A one-armed man speaking sign language. Is that an accent or a speech impediment?
I don’t understand the fascination, but then I grew up in Quebec so there is the familiarity factor. I often hear the same praise about French women speaking English with a French accent, and again, not for me.
To me the right sort of British accent is the sexiest, though I realize there’s an incredible diversity of even London accents. Let’s say the one that Sienna Miller speaks, for an example. (And I don’t mean necessarily in the movies, where she can affect an amazingly authentic American accent. She was actually born in New York, but brought up in London and her natural accent is beautifully English.)
I find Emily Procter’s accent very distinctive, but I’ve never been to NC (she’s from Raleigh). Is her accent idiosyncratic, or is it fairly typical of the area?
I like the West Norwegian English accent.
Well, this thread has been an eye-opener. Who knew people found “the” South African accent sexy?
We have many accents, which one do you people mean?
I’ll have to say that (1) I haven’t heard accents from every country, and (2) of the countries I’ve heard accents from, I’ve heard both sexy and unsexy accents.
So:
Scotland, ireland, Wales, France, Spain, South Africa and Italy: I’ve heard sexy and unsexy accents. I don’t know enough about their accents to know what is what
England: The Received Pronunciation accent as spoken by Kristin Scott Thomas in the movies is sexy. Some Yorkshire accents. Every other English accent I’ve heard is very not sexy, especially Manchester, Liverpool, Cockney, Modern Multicultural London, Essex, and Sloane Ranger.
Australian accents: Mostly not sexy. New Zealand: Borderline
Upper-class anglo, would be my guess. But I don’t know how the accents are distributed.
“Yah hey dere, Simone, d’y’wanna come wit me to da supper club? We can get two-tree beers an’ a fish fry.”
The South African accent I’m most familiar with is that of the Jewish immigrants to Israel I knew growing up; I don’t know exactly what accent that is, but I’ve always liked it. The Afrikaans accent is a bit less appealing, although as a child of the 80s that’s probably because I associate it with people like Joss Ackland’s character in Lethal Weapon 2 (and yes, I know he wasn’t from SA), so YMMV. As for non-white accents, I’m less familiar with them, although in general I find sub-Saharan African accents very appealing. I loved Nelson Mandela’s accent, if that counts for anything.
I would mean Trevor Noah.
Oooh, good point, he had a lovely accent.
Which of his accents do you mean? I feel like he’s the master of all accents. I agree that his “regular” speaking voice is very pleasant to listen to, but I suspect he picked it for that reason. He talks in one of his books about using different accents with different people to fit in, to be accepted, to influence… So my guess is that what we think of as his “regular” voice is one that he honed to appeal to a lot of Americans.
Fair point. Although I have listened to many of his performances for SA audiences and I like those just as much.
Yes, spot on, that was everyone’s reaction! The class erupted into laughter and exaggerations of the broadest M’waukee WizGON’sin accents (hint: don’t pronounce that L, and swallow the C). We were purposely talking like the Manitowoc Minute guy and ever’thing, doncha know dere ya hey?
Simone loved it! She was squealing with glee, saying “Don’t you see how wonderful that sounds?”
It’s worth a trip to Sri Lanka, just to sit in Colombo airport and listen to the woman on the PA announcing flights. She whispers some of the syllables. Years ago, there was a good PA at the airport in Manaos, Brazil.
In South Africa, you hear three distinctly different accents all the time, not regional, but all mixed on the same bus or checkout lane.[
. There is standard British-like, the Afrikaaner Dutch, and the townships accent of the blacks. Everyone is very good at all of them.,
I don’t know which English accent it is, but it whatever Elizabeth Henstridge speaks. I could listen to her all day long.
I thought South Africa had a large population of migrants from India? If this is so, do they speak English, Dutch or other languages?
QFT. That little "No, theah’s moah! that Marisa Tomei says in that scene is absolutely adorable.
The Parisian French accent is better than the Lac St. Jean one because I can understand it easily. Of course, any accent can be charming under the right circumstances, I guess.
I had to look her up, but she has a mild Yorkshire accent - Wiki tells me Sheffield to be precise (which is South Yorkshire).
Come now, what about Geordie (Newcastle)! A soft Geordie accent can be very seductive.
I agree with you on all the others (and you left out Birmingham, which is the worst of the lot).