TransAtlantic accent

[ashling]

http://boingboing.net/2015/11/18/why-do-people-in-old-movies-ta.html?utm_content=buffera5874&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

https://www.facebook.com/chuck.culpepper.5/about

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/06/that-weirdo-announcer-voice-accent-where-it-came-from-and-why-it-went-away/395141/

[Spider Jerusalem]

1. It's not "trans-Atlantic", it's "Mid-Atlantic"

(so called because it's kind of midway between American and British); it's not just people in old movies who talk that way, either; I have a mid-Atlantic accent, thanks to years of living in the UK; I sound British to Americans, and American to Brits...another example would be Alistair Cooke, whose accent went that way thanks to sixty years of living in the States.

[ashling]

4. both tehms ah propah

I went to Millsaps College in Miss. (years ago)

my speech/theatre teacher, Lance Goss, taught that

[PennyK]

2. Fascinating!

I've always wondered about this peculiar way of speaking. These articles are so much fun! Rally, dahling.

[frogmarch]

3. Thanks for posting this!

I've always wondered about the hoity-toity accent many old time movie stars had. It sounded close to British but not quite. Now I know what it was.

It still makes me cringe to hear it in old movies. I watched Rear Window starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly the other night, and her accent was distracting and annoying. I read not long ago that she was made to cultivate the accent when she became an actor. I wonder what she sounded like before.

By the way, in the opening clip at your link Cary Grant speaks, but he was English-born and didn't come to America until he was 16, so I'm not sure it's correct to suggest his accent was put on...not entirely, anyway.

[Tom Kitten]

5. Saw this while watching old SCTV bits on youtube lately...

Joe Flaherty as William F. Buckley...nuff said!