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Post by omega on Apr 11, 2017 8:08:11 GMT
If a story features a character who uses an American accent, usually I'll see comments either here or on GB about how awful they are. Even with Shield of the Jotunn, where actual Americans were cast. I won't ignore that some stories have truly abominable accents, like Minuet in Hell, but otherwise I don't perceive any issue with them. Invaders from Mars, that's a pastiche or homage to US radio dramas of the 30's, so the over the top performances aren't out of place.
Maybe it's because UK listeners are mainly used to hearing American characters in movies and TV shows, and thus expect any representation in British media, like Big Finish, to be more stereotypical than in real life. Alternatively it could be that in audios like Doctor Who that the American voices are mixed in with British voices, making the difference more apparent. I haven't seen much criticism of the Dark Shadows or Stargate audios for their American voices. Over on GB some people said how the American accents took them out of the story, and when I commented that Alex Newman's Dark Shadows work didn't get called out for bad accents the response was it must have been more jarring against Tom and Lalla's performances.
Or maybe it's just revenge for Dick van Dyke and the English being stereotyped by Americans as either prim and proper (thank you Downton Abbey for reinforcing this) or cockney, guv.
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Post by jasonward on Apr 11, 2017 11:08:21 GMT
Mostly accents of most kinds don't bother me, but yes, the times when they do jar, in the case of US and UK, is when the two are side by side.
I recently saw an episode of "Dalziel and Pascoe" which featured David Soul as a US copper, and I kept feeling his accent sounded terrible, it certainly jarred, but it would be odd to say his accent was fake or synthesised in anyway, it was just the accent was out of place in the other accent on the show.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2017 11:56:18 GMT
The question there is what kind of American accent as well. There's no real consensus, much like how not everyone in England speaks BBC English. Otherwise, everyone in the States would have a Midatlantic accent like Carrie Fisher in A New Hope.
On the subject of accents in general, I had a very strange moment when listening to The Space Race. I was expecting Russian accents from the Russian characters like in Singularity. More than a bit unfair considering that Singularity had a legitimately Slavic cast, but was a bit disheartened when they didn't pop up as expected.
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Post by elkawho on Apr 11, 2017 12:56:14 GMT
I think early on, the American accents in BF really bothered me. Yes, it was glaring in Minuet In Hell, but it was also present in other stories. Over time, though, the accent improved, especially since they started using North American actors for those roles. What is even more jarring for those of us from America (and Canada I would think) is when British sayings and words come out of the mouths of American characters. I know this has been brought up on more than one occasion. Sometimes it takes me out of the story, sometimes it's just a blip in my mind as I'm listening, but I usually notice them.
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Post by theotherjosh on Apr 11, 2017 13:32:32 GMT
I've been as critical of Big Finish's American accents as anyone. I remember one time I stole a passage from Douglas Adams to write: "You can kill a man, destroy his body, break his spirit, but only Big Finish's American accents can annihilate a man's soul."
But yeah, they have improved.
Nicola Bryant's American accent has certainly improved since she played Peri in the 1980's, but I was listening to a Fifth Doctor story with her in it. I think it was The Axis of Insanity. She pronounced soldering as "soldering", not "soddering" as we do over here, and I found that somewhat immersion-breaking.
There is still something that seems off. I was listening to Daphne Ashbrook in Mastermind and even her accent seemed "off" somehow. I assume she uses her own accent or something close to it for Big Finish, so I suspect the problem is something more intangible. I don't have the vocabulary or the education to articulate it any better, but I think the cadence is a little different between our two strains of English. Even if the performer is pronouncing the words "correctly", there is still going to be a little disconnect.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2017 13:46:11 GMT
There is still something that seems off. I was listening to Daphne Ashbrook in Mastermind and even her accent seemed "off" somehow. I assume she uses her own accent or something close to it for Big Finish, so I suspect the problem is something more intangible. I don't have the vocabulary or the education to articulate it any better, but I think the cadence is a little different between our two strains of English. Even if the performer is pronouncing the words "correctly", there is still going to be a little disconnect. As someone who is neither American, nor from the United Kingdom, I'd say that American accents typically blur their syllables together more than their British counterpart. With the UK, there's a greater use of teeth to facilitate enunciation, rather than just the lips. Actually, an English accent seems to enunciate more on consonants just in general. It's a little less nasally too, I think States accents are focussed on the vowels. It's vaguely similar to the smooth roll of the French language. With Australian accents, we all sound like Hugh Jackman.
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Post by kimalysong on Apr 11, 2017 13:56:34 GMT
I think they have definitely improved and they are usually better when they don't try to have someone put on an accent. I feel most American accents aren't really all that pronounced anymore. So it becomes more forced to me when someone has a very thick regional accent.
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Post by elkawho on Apr 11, 2017 14:04:51 GMT
I do have some of my own odd biases about the American accents, though. I lived in Boston for 15 years, married a man whose family all hailed from Maine so I have been to Maine quite a lot. The New England accent is still pretty pronounced, and the Maine accent especially so. So when I listen to Dark Shadows, I always want to hear the Maine accent, especially from the blue collar workers (fisherman, bartenders, laborers) and it actually bothers me that there aren't any. In a small Maine fishing town were families have been for generations and very few ever leave to become educated, it is more jarring to me that they don't have thick accents than if they did. (Granted, that started on the TV series, but it is still noticeable to me. My in-laws who were college educated and lived outside of their home state for decades still call my older son Huntaa, instead of Hunter.)
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Post by theotherjosh on Apr 11, 2017 14:23:32 GMT
I grew up in New Jersey, but I lived in Florida and New Hamsphire for a while before coming to PA for my wife's job. I had the occasional bit of culture shock up in New England, what with the weirdoes up there using "grinder" like it was actually a real word. I was still wrapping up my degree when we moved, so I transferred what credits I could to a college down in PA. I mentioned this to another student named Paulette, who was from Trinidad and who still spoke with the characteristic accent. She said, "Aha! I was wondering why you had a different accent than the rest of the people." I didn't think it was pronounced, but she noticed it, so there it was. Some of my family lives deeper in PA, and they speak with pronounced Pennsylvania Dutch accent. I used to talk that way as a kid, and sometimes I'll pick it back up if I spend any time with them. The New York Times had a fun little interactive dialogue quiz. www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/20/sunday-review/dialect-quiz-map.html?_r=0
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Post by coffeeaddict on Apr 11, 2017 17:19:01 GMT
Use Canadians, other than Newfounland and Quebec we don't have accents.
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Post by elkawho on Apr 12, 2017 4:38:11 GMT
I grew up in New Jersey, but I lived in Florida and New Hamsphire for a while before coming to PA for my wife's job. I had the occasional bit of culture shock up in New England, what with the weirdoes up there using "grinder" like it was actually a real word. I was still wrapping up my degree when we moved, so I transferred what credits I could to a college down in PA. I mentioned this to another student named Paulette, who was from Trinidad and who still spoke with the characteristic accent. She said, "Aha! I was wondering why you had a different accent than the rest of the people." I didn't think it was pronounced, but she noticed it, so there it was. Some of my family lives deeper in PA, and they speak with pronounced Pennsylvania Dutch accent. I used to talk that way as a kid, and sometimes I'll pick it back up if I spend any time with them. The New York Times had a fun little interactive dialogue quiz. www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/20/sunday-review/dialect-quiz-map.html?_r=0I grew up on Long Island, moved to the Boston area for college and stayed there for 15 years, and then moved to New Jersey. I don't have a think accent from any of these places. When I moved to Boston, people would meet me and say, "You don't sound like you're from New York/Long Island!". Then when I moved back to the greater New York area they would say, "You don't sound like you've lived in Boston for that long." Even though my accent isn't very distinct, there are times when my New York does show. When I'm upset, or when I say "off" and sometimes "coffee". Or when I spend a lot of time around my sisters. We also say "I'm going to stand on line" rather than "in line". I took the quiz, it was spot on.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2017 4:53:09 GMT
I grew up on Long Island, moved to the Boston area for college and stayed there for 15 years, and then moved to New Jersey. I don't have a think accent from any of these places. When I moved to Boston, people would meet me and say, "You don't sound like your from New York/Long Island!". Then when I moved back to the greater New York area they would say, "You don't sound like you've lived in Boston for that long." Even though my accent isn't very distinct, there are times when my New York does show. When I'm upset, or when I say "off" and sometimes "coffee". Or when I spend a lot of time around my sisters. We also say "I'm going to stand on line" rather than "in line". I took the quiz, it was spot on. Took it too. What's interesting is that although I've never been to the states my mother spent some time in New York and weirdly enough, a lot of the verbiage I use comes from that general region on the east coast. A mix of New York, Yonkers and Providence apparently. Could be a coincidence, but it's interesting all the same.
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Post by theotherjosh on Apr 12, 2017 14:22:24 GMT
The conversation is kind of getting off-topic for this particular subforum, but if you mod-types don’t care, then I’m happy to keep talking along these lines all day.
I might be being parochial in my thinking, and posters from outside the US can correct me if I am, but the act of travelling around the country and incorporating local words and idioms has always struck me as a uniquely American trait. I think I’m a little more deliberate about the act than most people, but it’s something we all tend to do. “Hey, I like that phrase! I’m going to start using it now!”
I’ve always been interested in how language changes over time, and I’m almost entirely certain that I can credit that interest to when I saw State of Decay as a little kid and the Doctor explains the concept of Grimm’s Law to Romana.
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Post by kimalysong on Apr 12, 2017 14:54:24 GMT
The conversation is kind of getting off-topic for this particular subforum, but if you mod-types don’t care, then I’m happy to keep talking along these lines all day. I might be being parochial in my thinking, and posters from outside the US can correct me if I am, but the act of travelling around the country and incorporating local words and idioms has always struck me as a uniquely American trait. I think I’m a little more deliberate about the act than most people, but it’s something we all tend to do. “Hey, I like that phrase! I’m going to start using it now!” I’ve always been interested in how language changes over time, and I’m almost entirely certain that I can credit that interest to when I saw State of Decay as a little kid and the Doctor explains the concept of Grimm’s Law to Romana. We are okay with threads going off topic as long as they don't devolve into arguments.
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Post by escalus5 on Apr 12, 2017 20:30:48 GMT
The conversation is kind of getting off-topic for this particular subforum, but if you mod-types don’t care, then I’m happy to keep talking along these lines all day. I might be being parochial in my thinking, and posters from outside the US can correct me if I am, but the act of travelling around the country and incorporating local words and idioms has always struck me as a uniquely American trait. I think I’m a little more deliberate about the act than most people, but it’s something we all tend to do. “Hey, I like that phrase! I’m going to start using it now!” I'm pretty much the opposite: I think "Gee, that's weird" and then forget about it. That's probably closer to the standard American reaction, too.
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