What accents do you like or dislike?

In My Humble Opinion
41

There are a ton of southern accents. Nearer the city you get, the clearer the accent. Can be affected by the family’s spot in the class system.

Roomie I had in College from South MS could immitate Elvis with the greatest of ease. (Real Elvis, not that hideously overdone pseudoaccent everyone does)

I have seriously wanted to take an axe to ladies (and guys) on TV shows who use that same overdone pseudoaccent that is supposedly how everyone talks down here.

In my case, I’ve never had complaints. Espically the ladies. :smiley:

42

I love accents! I work for an international corporation, and I talk to people from all over the country and the world. I find just about any kind of accent charming. Any accent makes for more interesting listening, as long as it’s not so thick as to be incomprehensible to me.

Ones I particularly enjoy:

Australian - Probably in part because all of the Aussies we speak to are so upbeat and friendly.

What I’ve come to think of as “Middle-class British” (this is from talking on the phone to our department’s British counterparts overseas) - which is neither Cockney nor that “hoity-toity” accent most uneducated Americans think of when they think of a British accent, but something softer and more natural-sounding, and probably includes a whole range of those mentioned by others above.

Southern - not that twangy, grating stuff you hear in the movies when someone’s supposed to be a hick or redneck, but the gentler, more mellifluous version you hear everyday Southerners speaking, especially men! (This does NOT count my Uncle James’ hillbilly Arkansas accent: a cheese grater for the ear; I love you, James, but yeesh).

Russian/any Slavic language - just sounds wonderfully exotic to me.

There are a only a few that I don’t particularly care for:

“Ebonics”, “WASP” (Like Mr. Howell on Gilligan’s Island: nasal, drawly, ugh! Never heard anyone in real life actually speak this way, but if I did!), East Indian (again the stereotype, but I also had an annoying roommate who was Indian, and this may have prejudiced me).

I have to admit that I find any accent much more delightful on an intelligent-sounding man.

Most accents that I don’t actively like I still find interesting and would enjoy hearing rather than listening to someone who talks just like me. I was raised in California, so to me I have “no accent”, which I think is more or less true, So-Cal being the melting pot it is.

The only problem is, after listening for awhile, I usually start to pick it up, which I can’t help, but then people think I’m mocking them. As a child, I was once smacked for this. Thankfully most of my work calls are too short for this to take effect. Anyone else have this problem?

43

I do the same thing! When I was on vacation in Virginia this May, my mother was constantly yelling at me because by the second day I was picking up my cousins’ drawl by osmosis. “You’re not from Virginia!! Stop talking like that!”

I know. I love almost all of them. I couldn’t listen to a person and say “Oh, he’s from Georgia” or “She’s from central Arkansas,” but I can usually guess from the inflections whether the person is from country or city and sometimes what vague area. (South Mississippi, North Georgia, South Central Virginia, Somewhere In That Middle Space Between Carolina And Alabama…) I also do a pretty good imitation of a generic Southern accent (mostly that Virginian again), which most people here in New York or down in New Orleans don’t recognize as fake.

One thing that surprised me was, that overdone stereotypical television Southernism that I always thought was just TOO much to be real, is actually used by my sister’s Alabaman bartender-buddy… When I first heard him speak I thought he was making fun of the Mississippians around him, but turns out that’s just his accent.

44

<sigh>…a thread close to my own heart (well not the S***** part)

Such has been my fondness for Australian and New Zealand accents (and yes, I can tell them apart) that a friend of mine joked that, instead of calling phone-sex hotlines, I called the Australian phone company to hear the time. I strongly suspect that my continual and horribly misguided devotion to a New Zealander ex-SO was due just to wanting to hear her talk.

Now that I have broken the attachment to Antipodean accents, and now that I am living in the UK (where there are a damned lot more than two accents) I guess I like the “Radio 4” accent. All the more so because my wife speaks it.

45

Speaking of accents, am I the only one who finds that weird accent Madonna has invented for herself incredibly annoying.

46

I love the Minnesota accents.

Conutry accents can be cute too.

47

I liked the accent Madonna used in ‘Who’s That Girl’ - when she was still cute before she became ‘a lean, mean, buffed b***h.’ The accent Cyndi Lauper has makes me want to listen to her talk for hours!

East Indian. Don’t like the accent. I find the basic American Indian accent – mainly used by the older people, interesting at first, but it gets real tiresome real fast.

The street Hispanic accent drives me nuts. It’s nothing like the Cuban or genuine Spanish accent and I find it annoying as hell.

48

Good to see someone appreciates Australians’ {lack of} accent.

49

I’m going to have to second that. I was born in Philadelphia and lived there until I was 9. My once-thick Philly accent has lightened somewhat to my own ears, but it’s still detectably, or so I have been told.

The only accent that really bothers me, for reasons I can’t quite identify, is the one from my current hometown, Baltimore. Water comes out wuhter, wash comes out warsh, on sounds like the first syllable in awning. Anyone who has heard Don and Mike parody it on their radio show knows what I’m saying. And they’ve got it dead on.

50

The ‘Wistah’ accent of central MA is the aural equivalent of sandpaper.

51

Don’t be silly, everybody knows that there are three British accents:

  1. English (sometimes called “Oxford”, “BBC” or “the Queen’s” English). This is what all upper-class British people speak (e.g. Hugh Grant, Prince Charles).

  2. Cockney. This is what all working-class British people speak. It was made famous by Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins in the most uncannily accurate mimicking of a British accent ever done by an American actor (Many British people thought he was British when they saw the film!).

  3. Scottish (or “Scotch”). This is what all Scottish people speak. The speech of Groundskeeper Willie in The Simpsons and Scotty in the original Star Trek both accurately reflect the way that most Scottish people speak.

I hope that clears it up.

52

You forgot Welsh. But then, that might not even be English to begin with :smiley:

53

[Rant On]
Aaaaauuuuggggghhhhhhh!!! There is not, never has been, and never will be a “scotch” accent! Scotch is something you drink, Scottish is the accent!
[Rant Off]
Sorry, pet peeve. Half my family is Scottish, and if there’s one way to tick’em off, it’s to call them “Scotch”!
Anyway, I like almost any accent, as long as I can understand it, and I, too, find myself imitating people. My friends notice it sometimes and laugh at me!

54

Coldfire, As every schoolboy knows, the Welsh are English but not British. Besides which, they don’t have an accent.

55

English-speaking Welsh or Welsh-speaking Welsh?

Listen to the News in Welsh from the BBC!

56

Donegal, Donegal, Donegal.

swoon