The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #133266   Message #3022352
Posted By: MGM·Lion
03-Nov-10 - 05:42 AM
Thread Name: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
Steve Hunt: thanks for your trouble. On the strength of what you said, I too went to Youtube & played back several versions of Sts of Ldn. I retain my impression that there is a strong MID-Atlantic influence, with emphasis on the 'Mid" ~~ largely matter of where the emphases fall, and usages like [as near as I can repro them phonetically] "quawdah pa-ye-sst eleven" ~ not as say one from the Bronx might say '¼-past-11'; but not as, e.g., I should pronounce it if I were singing it, which would be nearer to 'quaw-ter [with the 'R' silent*] passed [long 'a' ~ his is, distinctly, short, with that hint of a 'ye' after it which you would not get even in an English accent {e.g. Yorks, where the 'a' might be short}] 11'. I still think my point holds about the "mid"-ness of his accent and intonations.

~M~

*as Shaw remarked long ago, we lack a letter for the indefinite vowel, which phonetics represent as an upside-down 'e', even tho it is the commonest of our vowel sounds & can be represented by all our vowels on occasions, as in "formal, listen, definite, custom, fungus"...