Wherein we ask each other dialect questions we don't quite understand

[Janx]

Plus I'd find it thick and pronounced, even if you wouldn't!

that depends. name some American TV shows aimed at a general demographic. Odds are most of them have mid-western accents.

Do you find them thick and pronounced? Compared to the samples of american regional dialect (Bill and Ted valley/surfer), New Englander/bostonian accent, or gangster New Jersey accent? Or how about the folks in the movie Fargo with their Minnesotan/Youper "oh ya, You betcha, doncha know"

I'm sure MidWestern is still funky weird to a UK person, but it's relatively tame among the variety spoken in the US. Since it's the Lingua Media, everybody is the one-off from standard

 

[Morrus]

Do you find them thick and pronounced?

I'm not sure what you mean. I find *all* US accents thick and pronounced, of course. The degree doesn't particularly come into it unless it's insanely extreme. I imagine you find mine thick and pronounced, too, though from my perspective I don't have one at all.

 

[Scott DeWar]

I use to be able to listen through any accent and clearly hear what is being said, but since my induced coma, I am having troubles understanding some of the thicker English accents.

 

[Morrus]

This appears to have rather drifted off the "ask questions" premise of the thread to a general debate about the nature of accents.

 

[Scott DeWar]

This appears to have rather drifted off the "ask questions" premise of the thread to a general debate about the nature of accents.

So, do people in Britain walk on the pavement? It was one of a few joke made amongst military folk when being transferred to England

 

[Morrus]

So, do people in Britain walk on the pavement? It was one of a few joke made amongst military folk when being transferred to England

Yes? I don't get the joke, though.

 

[Scott DeWar]

It was not much of a joke, actually. More of a shameful act of ignorance toward another society. I should not have called it a joke, in retrospect.

 

[Dog Moon]

So, do people in Britain walk on the pavement? It was one of a few joke made amongst military folk when being transferred to England

Do people in England drive on a parkway and park in a driveway like us Americans do?

 

[Janx]

what does a butter knife look like?

I was hosting an event, and a guest asked for a butter knife. I reached in my drawer and produced what I was raised to call a butter knife and she decried that it was not a butter knife. Lacking any other such thing, she had to make due with what I gave her.

 

[Bullgrit]

I'd quibble about the term "General American" accent. In the media, it's called MidWestern. So Tom Brokaw, etc and pretty much everybody on American TV not playing a stereotype of somebody from a specific region all speak (or try to) with a MidWestern accent.

For what it's worth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American

Bullgrit