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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!eagle!allegra!don
From: don@allegra.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: American Accent
Message-ID: <1858@allegra.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 2-Oct-83 18:46:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: allegra.1858
Posted: Sun Oct  2 18:46:36 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 2-Oct-83 23:05:22 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 16

It is interesting to note that the deep South is the most strongly
English part of the country.  I have always wondered how their accent
relates to English accents.  Anthony Burgess (sp?) claims that
Americans today still talk like the British did three hundred years
ago.  He bases that claim on the fact that some Shakespearean companies
in England have attempted to preserve the classic Elizabethan accent,
and they in fact sound like Americans with a slight Irish accent.

The Encyclopedia Britannica also claims that American is anachronistic,
and Americans use many idioms that have disapeared in England (like the
phrase "I guess so" which appears in Chaucer, but not in modern
British.)

A British friend of mine says that the most obvious attribute of the
American accent is "our horrible 'r' sound".  We draw it out much more
than anyone else in the world.