Perhaps, Megan, you can take this post as an opportunity to explain your sporadic lapses into the Queen's English? Is this an affectation you picked up while writing for the Economist? Or do you pepper your writing with Anglicisms out of a (clearly maternal) family tie to Merrie Olde England?
I'm not complaining or snarking here, but it is curious.
Lived in Scotland for a couple of years, and they didn't speak like that in Glasgow, Edingburgh, Aberdeen or Airdrie (or the surrounding environs). And each of those places sound different from each other (more noticeably than her impression of Dublin and Belfast).
But being able to fake 25 phoney accents? I agree, that's some talent.
A few were okay. Although I'd agree that the ones I'm more familiar with sounded off.
Do we know what her actual accent is? My guess would be West Coast US or maybe England. Although the English one sounded a bit too BBC so might also be pat.
Doing all those back to back is incredibly difficult. I know some actors can whip out a couple without prep, but you usually need to say a few sentences and listen to yourself. A lot of hers weren't good, but I bet she could do most of them well in a performance.
If she can do that many accents back to back (even though some were a bit off), then with preparation and practice, she could do pretty much any accent well.
Brits can't do American accents. The people they have playing Americans on their tv shows are universally lousy. Whether the same is true for U.S. shows with Americans playing Brits, I don't know but probably.
Thomas, I've read that she's from Seattle. And maybe I'm imagining it, but it seems that her whole face becomes slightly more relaxed when she does the Seattle accent.
The Brooklyn accent was painful and cliched, though as noted above, the ability to string everything together is impressive. Not too surprising that she didn't add a Boston accent, one of the more "notorious" American accents, as the Boston accent is incredibly tough to get correct (and it should be mentioned, there are at least a half-dozen major sub-varieties of the Boston accent, depending on neighborhood, like how there are different types of English accents).
Some of those accents (the Aussie and some of the US regional ones especially) are definitely strained, but having encountered at least half of those in real life, I think it's quite impressive that she could pull off that many variations, that well, and at that pace.
TR: That fits. I thought the Seattle one seemed more natural than most. I was leaning toward her being Seattle or Californian. I had English only as a "maybe."
Thinking on it she wasn't too bad. A few did hit me wrong. Particularly Texas and Brooklyn, but I think the Brooklyn one was just for laughs. Strangely the French I've known their accent actually is over-the-top, almost like a Pink Panther movie. This rather surprised me when I took French. What I figured was "just speaking it", kind of what she did, was "wrong" to them. They saw ordinary American speech as mumbling. They were very into opening your mouth widely when you speak a language and being very expressive. Or maybe they were putting me on, but if so they kept it up pretty well.
Don't know about the others but the Charleston accent was beyond bad.
Perhaps, Megan, you can take this post as an opportunity to explain your sporadic lapses into the Queen's English? Is this an affectation you picked up while writing for the Economist? Or do you pepper your writing with Anglicisms out of a (clearly maternal) family tie to Merrie Olde England?
I'm not complaining or snarking here, but it is curious.
The fact that the accents I was familiar with sounded fake makes me worried about the general quality here.
Of course, being able to do a 25 halfway decent accents back to back is pretty frigging impressive.
Lived in Scotland for a couple of years, and they didn't speak like that in Glasgow, Edingburgh, Aberdeen or Airdrie (or the surrounding environs). And each of those places sound different from each other (more noticeably than her impression of Dublin and Belfast).
But being able to fake 25 phoney accents? I agree, that's some talent.
A few were okay. Although I'd agree that the ones I'm more familiar with sounded off.
Do we know what her actual accent is? My guess would be West Coast US or maybe England. Although the English one sounded a bit too BBC so might also be pat.
That last one sounded only like Katharine Hepburn. Which is not a bad talent for an actress.
Doing all those back to back is incredibly difficult. I know some actors can whip out a couple without prep, but you usually need to say a few sentences and listen to yourself. A lot of hers weren't good, but I bet she could do most of them well in a performance.
If she can do that many accents back to back (even though some were a bit off), then with preparation and practice, she could do pretty much any accent well.
Brits can't do American accents. The people they have playing Americans on their tv shows are universally lousy. Whether the same is true for U.S. shows with Americans playing Brits, I don't know but probably.
Thomas, I've read that she's from Seattle. And maybe I'm imagining it, but it seems that her whole face becomes slightly more relaxed when she does the Seattle accent.
Texas is a bit off, but not a lost cause. I suggest watching more "Reba," where the Texas accents (even from the non-Texans) are basically flawless.
The trans-Atlantic voice really wowed me, though.
The Brooklyn accent was painful and cliched, though as noted above, the ability to string everything together is impressive. Not too surprising that she didn't add a Boston accent, one of the more "notorious" American accents, as the Boston accent is incredibly tough to get correct (and it should be mentioned, there are at least a half-dozen major sub-varieties of the Boston accent, depending on neighborhood, like how there are different types of English accents).
vty,
--Dennis
Brits can't do American accents. The people they have playing Americans on their tv shows are universally lousy.
That may be, in part, because the actors that pull it off well, such as Hugh Laurie, often seem to come over here.
The Texas accent was kinda West Texas-ish, but a tad too Southern. There are at least 4 "Texas accents" - East, West, South and Southeast.
All of say things like "Y'all", "all bidness", and "fixin' to", though.
Some of those accents (the Aussie and some of the US regional ones especially) are definitely strained, but having encountered at least half of those in real life, I think it's quite impressive that she could pull off that many variations, that well, and at that pace.
She must be from Seattle. It sounded like she was just speaking normally to me, when she did Seattle.
"Thomas, I've read that she's from Seattle."
TR: That fits. I thought the Seattle one seemed more natural than most. I was leaning toward her being Seattle or Californian. I had English only as a "maybe."
Thinking on it she wasn't too bad. A few did hit me wrong. Particularly Texas and Brooklyn, but I think the Brooklyn one was just for laughs. Strangely the French I've known their accent actually is over-the-top, almost like a Pink Panther movie. This rather surprised me when I took French. What I figured was "just speaking it", kind of what she did, was "wrong" to them. They saw ordinary American speech as mumbling. They were very into opening your mouth widely when you speak a language and being very expressive. Or maybe they were putting me on, but if so they kept it up pretty well.
Even the first accent was off, and I suspect that is her natural one. The Irish ones were appalling. Painful.