Why doesnt all English people speak like Charles Dance?

[Stasisesque]

Has Michael Caine's speaking voice changed dramatically lately or something? He's a fantastic actor and his character in Zulu has a wonderful British Officer voice, but all I can think of when I think of Michael Caine is, "You're only s'posed to blow the bloody doors off!" Cockney as all hell.

 

[sextus the crazy]

Erm, what? What you call horrible terrible and unbearable, I call unique, interesting, and historical.

Sure he's got a cool voice, but diversity of accents and dialects make the country a way more interesting place. It would be boring as shit if everyone spoke like Charlie there.

Most people wouldn't consider their own accent horrible anyway, they've grown up speaking that way, as have their families for hundreds of years; why should they change?

It's just another way of speaking - it's still preserved in certain areas or by certain types of schools, so where's the problem?

pretty much this. I find BBC/Queens English to be generally irratating as everyone who speaks like that comes of as a pretentious twat. Cockney and regional accents are where it's at. Although, I do agree that good enunciation is always nice in speech.

 

[mad825]

Because....

I wouldn't really call it a "true" English accent as those kind of people are rare to hear in day-to-day life. The Lowest of the low IMO are scousers.

 

[ThreeName]

Agreed, I think Glasgow is one of the few places on Earth where '****' is a noun, verb, adjective and term of endearment.

"You're a top ****, mate."
"I am absolutely cunted."
"He's getting his **** kicked in."

And, my personal favourite I read somewhere years ago,

"**** it in the fuck."

Rivaled only by Australians to the best of my knowledge.

 

[Angie7F]

I grew up in Australia and had a aussie accent.
I moved back to japan an realized that most people though american english was "english" so i taught myself to cancel out my aussie accent and talk like an american.

Now I am realizing that talking like an american is not so cool as I thought.
Because of this, I have second thought when i try to talk and end up speaking in a weird mixed up accent.
I cant wait until I can make up my mind on which accent to stick to.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

It's really hard to change your accent, especially permanantly. I'm stuck with an Australian accent, though it's not the stereotypical broad accent, which I'm glad about. I've had Australians who live in a place with broad accents think I was British/Irish . I just can't imitate an american accent, I can't say the R's right. I can never say "car" in an american accent and sound convincing.

Why does no one change it? Because a) They probably don't think their accent is horrible b) Everyone around them always speaks that way so it's natural c) No reason to.

If I forced myself to speak like guy that where I live, I would get called a pretentious ****, and they'd be right.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Apparently I have an English accent, which is a bit odd as I've never been anywhere near England.

Dunno what part of England my accent is supposed to be from, though.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Being from Glasgow, I'm much happier working towards sounding like this:

we have a superb accent made even better by our inclination towards the more fucking profane language

Agreed, I think Glasgow is one of the few places on Earth where '****' is a noun, verb, adjective and term of endearment.

"You're a top ****, mate."
"I am absolutely cunted."
"He's getting his **** kicked in."

And, my personal favourite I read somewhere years ago,

"**** it in the fuck."

that is awesome, I might just have to add that on my list of awesome places to visit just so I can feel right at home when speaking out loud.


OT: Well, american english is different from english english, but my area is KNOWN for having the most accentless accent (not joking, we have probably the most call centers per square mile than anywhere else in the world, it's fucking ridiculous hearing call center ads every other song on the radio.)

But honestly, I kind of hate our accent sometimes, it is so boring and proper, I like to mix it up a bit and purposefully use different accents I hear. Hell I mimic people sometimes just to get a feel for how they speak day to day, it's quite fun really.

Honestly most foreign accents cause people to drop a load in their pants (and vise versa, foreigner can be used by anyone), I've known girls who've studied abroad at our university compliment my word usage/accent, and I just looked at them like:

Spoiler

 

[doggy go 7]

because england is so diverse even though its such a small country. here is a sample of all the different regional accents

Spoiler: london

Hell, that's not the only London accent, we seem to have a different accent in every borough. The diversity of accent's here is truly stunning, and I love it.

 

[Talaris]

If you speak in a horrible accent, why not change it?

Unless you really hated yourself because of your accent, I don't believe anyone would go as far as changing it. So long as pronunciation of words is more or less correct, pretty much every accent is accepted, and especially here in London there are many of them due to a diverse range of cultures.

As I was born and raised in middle class south-west London by well spoken parents, yes I would say my own accent is what some may consider posh (certainly my housemates in Northern England thought so), and I used to get bullied for it quite a bit in secondary (high) school. Still, it has it's advantages, for example working in a more wealthier area like Richmond in West London you blend in more, and once in an interview I was asked what private school I went to because of my accent which was quite amusing.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Well, he was one of the first bloked to go in Alien3. What good did Received Pronounciation do to him, eh?

u fuckin wot m8 i swear on me mam


Dance's voice is mostly down to just that. His voice, not his accent. Sure the accent helps, but his voice is what has the charm.

 

[spwatkins]

Everyone in England spoke RP in the 1940's I know this for a fact because I have seen the films.

Also ancient Rome for some reason.

 

[rodneyy]

i belive it might be a result of the tribal nature of humans and the tendancy for divergent languages over time to help code your words so enemys do not overhear. in regions where there is an abbundance of natural resorces then the need to travel far to get food is not there. this tends to send up barriers and chance encounters are limited. so any small eccentricities can become larger and as there is no interaction they are not spread and over time the two sperate and one can no longer understand the other. in less abbundant areas however people need to roam far to collect enough to survive this leads to much larger areas having similar culture and lauguage.

with the advent of farming and more setteled lives, areas that hunter and gatherers needed to patrole could be lived in by many more groups. so the one lauguage of an area is still spoken by most, without the same crossing of goups however the variations start to grow.

there have also been several invasions of the uk over the years this often lead to one language for the invaders and another for the down trodden masses. you can see this in the names of meat. its called a pig when alive to the commoners looking after it and then pork on the table for the rich people eating it. cow and beef, deer and venison.

so some of the varations you hear over the uk could be down to the people of the region speaking a differnt language and then having english forced upon them. getting to keep noting but a differnt sound to the words and maybe the odd slang

 

[Saladfork]

It always amazes me how the U.K. has so many accents in such a small country and yet here in Canada we have basically a spectrum from east to west. Us westerners (and North-Western Amercians as well, I believe) have about as close to no accent as you can get, being extremely close to written English, whereas the eastern Canadian accent gets thicker the further you go, culminating in Newfoundland where many people need a newfie-to-English dictionary.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

Since my native tounge is not English perhaps I rate the various types of english in a different way? But Charles Dance speaks perfect English, its so beautiful. My impression is that the amount of people who speaks like he does is shrinking, is this correct? If so then the English language is like the movie idiocracy. There are so many English dialects thats horrible, terrible and unberable.

If you speak in a horrible accent, why not change it? Also, what is Charles Dance accent called?

An accent isn't just a layer that's placed over speech it's an entirely different way of pronouncing each word. People with strong accents have learnt as children to pronounce their words in certain ways based on their region's dialect and it wouldn't be as easy as simply speaking differently for them. It'd probably be closer to learning a new language. Unless of course they spent a considerable amount of time in another region and naturally picked up their accent.

Charles Dance's speech is a mixture of no distinct accent and a very specific cadence that is probably just a personal attribute of his. I'm from the south of England and I have been called "posh" before (as other people in this thread have also noted) because we don't have that much of an accent down here. I've certainly never heard anyone refer to our speech as a "Southern accent." As such, I could probably make myself speak in a similar fashion to Charles Dance if I tried hard enough because I'm not hampered by a strong accent.

The North, East, West and Midlands all have very distinctive accents however, with some vastly differing even in each region. London city and the surrounding areas have their own accent too, although the Cockney accent never sounds like it is portrayed in movies so don't believe what you see on TV!

 

[BeeGeenie]

Has Michael Caine's speaking voice changed dramatically lately or something? He's a fantastic actor and his character in Zulu has a wonderful British Officer voice, but all I can think of when I think of Michael Caine is, "You're only s'posed to blow the bloody doors off!" Cockney as all hell.

Nah, he's just really good at doing accents. ACTING!!!

Though, the Morgan Freeman voice is what most of us would site as perfection. But the guy who plays Professor Snape/voice of God in Dogma would probably be a tie (no, I can't remember his name)

His name is Alan Rickman, and yes, their voices are pure audible sexy.

 

[Loop Stricken]

If you speak in a horrible accent, why not change it? Also, what is Charles Dance accent called?

Really?
Fuck off, I like sounding like Ozzy Osbourne. Nothing incomprehensible about that whatsoever!

 

[Wyvern65]

Look at the Boston accent. That is exactly what happens when poor white trash tries to talk like distinguished Brits.

*insert eyeroll here*

Yep, Boston accent definitely comes from trying to ape posh Brits, totes.

Or, maybe it's just the natural evolution of an accent over time in a region that was, I don't know, founded by people from England? An area that was a port city where wealthy Brits tended to live because it was geographically close to England via ship?

Nah. You're definitely spot on!

Me? From Massachusetts and defensive? What would make you think that? Oh, and bonus points on the 'poor white trash,' cause that's what everyone in Boston and the surrounding areas are. *sage nod*

 

[romxxii]

Spoiler: birmingham

- Ozzy's nervous system has been so heavily damaged by blow I'm amazed his accent can still be called Brummie.