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Mid-Atlantic accent

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This article is about the cultivated accent blending American and British English. For the native dialect of the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, seePhiladelphia English.

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TheMid-Atlantic accent,orTransatlantic accent,[1][2][3]is a nickname for variousaccentsof English that are perceived as blending features from bothAmericanandBritish English.Most commonly, it refers to accents of the late 19th century to mid-20th century spoken by theNortheasternAmerican upper class,as well as related accents in the early half of the 20th century taught at American schools of acting,[4][5]which incorporated features ofReceived Pronunciation,[3]theprestige accentof British English. Consequently, this speaking style also became associated with certain Hollywood actors in that era.[6][3][7][8]

A Mid-Atlantic accent was never the widespread or typical accent of any region; rather, according to voice and drama professorDudley Knight,"its earliest advocates bragged that its chief quality was that no Americans actually spoke it unless educated to do so".[9]The late 19th century first produced recordings of and commentary about such accents associated with the Northeastern elite and their privatepreparatory-schooleducation.[10]With their (limited) highprestige,these accents were also then used by some stage and film actors in the early 20th century, particularly in their performances of classical plays. The prestige of Mid-Atlantic speech had largely ended by 1950, presumably as a result of cultural and demographic changes in the United States following the Second World War.[11]

A similar accent that resulted from different historical processes,Canadian dainty,was also known in Canada, existing for a century before waning in the 1950s.[12]More generally, "mid-Atlantic accent" may refer to any accent, including more recent ones, with a perceived mixture of American and British characteristics.[13][14][15]

Elite accents

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History

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In the 19th century and into the early 20th century, formalpublic speakingin the United States focused primarily on song-like intonation, lengthily and tremulously uttered vowels (including overly articulatedweak vowels), and a booming resonance.[16]Moreover, since at least the mid-19th century, upper-class communities on theEast Coast of the United Statesincreasingly adopted many of the phonetic qualities ofReceived Pronunciation[17][18][19][3]—the standard accent of the British upper class—as evidenced in recorded public speeches of the time. One of these qualities isnon-rhoticity,sometimes called "R-dropping", in which speakers delete the phoneme/r/except before a vowel sound (thus, inpairbut notpairing), which is also shared by the traditional regional dialects ofEastern New England(including Boston),New York City,and some areas ofthe South,although precisely how varied by exact location, social class, and other demographic factors.SociolinguistslikeWilliam Labovdescribe that non-rhoticity, "following Received Pronunciation, was taught as a model of correct, international English by schools of speech, acting, and elocution in the United States up to the end of World War II".[17]

Early recordings of prominent Americans born in the middle of the 19th century provide some insight into their adoption (or not) of a carefully employed non-rhotic Mid-Atlantic speaking style.PresidentWilliam Howard Taft,who attended public school in Ohio, and inventorThomas Edison,who grew up in Ohio and Michigan in a family of modest means, both used natural rhotic accents. Yet presidentsWilliam McKinleyof Ohio andGrover ClevelandofCentral New York,who attended private schools, clearly employed a non-rhotic, upper-class, Mid-Atlantic quality in theirpublic speechesthat does not align with the rhotic accents normally documented in Ohio and Central New York State at the time; both men even use the distinctive and especially archaic affectation of a "tapped R"at times when R is pronounced, often when between vowels.[20]This tapped articulation is additionally sometimes heard in recordings ofTheodore Roosevelt,McKinley's successor from an affluent district of New York City, who used a cultivated non-rhotic accent but with the addition of thecoil-curl mergeronce notably associated withNew York accents.[20]His distant cousinFranklin D. Rooseveltalso employed a non-rhotic Mid-Atlantic accent,[21][8]though without the tapped R.

In and aroundBoston,Massachusetts, a similar accent, in the late 19th century and early 20th century, was associated with the local urban elite: theBoston Brahmins.In theNew York metropolitan area,particularly including its affluentWestchester Countysuburbs and theNorth ShoreofLong Island,other terms for the local Transatlantic pronunciation and accompanying facial behavior include "Locust Valleylockjaw "or"Larchmontlockjaw ", named for the stereotypical clenching of the speaker's jaw muscles to achieve an exaggerated enunciation quality.[10]The related term "boarding-school lockjaw" has also been used to describe the accent once considered a characteristic of elite New England boarding-school culture.[10]

Example speakers

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Wealthy or highly educated Americans known for being life-long speakers of a Mid-Atlantic accent includeWilliam F. Buckley Jr.,[22][8]Gore Vidal,H. P. Lovecraft,[23]Franklin D.andEleanor Roosevelt,Alice Roosevelt Longworth,Averell Harriman,[24][25]Dean Acheson,[26]George Plimpton,[27][28]John F. Kennedy,[29]Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis(who began affecting it permanently while atMiss Porter's School),[30]Louis Auchincloss,[31]Norman Mailer,[32]Diana Vreeland(though her accent is unique, with not entirely consistent Mid-Atlantic features),[33]C. Z. Guest[34]Joseph Alsop,[35][36][37]Robert Silvers,[38][39]Julia Child[40](though, as the lone non-Northeasterner in this list, her accent was consistently rhotic),Cornelius Vanderbilt IV,[41]andGloria Vanderbilt.[10]Except for Child, all of these example speakers were raised, educated, or both in theNortheastern United States.This includes just over half who were raised specifically in New York (most of them New York City) and five of whom were educated specifically at theindependent boarding schoolGrotonin Massachusetts: Franklin Roosevelt, Harriman, Acheson, Alsop, and Auchincloss.

Examples of individuals described as having a cultivated New England accent or "Boston Brahmin accent" includeHenry Cabot Lodge Jr.,[42]Charles Eliot Norton,[43]Samuel Eliot Morison,[44]Harry Crosby,[45]John Brooks Wheelwright,[46]George C. Homans,[47]Elliot Richardson,[48]George Plimpton(though he was actually a life-long member of the New York City elite),[49]andJohn Kerry,[50]who has noticeablyreduced this accentsince his early adulthood toward a moreGeneral Americanone.

Excerpt of FDR's "Fear Itself" speech

U.S. PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt,who came from a privileged New York City family, has anon-rhoticaccent, though it is not an ordinaryNew York accentbut rather a Mid-Atlantic one.[8][18]One of Roosevelt's most frequently heard speeches has a non-rhotic pronunciation of words likeassertandfirm,along with a fallingdiphthongin the wordfear,all of which distinguishes it from other forms of surviving non-rhotic speech in the United States.[51]"Linking R"appears in Roosevelt'sdeliveryof the words "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself"; this pronunciation of R is also famously recorded in hisPearl Harbor speech,for example, in the phrase "naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan".[52]

Decline

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After the accent's decline following the end of World War II, this American version of a "posh" accent has all but disappeared even among the American upper classes, as Americans have increasingly dissociated from the speaking styles of the East Coast elite;[21]if anything, the accent is now subject to ridicule in American popular culture.[53]The clipped, non-rhotic English accents ofGeorge PlimptonandWilliam F. Buckley Jr.were vestigial examples.[8]Marianne Williamson,a self-help author and a2020and2024 Democratic presidential candidate,has a unique accent that, following her participation in the first2020 presidential debatein June 2019,[54][55][56]was widely discussed and sometimes described as a Mid-Atlantic accent.[57]An article fromThe Guardian,for example, stated that Williamson "speaks in a beguiling mid-Atlantic accent that makes her sound as if she has walked straight off the set of aCary Grantmovie ".[58]

Theatrical and cinematic accents

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According to the vocal coach and drama professorDudley Knight,when the 20th century began, "American actors in classical plays all spoke with English accents",[11]due to the high prestige of EnglishReceived Pronunciation(RP). Early in this century, the wealthyBrahminaccent ofBoston, Massachusetts,a subset ofEastern New England English,had already absorbed notable features from RP such asnon-rhoticityand thetrap–bathsplit,when Boston was the American center for training inelocution,public speaking,and acting.[59]Therefore, this upper-class Boston accent also may have contributed to the sound then becoming popular among the wider Northeastern elite and in the American theatre.

Furthermore, the popularity of a Mid-Atlantic sound was indirectly inspired by the Australian phonetician William Tilly (néTilley), teaching inColumbia University's extension program in New York City from 1918 to around the time of his death in 1935, who championed a version of the accent that, for the first time, was standardized with an extreme and conscious level of phonetic consistency. Calling his new standard "World English", Tilly mostly attracted a following ofEnglish-language learnersand New York City public-school teachers,[60]and his goal was to popularize his standard of a "proper" American pronunciation for teaching in public schools and using in one's public life.[61]While he did not specifically work with actors himself, some of his prominent students ended up doing so.Linguistic prescriptivists,Tilly and his adherents emphatically promoted World English, and its slight variations taught in classes of theatre and oratory, helping to eventually define the Mid-Atlantic pronunciation of American classical actors for decades. According to Dudley Knight:

World English was a speech pattern that very specifically did not derive from any regional dialect pattern in England or America, although it clearly bears some resemblance to the speech patterns that were spoken in a few areas of New England, and a very considerable resemblance... to the pattern in England which was becoming defined in the 1920s as "RP" or "Received Pronunciation". World English, then, was a creation of speech teachers, and boldly labeled as a class-based accent: the speech of persons variously described as "educated," "cultivated," or "cultured"; the speech of persons who moved in rarefied social or intellectual circles; and the speech of those who might aspire to do so.[62]

From the 1920s to 1940s, the Mid-Atlantic accent was a popular affectation onstage and in other forms of high culture in North America. According to Knight, Americans had the tendency to perceive World English as sounding British, which Tilly's students sometimes acknowledged and other times denied.[63]The codification of such an accent particularly for theatrical training is credited to several disciples of Tilly, notably including Margaret Prendergast McLean andEdith Warman Skinner.[3]McLean, by the late 1920s, was one of the most influential speech teachers for East Coast actors, publishing her text on the accent,Good American Speech,in 1928.[9]Edith Skinner rose to prominence in the 1930s and 1940s,[9][64]best known for her own instructional text,Speak with Distinction,published in 1942.[3][65]These speech teachers referred to this accent asGood (American) Speech,which Skinner also calledEastern(American) Standardand which she described as the appropriate American pronunciation for "classics and elevated texts".[66]She vigorously drilled her students in learning the accent at theCarnegie Institute of Technology(now, Carnegie Mellon) and, later, theJuilliard School.[9]As used by actors, the Mid-Atlantic accent is also known by various other names, includingAmerican Theatre StandardorAmerican stage speech.[64]

American cinemabegan in the early 1900s inNew York CityandPhiladelphiabefore becoming largely transplanted toLos Angelesbeginning in the mid-1910s, withtalkiesbeginning in the late 1920s. Hollywood studios encouraged actors to learn this accent into the 1940s.[8]For instance, in the 1952 movieSingin' in the Rain,the Skinner-like elocution coach who entreats Lina Lamont to use "round tones" is attempting to teach her American stage speech.

Examples of actors known for publicly using this accent includeBette Davis,[67]Katharine Hepburn,[68][8]Laird Cregar,the Canadian actorChristopher Plummer,[3]Sally Kellerman,Tammy Grimes,[69]Fred Astaire,[7]William Powell,[7]Orson Welles,[70]andWestbrook Van Voorhis.[5]Despite the accents of their native regions,Grace Kelly,Norma Shearer,andGinger Rogersdeveloped a Mid-Atlantic accent, including (variable) non-rhoticity and atrap–bathsplit,likely due to its high prestige in their era and their formal dramatic schooling.[71]Roscoe Lee Browne,defying roles typically cast for black actors, also consistently spoke with a Mid-Atlantic accent.[72]Vincent Priceoften used the accent in his performances, being from Missouri but attending elite Northeastern schools for high school and college, and also being British-trained.[73][3]Patrick Cassidynoted that his father, actor and performerJack Cassidy,affected the Mid-Atlantic accent, despite having a nativeNew York accent.[74]Alexander Scourbywas an American stage, film, and voice actor who continues to be well-known for his recording of the entireKing James Biblecompleted in 1953. Scourby was often employed as a voice actor and narrator in advertisements and in media put out by theNational Geographic Societywith his refined Mid-Atlantic accent considered desirable for such roles.[70]

HumoristTom Lehrerlampooned the accent in a 1945 satirical tribute to his alma mater,Harvard University,called "Fight Fiercely, Harvard".[75]Cary Grant,who arrived in the United States from England aged 16,[76]had an accent that is often popularly described as "Mid-Atlantic", though hisspecific accentwas a more natural and unconscious mixture of both British and American features.[77]

Performed examples in 20th-century media

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Performed examples in 21st-century media

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Although it has disappeared as a standard of high society and high culture, the Transatlantic accent has still been heard in some media in the 21st century for the sake of historical, humorous, or other stylistic reasons.

Phonology

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The Mid-Atlantic accent was carefully taught as a model of "correct" English in American elocution classes[17]before 1945 and it was also taught for use in American theatre into the 1960s, after which it fell out of vogue.[88]It is still taught to actors for use in playing historical characters.[89]

A codified version of the Mid-Atlantic accent for the American theatre, advocated by voice coaches like Margaret Prendergast McLean andEdith Skinner( "Good Speech" as she called it), was once widely taught in acting schools of the early mid-20th century.[90]

Vowels

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English diaphoneme Mid-Atlantic accent Example
According to Skinner[91] According to McLean[92] Franklin D. Roosevelt's realization[18]
Monophthongs
/æ/ [æ] [æ] trap
[æ̝] pan
/ɑː/ [a] [a],[ɑː][93] [a] bath
[æ̈] dance
[ɑː] [ɑə][18] father
/ɒ/ [ɒ] lot, top
[ɔə][18] cloth, gone
/ɔː/ [ɔː] all, taught, saw
/ɛ/ [e] [e̞] [ɛ] dress, met, bread
/ə/ [ə] about, syrup
[o] [o̞] no data obey, melody
/ɪ/ [ɪ] [ɪ] [ɪ̈] hit, skim, tip
[ɪ̞] response
/i/ city
/iː/ [iː] beam, fleet, chic
/ʌ/ [ɐ] [ʌ̈] bus, gus, coven
/ʊ/ [ʊ] book, put, would
/uː/ [uː] glue,dew
Diphthongs
/aɪ/ [aɪ] [äɪ] shine, try
bright, dice, pike, ride
/aʊ/ [ɑʊ] [ɑ̈ʊ] ouch, scout, now
/eɪ/ [eɪ] lake, paid, pain, rein
/ɔɪ/ [ɔɪ] boy,moist, choice
/oʊ/ [oʊ] [o̞ʊ] [ɔʊ] goat,oh,show
Vowels historically followed by/r/
/ɑːr/ [ɑə] [ɑː] [ɑə] car,dark, barn
/ɪər/ [ɪə] fear,peer,tier
/ɛər/ [ɛə] [ɛə~ɛː] [ɛə] fare,pair,rare
/ʊər/ [ʊə] sure,tour,pure
/ɔːr/ [ɔə] [ɔə~ɔː] [ɔə] torn, short, port
/ɜːr/ [ɜː~əː] burn, first, herd
/ər/ [ə] doctor,martyr,surprise
Mid-Atlantic monophthongs as pronounced by Franklin D. Roosevelt, from Urban (2021).[18]Here /ɑː/ includes the vowels of PALM and LOT and /ɔː/ includes the vowels of THOUGHT and CLOTH. The vowel /ɜː/ is pronounced as a rhotic vowel. The FLEECE, GOOSE, FOOT, THOUGHT and PALM vowels are pronounced as diphthongs, respectively [i̞i, u̟u, ʊɤ, ɔɐ, ɑɐ]
Mid-Atlantic closing diphthongs as pronounced by Franklin D. Roosevelt from Urban (2021).[18]
Mid-Atlantic centering diphthongs as pronounced by Franklin D. Roosevelt, from Urban (2021).[18]
  • Trap–bathsplit:The Mid-Atlantic accent commonly exhibits theTRAP-BATHsplit of RP. However, unlike inRP,theBATHvowel does not retract and merge with the back vowel ofPALM.It is only lowered from the near-open vowel[æ]to the fully open vowel[a].It was most consistently a feature of the New England upper class, theBoston Brahmins,but also promoted by theatrical teachers like McLean and Skinner.
  • No/æ/ tensing:While most dialects ofAmerican Englishhave theTRAPvoweltensedbefore nasals, the vowel is not necessarily tensed in this environment in Mid-Atlantic accents. Skinner and other theatrical teachers intensely discouraged tensing.[65]
  • Father–bothervariability:The "a" infatheris unrounded, while the "o" inbothervowel may be rounded, like RP. Therefore, thefather-botherdistinction exists for some speakers, particularly those following the 20th-century American Theatre Standard in the vein of Skinner, but not necessarily in aristocratic speakers trained before that time or outside of the entertainment industry, like Franklin Roosevelt, who indeed shows a merger.[18]Thebothervowel is also used in words like "watch" and "quad".[94]
  • Nocot–caughtmerger:The vowels incotandcaught(theLOTvowel andTHOUGHTvowel, respectively) are distinguished, with the latter being pronouncedhigherand longer than the former, like RP.
    • Lot–clothvariability:Like contemporary RP, but unlike conservative RP andGeneral American,Theatre Standard promoted that the words in theCLOTHlexical setuse theLOTvowel rather than theTHOUGHTvowel.[95][96][nb 1]However, speakers trained before the Theatre Standard, like Franklin Roosevelt, indeed show aLOT-CLOTHsplit, with the latter aligning to theTHOUGHTvowel.[18]TheTHOUGHTvowel is also used before/l/in words such as "all", "salt", and "malt".
  • Lack ofHAPPYtensing:Like conservative RP, the vowel/i/at the end of words such as "happy"[ˈhæpɪ](listenⓘ), "Charlie", "sherry", "coffee" is not tensed and is thus pronounced with theKITvowel[ɪ],rather than theFLEECEvowel[iː].[65]This also extends to "i", "y", and sometimes "e", "ie", and "ee" in other positions in words. For example, theKITvowel is used in "cities "," remark "," because "," serious "," variable ". Some Boston Brahmins, however, did sometimes showhappytensing.
  • NoCanadian raising:Like RP, the diphthongs/aɪ/and/aʊ/do not undergo Canadian raising and are pronounced as[aɪ]and[ɑʊ],respectively, in all environments.
  • Back/oʊ/,/uː/,/aʊ/:The vowels/oʊ/,/uː/,/aʊ/do not undergo advancing, being pronounced farther back as[oʊ],[uː]and[ɑʊ],respectively,[98]like in conservative and Northern varieties of American English; the latter two are also similar to conservative RP.
  • No weak vowel merger: The vowels in "Rosas "and" roses "are distinguished, with the former being pronounced as[ə]and the latter as either[ɪ]or[ɨ].This is done in General American, as well,[99]but in the Mid-Atlantic accent, the same distinction means the retention of historic[ɪ]in weak preconsonantal positions (as in RP), so "rabbit "does not rhyme with" abbot ".
  • Lack ofmergers before/l/:Mergers before/l/,which are typical of several accents, both British and North American,[100][101][102]do not occur. For example, the vowels in "hull" and "bull" are kept distinct, the former as[ʌ]and the latter as[ʊ].
F1/F2 values of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Mid-Atlantic vowels in hertz according to Urban (2021).[18]
American, British and Mid-Atlantic low vowels comparison
KEYWORD US Mid-Atlantic UK
General American Boston Received Pronunciation
TRAP /æ/ /æ/ /æ/
BATH /a/~/æ/ /a/~/ɑ/~/æ/ /ɑ/
PALM /ɑ/ /a/ /ɑ/
LOT /ɒ/ /ɑ/~/ɒ/ /ɒ/
CLOTH /ɔ/~/ɑ/ /ɒ/~/ɔ/
THOUGHT /ɔ/

Vowels before/r/

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In a Mid-Atlantic accent, the postvocalic/r/is typically eitherdroppedor vocalized.[103]The vowels/ə/or/ɜː/do not undergoR-coloring.Linking Ris used, but Skinner openly disapproved ofintrusive R.[103][104]In Mid-Atlantic accents, intervocalic/r/'s andlinking r's undergoliaison.

When preceded by a long vowel, the/r/is vocalized to[ə],commonly known as schwa, while the long vowel itself is laxed. However, when preceded by a short vowel, the/ə/is elided. Therefore, tense and lax vowels before/r/are typically only distinguished by the presence/absence of/ə/.The following distinctions are examples of this concept:

  • Mirror–nearerdistinction: Hencemirroris[mɪɹə],butneareris[nɪəɹə].
  • Mary–merrydistinction:[65]Hencemerryis[mɛɹɪ],butMaryis[mɛəɹɪ].Maryalso has an opener variant of[ɛ]thanmerry.
  • "Marry" is pronounced with a different vowel altogether. See further in the bullet list below.

Other distinctions before/r/include the following:

  • Mary–marry–merrydistinction: Like inRP,New York City,andPhiladelphia,marryis pronounced as/æ/,which is distinct from the vowels of bothMaryandmerry.[65]
  • Cure–force–northdistinction: The vowels incureandforce–northare distinguished, the former being realized as[ʊə]and the latter as[ɔə],like conservative RP.
  • Thought–forcedistinction: The vowels inthoughtandforce–northare distinguished, the former being realized as[ɔː]and the latter as[ɔə].Hencesaw[sɔː],sauce[sɔːs]butsore/sour[sɔə],source[sɔəs].[105]This does not precisely agree with/ɔː/horseand/ɔə/forhoarsein traditional Received Pronunciation. Speakers outside the American theatre like Franklin Roosevelt and the Boston Brahmins indeed often mergedTHOUGHTandFORCEand their vowel was often more diphthongal than in RP.[18]
  • Hurry–furrydistinction: The vowels inhurryandfurryare distinguished, with the former pronounced as/ʌ/and the latter pronounced as/ɜː/.(listenⓘ)
  • Palm–startdistinction: The vowels inpalmandstartare distinguished, the former being realized as[ɑː]and the latter as[ɑə].Hencespa[spɑː],alms[ɑːmz]butspar[spɑə],arms[ɑəmz].[106]This keeps the distinction observed in rhotic accents like General American, but not made in RP. Also, some New Englanders, particularly in Eastern New England, could pronounce the vowel instartmore fronted:[aː~aə].However, in the mid-20th century and later, this came to be associated with non-eliteBoston accents.
  • Distinction of/ɒr/and/ɔːr/in words like

Consonants

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A table containing theconsonantphonemesis given below:[90]

Consonant phonemes
Labial Dental Alveolar Post-alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Stop p b t d k ɡ
Affricate tʃ dʒ
Fricative f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ h
Approximant l ɹ j ʍ w
  • Wine-whinedistinction: The Mid-Atlantic accent showed some vestigial resistance to the modernwine–whinemerger.In other words, the consonants spelledwandwhcould be pronounced slightly differently; words spelled withwhare pronounced as "hw" (/ʍ/). The distinction is a feature found in conservativeRPandNew England English,as well as in some Canadian and Southern United States accents, and sporadically across the Mid-West and the West. However, it is rarely heard in contemporaryRP.[107]
  • Pronunciation of/t/:the alveolar stop/t/can be pronounced as a glottal stop,[ʔ],only if it is followed by a consonant in either the same word or the following word. Thusgratefulcan be pronounced[ˈɡɹeɪʔfɫ̩]ⓘ.However, Skinner recommended avoiding the glottal stop altogether; she also recommended a "lightly aspirated"/t/in place of theflapped /t/typical of American speakers whenever/t/appears between vowels.[108]Likewise,winter[ˈwɪntə]is not pronounced similarly or identically towinner[ˈwɪnə],as it is by some Americans.[nb 2]Generally, Skinner advocated for articulating/t/with some degree of aspiration in most contexts.
  • Resistance toyod-dropping:Dropping of/j/only occurs after/r/,and optionally after/s/and/l/.[110][111]Mid-Atlantic also lacks palatalization, sodukeis pronounced[djuːk]rather than[dʒuːk](the first variant versus the second onehereⓘ).[112]All of this mirrors (conservative) RP.
  • A "dark L" sound,[ɫ],may be heard for/l/in all contexts, more like General American than RP. However, Skinner explicitly discouraged darker articulations for actors.[113]
  • Atappedarticulation of post-consonantal or inter-vocalic/r/is heard in many of the very earliest recordings of Mid-Atlantic speakers born in the mid-19th century, likely for dramatic effect inpublic speaking.However, it was rare in speakers born after that time, and Skinner disapproved of its usage.[114]

Other pronunciation patterns

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  • Skinner approved of the -day suffix (e.g. Monday;yesterday) being pronounced as[deɪ]or as[dɪ]( "i" as in "did" ), without any particular preference.[115]
  • Instead of the unroundedSTRUTvowel, the roundedLOTvowel (listenⓘ) is used ineverybody, nobody, somebody, and anybody;and when stressed,was,of, from, what.This is more like RP than General American. At times, the vowels in the latter words can be reduced to a schwa.[116]However, "because "uses theTHOUGHTvowel.
  • Polysyllabic words ending in-ary, -ery, -ory, -mony, -ative, -bury, -berry:The first vowel in the endings -ary, -ery, -ory, -mony, -ative, -bury, and -berry are all pronounced as[ə],commonly known as a schwa. Thus inventory is pronounced[ˈɪnvɪntəɹɪ],rather than General American[ˈɪnvɨntɔɹi]or rapidly-spoken RP[ˈɪnvəntɹi].[117]
Example Mid-Atlantic[65]
military -ary [əɹɪ]
bakery -ery
inventory -ory
Canterbury -bury [bəɹɪ]
blueberry -berry
testimony -mony [mənɪ]
innovative -ative [ətɪv~ˌeɪtɪv]

See also

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Explanatory notes

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  1. ^A similar but unrelated feature occurred in RP. As one attempt of middle-class RP speakers to make themselves sound polished, words in theCLOTHset were shifted from theTHOUGHTvowel back to theLOTvowel.[97]Also seeU and non-U Englishfor details.
  2. ^"The t after n is often silent in [regional] American pronunciation. Instead of saying internet [some] Americans will frequently say 'innernet.' This is fairly standard speech and is not considered overly casual or sloppy speech."[109]

Citations

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  1. ^Drum, Kevin (2011)."Oh, That Old-Timey Movie Accent!".Mother Jones.
  2. ^abQueen, Robin (2015).Vox Popular: The Surprising Life of Language in the Media.John Wiley & Sons. pp. 241–2.ISBN9780470659922.
  3. ^abcdefghijLaBouff, Kathryn (2007).Singing and communicating in English: a singer's guide to English diction.New York:Oxford University Press.pp. 241–42.ISBN978-0-19-531138-9.
  4. ^Skinner, Monich & Mansell (1990:334)
  5. ^abFallows, James (7 June 2015)."That Weirdo Announcer-Voice Accent: Where It Came From and Why It Went Away. Is your language rhotic? How to find out, and whether you should care".The Atlantic.Washington DC.
  6. ^Boberg, Charles (2020). "Diva diction: Hollywood’s leading ladies and the rise of General American English".American Speech: A Quarterly of Linguistic Usage,95(4), 441-484: "Kelly was from Philadelphia. Rogers, from Independence, Missouri, and Shearer, from Montreal, are about halfR-less. Adoption of /r/ vocalization by these actresses fromr-ful regions presumably reflects both formal dramatic training and the generally high prestige of this feature in the early twentieth century "(455);" Rogers, Kelly, and Shearer produce an [a:] quality inBATHwords out of respect for the British or Boston standard "(465).
  7. ^abcTham, Su Fang (2018; updated 2021). "From the Archives: Behind the Accent with Dialect Coach Jessica Drake".FilmIndependent.
  8. ^abcdefgTsai, Michelle (28 February 2008)."Why Did William F. Buckley Jr. talk like that?".Slate.Retrieved28 February2008.
  9. ^abcdKnight, Dudley. "Standard Speech". In: Hampton, Marian E. & Barbara Acker (eds.) (1997).The Vocal Vision: Views on Voice.Hal Leonard Corporation.pp. 174–77.
  10. ^abcdSafire, William (18 January 1987)."On Language".The New York Times– via NYTimes.com.
  11. ^abKnight, 1997, p. 171.
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General bibliography

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Further reading

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