Makes me wanna say: next time you feel the urge to colonize a distant land, don't.
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Then we can mosey on over to the ladies and see how well they fare with the 'L' thang... ;D
An Aussie accent is an instant home run as far as American lasses are concerned.
Note: I found that an American accent has no such effect on Aussie lasses. It's not fair.
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Then we can mosey on over to the ladies and see how well they fare with the 'L' thang... ;D
An Aussie accent is an instant home run as far as American lasses are concerned.
Note: I found that an American accent has no such effect on Aussie lasses. It's not fair.
Sorry to hear that mate :(
Have you tried the different breeds in the respective habitats? Female corporates, rural ladies, booze/ice bommed clubbers, caravan dwellers ? Lots to choose from :clap:
Decent normal women (yes, there are a few left) may be shopping for commitment regardless of accent, which may or may not suit your intentions
Good luck next time, and whatever you do, please DON'T attempt to 'aussie up' your accent, it doesn't work ???
I've heard it and it's a FAIL every time :palm:
Tip: hook up with some aussie guys, let them do the first move hard yakka for ya (G'Day Luv.. and Oi Youz! etc) ;D
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Oh it’s far too late for those tips mate, I’m married now :palm: :-BROKE
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Over the longer term it probably doesn't make much difference. I find that while accents sound cool at first, once I've talked to somebody for a while I hardly even notice their accent anymore.
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I’m an American living abroad (with a minor in linguistics).
Another EE with an interest in linguistics? What are the odds?
:-+ :-+ (Though technically, I’m an IT/UX/technical writing/translation professional and electronics hobbyist with an interest in linguistics. :p
You bet your bottom dollar that the same thing happened to other New World languages (Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch).
Like in the English case, things get really worse when these ex-colonies start to produce content (books, music, videos, films, etc.) using all those (in the current perspective of the ex-metropolises) "archaic", "regional" or "less prestigious" features and "invade" their ex-metropolises.
The accusations of ruining their once pure and heroic idiom abound.
Makes me wanna say: next time you feel the urge to colonize a distant land, don't.
Right?!?
Hah, as for Portuguese: a few years ago, I was chatting with a Portuguese girl about continental vs Brazilian Portuguese — like the British, the Portuguese also get rather... protective of their namesake language. So of course I had to poke the hornet’s nest and ask: “Ummm, well, didn’t your latest spelling reform adopt a ton of Brazilian spellings?”, to which she replied with mock indignance, “WE DON’T TALK ABOUT THAT!!!!” :-DD
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Then we can mosey on over to the ladies and see how well they fare with the 'L' thang... ;D
An Aussie accent is an instant home run as far as American lasses are concerned.
Note: I found that an American accent has no such effect on Aussie lasses. It's not fair.
Not just American lasses, but lads as well! :P Americans (at least the ones living in USA) love foreign accents, especially British, French, Australian, Italian, Iberian Spanish, etc. — in general, Americans perceive anything European as being prestigious. What they don’t realize is that this perception of prestige is in no way mutual!!!
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Not just American lasses, but lads as well! :P Americans (at least the ones living in USA) love foreign accents, especially British, French, Australian, Italian, Iberian Spanish, etc. — in general, Americans perceive anything European as being prestigious. What they don’t realize is that this perception of prestige is in no way mutual!!!
I think most of us realize, we just don't care.
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I put most of the pronunciation quirks of American English down to brain damage caused by use of Imperial measurement units. Some kind of suppressed emotional conflict related to supposedly having won independence from the Crown, but still suffering under the cruel yoke of British measurements. It doesn't make sense. So the speech becomes slurred and words lose syllables. Like the L in solder.
Sure, the rest of us English speakers can understand you Yanks. But we also pity you.
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The story goes they were already 'independent', and divided physically by lots of water,
they just didn't want to pay the Crown's new owners a lazy bully's percentage :rant:
Loads of Youtube conspiracy theorists can't all be wrong if they are in agreement, right? :-//
Not that I go looking for such apparent drivel, it pops up when I'm surfing half asleep for vintage tool restos and movies :=\ :popcorn:
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Something I find interesting is the way American English lost any sign of the British accent at some point quite a long time ago, despite the fact that the USA started out as a British colony. Countries like Australia that started in a vaguely familiar fashion retained an accent that while distinctly different, sounds much more British than American.
It’s because we never had it to begin with. American English is a) based on the English of the English settlers of the 17th and 18th centuries, from all over England, as well as b) massively influenced by the English of the Irish settlers that came later. (Many native Dubliners speak a dialect so similar to American English as to be indistinguishable by most native English speakers.) The most prominent British feature that was kept in some US dialects is the non-rhotic (“silent”) R in both Southern and New England dialects. (And Appalachian mountain dialect has influence from Scottish English.)
The main mistake you, like most people, make is to essentially assume that British English stayed the same, while American English changed a lot. But why would English in Britain remain unchanged for 400 years? It didn’t. In fact, it changed more than American English did!! (French had the same thing with Quebec: the French in their former colony changed less than the French in the homeland!) When Hollywood makes a movie set in the middle ages and everyone is speaking something similar to the Queen’s English, it’s completely wrong — language historians say that it should sound much more like American English. whether the movie takes place in the New World or in medieval England.
The other British colonies were colonized in a much more ongoing fashion: they had settlers coming in from Britain until much later. Their closer ties to the homeland meant more pollination by modern British English. (Canada is a great example of this, having the same roots as American English, but with the continued British influence. So you get much the same foundation as American English, but with some distinctly more-British sounding pronunciations on a few words, e.g. “again”.)
I'm aware that US English is supposed to be similar to 17th century British and that it's changed less, i.e. more true to the original form, but there are some things which don't add up. Why would American English remain the same for 400 years?
Why did British English change more than American English? Could it be that British English had more influence from Europe?
How about T dropping? It has been common in American English for a long time, yet it has only become widespread in British English fairly recently. 100 years ago it was restricted to a few small parts of country i.e north-east England, East Anglia and east London, but now it's everywhere. It's also different to the US: Brits will tend to use the glottal stop, so computer becomes compu'er, whist the Americans will replace the t with soft d: compu'er, although the Brits occasionally use the soft d too. I find it hard to believe that T dropping was widespread in England in the 17th century, it dying out in and re-emerging recently. I suspect T dropping was not common in 17th century English and developed later in America.
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Why would American English remain the same for 400 years?
It didn't. It also evolved. But the two variants didn't share exactly the same innovations. Much of what has changed in British English might have remained the same in American English and vice-versa.
This is how languages evolve everywhere.
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Not just American lasses, but lads as well! :P Americans (at least the ones living in USA) love foreign accents, especially British, French, Australian, Italian, Iberian Spanish, etc. — in general, Americans perceive anything European as being prestigious. What they don’t realize is that this perception of prestige is in no way mutual!!!
I think most of us realize, we just don't care.
I agree that most Americans don’t care what the world thinks, but I vehemently disagree with most Americans realizing that they aren’t loved worldwide. Tons of Americans are shocked to discover that the rest of the world does not believe that USA is #1. They think that the world still looks up to USA. They don’t realize the world’s opinion, and more specifically, they do not realize how much the British actively deride American English.
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I'm aware that US English is supposed to be similar to 17th century British and that it's changed less, i.e. more true to the original form, but there are some things which don't add up. Why would American English remain the same for 400 years?
Nobody said it remained the same. I expressly said it changed less, not that it didn’t change at all.
Why did British English change more than American English? Could it be that British English had more influence from Europe?
That I don’t know. But as already discussed above by several people, it seems to be a common pattern in colonies of varying languages.
How about T dropping? It has been common in American English for a long time, yet it has only become widespread in British English fairly recently. 100 years ago it was restricted to a few small parts of country i.e north-east England, East Anglia and east London, but now it's everywhere. It's also different to the US: Brits will tend to use the glottal stop, so computer becomes compu'er, whist the Americans will replace the t with soft d: compu'er, although the Brits occasionally use the soft d too. I find it hard to believe that T dropping was widespread in England in the 17th century, it dying out in and re-emerging recently. I suspect T dropping was not common in 17th century English and developed later in America.
Well it’s not “dropped”, it’s morphed into other sounds, namely the glottal stop (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottal_stop) as you mentioned, and the alveolar flap (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_and_alveolar_flaps) (what you’re calling a soft D).
I am not as well versed on the history of this specific change in English (and my reference book doesn’t go into it), but chances are that this modification appeared in some regional dialect of British English centuries ago, and only comparatively recently spread. 400 years ago, the regional dialects in Britain were probably even more pronounced than they are now, and we know that the differences in the regional variants of American English are strongly informed by when the particular English (or later, Irish and Scottish) settlers came, and where they came from specifically, since emigration happened from different areas in England at very different times and with different destinations.
We’d have to know what the various regional dialects in Britain were like 400 years ago, and how they morphed over time.
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Then we can mosey on over to the ladies and see how well they fare with the 'L' thang... ;D
An Aussie accent is an instant home run as far as American lasses are concerned.
Note: I found that an American accent has no such effect on Aussie lasses. It's not fair.
Not just American lasses, but lads as well! :P Americans (at least the ones living in USA) love foreign accents, especially British, French, Australian, Italian, Iberian Spanish, etc. — in general, Americans perceive anything European as being prestigious. What they don’t realize is that this perception of prestige is in no way mutual!!!
Americans are really picky about the accents they like. Some accents are derided ;D