# When did the American accent start to deviate from the English accent?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 21, 2011, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639 "2011-11-21T13:49:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/62 "2011-11-25T20:53:13Z")

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> [@Madame\_Joy](#):
>
> While you may subjectively judge the Hepburn speech pattern as “affectation,” she learned it from her family, not from Hollywood. And I can’t think of anything nice to say in response to the notion that she was a “ham” actor, so I’ll try to ignore that.

Well, I didn’t mean it disparagingly, as I’m a fan of hers, but the fact is that early in her career she worked with a famous speech coach because some considered her speech not refined enough.

> [@Madame\_Joy](#):
>
> I only threw out the movie thing as an easy and available example, not as exhaustive “proof” of anything. Audio recordings of politicians would be another that comes to mind, and they were not copying the stylistics of Hollywood, were they?

No, but public speeches are also rehearsed. In the early days of audio recording, public figures made a point of altering their natural speech when they thought they had to make a “good impression.” I think she did always have a basic, natural upper-class Connecticut accent, but as someone with extensive stage training she was hyper-aware of how she she spoke in front of a microphone, and enhanced it. All I really meant to say is that how she spoke in movies should be taken only with a grain of salt as representative of any American accent.

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