As mentioned in this thread, Deputy Assistant to the President Dr. Sebastian Gorka was a guest on All Things Considered the other day. Is this guy’s accent for real? His wikipedia says he was born and raised in London. But I daresay to most americans he just sounds some douchebag trying to sound posh (as Damuri Ajashi put it, Thurston Howell from Gilligan’s island).
Sample of his accent as provided by DSYoungEsq in the previous thread.
Not a Brit, but I believe it’s technically called Oxbridge Punchable.
Sounds to me like someone who’s accent has been modified by spending time abroad.
To me sounds more like a native German speaking English rather than being from any county of England.
I don’t see any reason that would be so, according to his biography:
[Quote=Wikipedia]
Sebastian Gorka is the son of Paul and Susan Gorka who escaped from Communist Hungary during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. He was born and raised in the U.K. where he attended St Benedict’s School, Ealing and received his first degree from the University of London.
[/quote]
So. Ealing. University of London. Seems about as posh as it gets.
ETA: He sounds genuine Upper Class Twit, but he looks like William Stryker. Mutants need to get ready. 
He doesn’t have an RP accent really. It’s an unusual one though. He actually sounds a bit like a less-mannered Loyd Grossman.
To me he sounds like an upper class Brit (Received Pronunciation, so no geographical lilt) but with a hint of that slightly nasal ‘transatlantic’ accent that Loyd Grossman was mocked for having as a UK TV celebrity in the 80’s.
So it wasn’t just me hearing the Grossman accent then. Phew. Here’s Loyd for those who don’t know him:
I disagree. I do agree that he sounds more like Grossman. However, I’ll note that Hungary borders Austria, so those detecting a German element may well be right.
To me his accent has a touch of South African English about it. He reminds me of Nick Mallet
It’s not posh, his vocab is obv educated.
Without looking at his background I’d say fellow Brit, first generation of east European ancestory (the name kind of gives that much away), raised north-ish London, speaking first language English with inflections influenced by immediate family and close immigrant community.
Agreed. I can’t think of any native UK accent it really resembles - it’s like an average of the southern half of England, with a few South African influences, the occasional American vowel, and a few Germanic-sounding consonants.
I was expecting something comically over the top based on your description. As it stands, that accent doesn’t seem that strange to me. I’d say it sounds more like a very posh Australian or South African accent than a “British” accent, but I wouldn’t have given it much thought were it not for this thread.
To me, he sounds like a Brit who has lived in the US long enough that his accent has been slightly Americanized. He also seems to speak a bit faster than most “posh” Brits, which makes him sound even more American.
But if we subtract the bits that sound specifically non-Brit (that people are describing as South African or USA), we’re still not left with something that fits any identifiable British regional accent, or RP.
I imagine he may sound generically a bit British to non-Brits, but to me, he sounds similar to what I would expect from a non-British actor impersonating a blend of different ‘British’ accent traits, and not even getting that quite right.
I didn’t mean to imply that there bits of American accent or Americanism thrown in here and there, but that pretty much his entire speech pattern was “shifted” a bit in the direction of American English. Some people seem to absorb accents from those around them more than others. I’m a bit like that myself.
Definitely not posh / upper class English accent, nowhere near. Sound generic home counties that has gotten irritatingly elongated, Lloyd Grossman style, from time spent in the US.
Sebastian Gorka it was born in the UK – but his first language is Hungarian, not English. I think that’s the source of his particular accent.
I have met one or two Hungarians who have spent many years in the UK and they don’t sound like that. However, pupils of public schools like St Benedicts tend to pick up an RP accent. He stresses the first syllable, which is probably picked up from spending time in the US. Yes, a weaker version of Lloyd Grossman’s accent, I think he hails from Boston. So maybe he spent some time in that part of the US, presumably keeping the company of the moneyed classes.
I’ve just listened to the linked interview. Definitely a touch of Lloyd Grossman in the prolongation of certain words. It sounds like he’s gone to a lot of trouble to sound like that, where that is privately educated English - and he’s trying too hard.