Listen to the woman in this youtube video (she starts speaking at 0:10).
Her speech sounds a little… off, but I can’t quite pinpoint why. Wikipedia says she was born in Florida, educated in St. Louis, and has lived in southern California. None of those places are known for particularly striking accents (as opposed to, say, Boston, Minneapolis, or New Orleans).
I can’t add any useful information, so I’ll just add my utter disdain and hatred for this idiotic TV show. It’s like someone wanted a Mythbusters clone, but with clueless people, 0 science, and more crashes/explosions. Before this turns into a personal pit post, I’d just like to add that every time that female in specific opens her mouth and talks, all I can think of is punching. :smack:
Well, she talks for about 3 seconds, so that’s not much time to do an analysis. What about her speech patterns in that brief time period makes you think she has anything but a standard American accent? I didn’t detect anything regional about it.
Well unfortunately Youtube is running painfully low on Smash Lab clips, so regrettably I can’t give you more of her.
By way of comparison, listen to the “Snacky Smores Presents: The March of War” newsreel in South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (no Youtube there, either). Her speech reminds me of the narrator of that clip.
Not being a speech therapist, I can’t really describe what it is about her accent, other than to say that her vowels sound “flat.”
I don’t know if it actually originated in the Valley so much as the Valley is the closest place to Hollywood where that accent was prevalent, i.e. the closest example of SoCal suburbia.