Re: Best/Worst American Accents By Brits

On May 29, 3:01 pm, FoggyTown <foggyt...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On May 28, 7:58�pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:





On May 28, 12:31�pm, Craoibhi...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

On May 28, 6:17 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On May 27, 8:21 pm, "ranjit_math...@xxxxxxxxx"

<ranjit_math...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On May 27, 4:19 pm, Horace LaBadie <hwlabadi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

From the Radio Times website, a poll of visitors (presumably mostly
British) about Brits on American TV with the worst American accents.

How about Americans with the best accents?
I have a couple of candidates:
Frank Langella
William Buckley Jr. (deceased)

Buckley wasn't an actor, he was a blowhard. Evidently Yalies were
immensely impressed by his Connecticut Valley accent (the same as
Katharine Hepburn's). He was also a lousy writer.

May I ask you a couple of questions:

- What is a blowhard? Has it something to do with oral sex?

No.

- What is so particular about a Connecticut Valley accent?

How many people have you heard that talk like Katharine Hepburn or
William F. Buckley, Jr.? (It's also similar to the super-elite NYC
accent of such as the late Nelson Rockefeller and John Lindsay to an
extent, and George Plimpton; Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg had it (she
was raised in the most elite NYC circles) when she first reemerged
into public life maybe ten years ago, but she carefully conceals it in
her public appearances these days).

- Who is this William Buckley anyway,

He died a few weeks ago. The founder of modern American conservatism.
His first book (1955), *God and Man at Yale*, was some sort of expose
of the spiritual or moral failings of the academic elite and made him
the darling of the right; he then founded the National Review, which
became the preeminent organ of that ilk. He had an unaccountably
popular TV show for decades, usually on public television, called
Firing Line, where he chain-smoked and interviewed prominent people,
usually debating them into the ground with his convoluted syntax and
impenetrable arguments. The clips played during his obituaries were
mostly from his confrontations with Gore Vidal, who is his
intellectual and stylistic superior in every way, representing the now-
traditional "left."

Interestingly, it has just been revealed that when The National Review
was looking for a new editor not long ago, Buckley insisted that a
Christian be chosen (even though, as it happens, his point of view has
been dominated by the almost exclusively Jewish "neoconservative"
cabal that controls the bush agenda); and I suspect he wouldn't have
been too pleased if it hadn't been a Roman Catholic. (Maybe an
Episcopal would have been acceptable, but perhaps not.)

For quite a few years he was The New Yorker's house conservative.
Mostly he wrote about his yacht (incredibly boring, I never got past
the first page), but every so often he published the most
condescending crap about the colored servants on his Connecticut
estate and how magnanimous he was in actually himself driving one of
their children to a hospital on the occasion of some emergency.

He also continually plugged the harpsichordist/pianist Rosalyn Tureck,
claiming that her interpretation of Bach's keyboard works was the only
listenable one. the 3rd Brandenburg provided the theme for his TV
show.

His younger brother James was briefly a Senator from New York.

If anyone is interested in hearing Buckley's accent, there are several
examples of him on Youtube - especially the one where he all but
punches out Gore Vidal.  But thuis one is representative

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BbmbIoynZQ

You'd think YouTube wouldn't allow clips long enough to include an
entire sentence of his ...

Note the slouching. He _always_ sat that way -- maybe he had the worst
hemorrhoids in America.

Note also the gratuitous insult of Jesse Jackson, to his face. Jackson
probably didn't respond in kind.

By all means check out one of the fights with Vidal, for someone who
could give at least as well as he got.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Best/Worst American Accents By Brits
    ... British) about Brits on American TV with the worst American accents. ... William Buckley Jr. ... immensely impressed by his Connecticut Valley accent (the same as ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Best/Worst American Accents By Brits
    ... British) about Brits on American TV with the worst American accents. ... William Buckley Jr. ... immensely impressed by his Connecticut Valley accent (the same as ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Kennedy
    ... >C18 affectations by people whose names really were Fanshaw and Chumley. ... >But you can't say `Connecticut' unless you do so with an American ... >accent, and the first time an uninformed English person attempts to say ...
    (uk.media.tv.misc)
  • Re: Hey Frozenator
    ... I detect a California accent" ... Canadian accent" I don't think I'll ever fit in :-( ... and American Hillbillies. ... jus doan soun liak Uuuu frum round hear 'bouts." ...
    (alt.2600)
  • Re: OT Anybody been watching Doctor Who?
    ... But you're talking about a Pakistani accent as native to Pakistan, ... a British subject, my accent wouldn't be considered a British one, but ... an American one. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated)