You were the one who referred to the stereotype speech pattern that typically accompanies “nelly” behavior as an “accent”, which it manifestly is not.
The only one that really grates on my ears is what I think is some kind of NYC accent- probably Bronx or Queens. It’s whatever Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea rap in, and what others (Minaj) seem to talk in all the time. Whatever accent that is just makes my skin crawl.
Oh sweet fancy Moses , yes. I was afraid to say anything because it is AAV (I guess?) and I know some people will consider that racist. But, oh well, I’m an equal opportunity dialect mocker. Ms. Azalea’s in particular makes me homicidal, and now that I’ve seen a picture of her, she’s ugly too.
The funny thing is that Iggy Azalea’s actually Australian. Her actual speaking accent is Aussie, but her performing accent is whatever that grating business is.
That only makes it worse, somehow.
I am particularly annoyed by “Airline Pilot” speak. They all seem to adopt a “laid-back good-ole-boy” pattern that has an indistinct southern twang. I am quite certain that all airline pilots were not born and raised in northern Louisiana. Some are certainly from New England, some from The Bronx, some from Idaho. But every single one use the same pattern of speech when they are making their in-flight announcements.
Guys, just talk normal, OK?
I haven’t / don’t fly often enough for this to have gotten on my nerves (obviously someone named **Icarus **would!) but I know exactly what you’re describing. I would call it smarmy. On the subject of flying though, I have noticed the flight attendants do this weird sing songy thing when they’re giving their preflight spiel. Kind of like Chandler on Friends- “. . .the hills are alive with the sound OF MUSIC” where their voice goes up and down at weird times. Same with tram and ride operators at amusement parks."if you look TO your left, you’ll see the parks MANY examples of NATIVE primaaaaaates. I like to call THATone the GORILLAmy dreeeeams.
Sofia Vergara is worse than fingernails on a blackboard. Most Spanish accents don’t bother me, but theres something abut her whinny sing-song voice that bugs me.
Aussie accents are quite nice. I like most British accents.
Now you people are just ruining Sofia for me:)
Pretty much it’s only “non standard” American accents that irritate me. Off hand I can’t think of a foreign accent I don’t like. There is a certain regional British accent -
I think I was told it’s Essex maybe- where the ladies talk in a high, sing songy voice that can be kind of grating after awhile. Some of the far Eastern languages aren’t too pretty but I don’t usually mind when the speaker is speaking in accented English.
Why do I hate America?:smack:
Because A Horse With No Name is a really stupid song.
Not only that, but they sing it with a weird, borderline twang. And they’re not even American. For shame.
It depends on which airline you’re on. e.g. About 25% of Delta’s pilots live in Atlanta and most grew up in the South. About 30% of American’s pilots live in Dallas and a vast percentage grew up in the TX, OK, LA, AR area. About 2/3rds of Southwest’s pilots live in Houston or Phoenix. United has a huge Chicago contingent and another cadre from Denver, offset by a pile from Newark.
Regardless of carrier if you get a crew of New York- or Boston-based folks they sound like it.
If you mostly fly one airline on one route, e.g. going to see relatives someplace, you’ll tend to always draw crews from the same base. Who’ll mostly sound similar.
I sound like what I am: a guy originally from LA who lived in the Midwest for 25 years.
According to The Right Stuff, it isn’t Louisiana but rather Chuck Yeager’s West Virginia accent that pilots effect.
I’m going to amend what I said earlier about not minding regional accents. Every afternoon for the past three days, I’ve had to attend an online conference where one of the speakers sounds like she could be a friend of Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story and it’s almost unbearable. She also talks slowly and drawls out every word.
And one of the men has a bad headcold, and another sounds like a narrator of a 1950s educational film slowed down a bunch. Insufferable!
Whatever accent it is from New York that shows up a lot on Friends- Janice has it, a girl who Joey dated (who by the way was friends with Janice) in the first season has it, it’s about like Fran Drescher. It’s very grating.
In general, I like Southern accents. But the one Rue Maclanahan used on The Golden Girls annoys me to the point I can’t watch more than one or two episodes at a time, despite it being very funny overall.
I just took the Megabus from Kansas City to Chicago. I got to talking with a fellow passenger from New Haven, Connecticut and she had **exactly **the same accent as Lois Griffin from Family Guy. Nice person, but I don’t know if I could be around someone who sounded like that day in and day out.
This is exactly the thing I was referencing in this thread — http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=18334519#post18334519
That mm-mm noise people make when they somehow can’t manage to say ‘you’re welcome’ grrrrr.
I think you misspelled “no problem”. 
Which itself rates at least a grrrrr and maybe a GRRR!!
Irrationally irritated by accents and voices? Only so much so that I have to mute them! American women with their bl**dy awful nasal whining and affected so-called “Vocal Fry”? oh, yes: off goes my volume controller and if you want to experience an American whose narration causes your nerves to jolt whenever he pronounces a word beginning with a vowel, try (for as long as you can stand it), the git used during Spacex updates by YouTube’s “Engineering Today” - the initial vowel sound of every sentence and most words such as “And” - “Is” get* barked *at you at twice the volume.
How rare it is to hear an American of either sex speaking in a manner acceptable to most intelligent individuals raised in the UK: allied to this, I despise the average American’s continual repetitions of words such as “Like” - “Gotten” - “Aluminum” - “Nucular” and many, many more and their insistence on misspelling and making up their own words - and as for their grammar, words fail me. My viewing entertainment is also ruined by American audiences whooping, screaming and whistling their appreciation every few seconds, e.g. punctuating comedic observations made by people such as Bill Maher: try YouTube’s “New Rules” Maher shows and see how long you can stand his moronic audiences…