"She has an accent"

zaq

Wed, Jun 14 2023, 5:06 pm

What's not to understand? It means she has an accent different from that of the person addressing you. When you go to the hometown of the person being discussed, you'll be the one described as having an accent.

mzybas

Wed, Jun 14 2023, 5:10 pm

zaq wrote:

Aha. So basically her accent is dfferent than mine. Ok.

shabbatiscoming

Wed, Jun 14 2023, 11:38 pm

mzybas wrote:

Don't we all? What does that even mean?

Huh? Of course not everyone has an accent. If you were born and raised in the same country you live in, why would you have an accent?

fbc

Wed, Jun 14 2023, 11:47 pm

shabbatiscoming wrote:

Huh? Of course not everyone has an accent. If you were born and raised in the same country you live in, why would you have an accent?

I think what's being said is: if ur born and bred in North America, of course to North Americans you don't have an accent. If you would meet someone from England, you would hear their accent. But if you'd go to England, you'd be the one with the accent.

I remember in sem we had one girl from England and we were telling her we love her accent and she said "what do u mean, u guys are the ones with accents!"

ewwpeas20

Wed, Jun 14 2023, 11:56 pm

shabbatiscoming wrote:

Huh? Of course not everyone has an accent. If you were born and raised in the same country you live in, why would you have an accent?

Not exactly. Some families still speak their native language to their children and the children develop an accent. Accents can also come from severe trauma.

shabbatiscoming

Wed, Jun 14 2023, 11:58 pm

fbc wrote:

Ok, rhat makes sense. But that only makes sense if you are chatting with someone from a different place.
So what I said still stands. Two people talking, from the same place, no accent. So, no, not everyone has an accent.

Elfrida

Thu, Jun 15 2023, 12:44 am

shabbatiscoming wrote:

Huh? Of course not everyone has an accent. If you were born and raised in the same country you live in, why would you have an accent?

Even within the same country there are regional accents.

mzybas

Thu, Jun 15 2023, 2:26 am

shabbatiscoming wrote:

Huh? Of course not everyone has an accent. If you were born and raised in the same country you live in, why would you have an accent?

According to Merriam Webster:
Accent:
: a distinctive manner of expression: such as
a
: a way of speaking typical of a particular group of people and especially of the natives or residents of a region.

So each group and region has their own accent.
I'm not trying to be argumentative just something I've always found puzzling.

BrisketBoss

Thu, Jun 15 2023, 3:13 am

mzybas wrote:

Yup, we all have accents but people only mention it when it's different from their own. "Has an accent"
is used to mean "has a distinctive accent relative to the region." Just having an accent goes without saying, and 'accent' is less wordy than saying what you mean in a more exact way.

Chickensoupprof

Thu, Jun 15 2023, 3:30 am

If you hear me speak English you hear I'm not native, I speak with a slightly Dutch accent, in Dutch you hear I'm not from the region of Amsterdam or The Hauge, Rotterdam, Leiden etc... You hear I have a south accent and if you listen carefully you can point out my region really well...

Busybee5

Thu, Jun 15 2023, 5:44 am

sequoia wrote:

“Why can’t the English teach their children how to speak?”

What's this supposed to mean? I'm English and we speak very well Wink

sequoia

Thu, Jun 15 2023, 5:45 am

Busybee5 wrote:

What's this supposed to mean? I'm English and we speak very well Wink

I might have misquoted it. From “My Fair Lady.”

scintilla

Thu, Jun 15 2023, 5:50 am

shabbatiscoming wrote:

Huh? Of course not everyone has an accent. If you were born and raised in the same country you live in, why would you have an accent?

If you're born and raised in New York, you have a new York accent, or at least an American one. You just don't think you do because you're used to the way you sound. Every place has an accent.

This is not targeting you shabbatiscoming, it's just ironic how I've seen this thought process from many native Americans over the years - what do you mean I have an accent, I speak normal! It's only anyone who speaks differently than me that could be called having an accent!

corolla

Thu, Jun 15 2023, 6:20 am

scintilla wrote:

I'm from OOT, so for me, most New Yorkers have a very distinctive accent. Not the same as a foreign one, but some words are pronounced differently.

And vice versa, I've been told that I have an [my city] accent, even though to me it sounds like regular English.

Elfrida

Thu, Jun 15 2023, 6:22 am

sequoia wrote:

I might have misquoted it. From “My Fair Lady.”

George Bernard Shaw, the polemic Irish man, never minced his words when he proclaimed - though a quirky character called Professor Henry Higgins: "Why can't the English learn to speak!"

It's not so easy to identify out of context.

ora_43

Thu, Jun 15 2023, 6:44 am

mzybas wrote:

Don't we all? What does that even mean?

Most things you can say about people are relative. "He's tall." Well, not compared to a men's basketball team, he isn't. "She's smart." Compared to her class, or compared to the graduating class of Caltech?

Ditto for basically any descriptor. Well-spoken, confident, talented, a good cook, mean, generous, distractable, hardworking... We are these things compared to some people, and not, compared to others. But if we get that technical about it, words have no meaning. So it's generally accepted that, eg, "she's hardworking" means "compared to the average person in this time and general location, she's hardworking."

Same here. "She has an accent" - "she speaks the language of this place noticeably differently than the average person living today in this general region."

esther7

Thu, Jun 15 2023, 6:51 am

Lol! I'm European and always found this amusing...
Many north Americans have told me "I don't have an accent." They feel that anyone who speaks different from the way they specifically speak had an accent but not them.
Of course everyone has an accent! Even within the states there's many different regional accents