# Whence the "upper crust" accent? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 10, 2008, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-upper-crust-accent/472119 "2008-11-10T23:24:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![freckafree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freckafree/32/3050_2.png) [@freckafree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freckafree)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-upper-crust-accent/472119/1 "2008-11-10T23:24:19Z")
The best examples of the “upper crust” accent I can think of are Eleanor and FDR, and Margaret Dumont (the quintessential society matron in several Marx brothers’ movies). What is the origin of that accent? East Coast? New England? New York? When elocution was taught, was this the way people were taught to speak? Why and when did fade from use? ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-upper-crust-accent/472119/2 "2008-11-11T00:08:36Z")
Boston? _e.g._ Major Charles Emerson Winchester III in _MASH_ ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-upper-crust-accent/472119/3 "2008-11-11T00:12:43Z")
I think it is mainly from Eastern Massachusetts including Boston, Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket. There aren’t many people that speak like that anymore. The only ones I have ever heard have been in their mid-fifties at best. I have never heard a younger person speak that way. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-upper-crust-accent/472119/4 "2008-11-11T07:33:49Z")
Is this the same as Frasier & Niles’s accent? ---
**Author:** ![Libre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85e7bf/32.png) [@Libre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Libre)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-upper-crust-accent/472119/5 "2008-11-11T07:45:04Z")
One a similar note, while we’re at it, whence the aristocratic accent in England? I’ve noticed all the Bristish Army officers have a similar accent, though they range from all over England. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-upper-crust-accent/472119/6 "2008-11-11T08:12:51Z")
The stereotypical old-fashioned American upper-crust accents go by several names (perhaps with some differences): [“Locust Valley lockjaw”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locust_Valley_lockjaw) for New York examples (like those of the OP), [“Boston Brahmin accent”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Brahmin_accent) for New England examples (as several of you mentioned), “Main Line accent” for Philadelphia, and least colorfully and most confusingly, [“Mid-Atlantic accent”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_English) (which is a hotbed of ambiguity, meaning several other things as well). ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-upper-crust-accent/472119/7 "2008-11-11T08:19:00Z")
(Oh, and “Mid-Atlantic accent” is what I usually hear used to describe Frasier) ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-upper-crust-accent/472119/8 "2008-11-11T08:21:39Z")
Incidentally, I don’t think this cluster of accents is really all that narrow; that is, even if it may seem otherwise, I think there are wide variations within the spectrum of “that upper-crust American accent”, even on such major axes as whether to pronounce post-vocalic /r/s or not. ---
**Author:** ![Lo-Slung\_Denim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f6c823/32.png) [@Lo-Slung\_Denim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lo-Slung_Denim)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-upper-crust-accent/472119/9 "2008-11-11T09:28:56Z")
> [@Libre](#): > > One a similar note, while we’re at it, whence the aristocratic accent in England? I’ve noticed all the Bristish Army officers have a similar accent, though they range from all over England. I suspect it comes from where they go to school - officers are perhaps more likely to be from an higher class background, go to the same or similar posh schools regardless of the actual \*location \*of their birth, then go on to officers training college. I can’t remember where the college is, but I think Prince Harry went there. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-upper-crust-accent/472119/10 "2008-11-11T10:24:02Z")
Sandhurst. **Libre’s** probably talking about Received Pronunciation, but you don’t have to go to a provate school to talk like that. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-upper-crust-accent/472119/11 "2008-11-11T17:10:58Z")
Just wanted to add another example of Thurston Howell III, from Newport, RI. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-upper-crust-accent/472119/12 "2008-11-11T17:15:52Z")
When I lived in Kansas City several years ago, one of the female announcers on the local NPR station (KCUR) spoke in an old-school Connecticut Lockjaw. KC seemed like the last place where one would expect to hear the old Northeastern upper crust “oh, pshaw!” accent. I also mourn the decline of the Cheektowaga accent (“dat der Chickatavaga aksint dere”, known by linguists as the Polish ethnolect variant of the Buffalo accent; Cheektowaga’s residents now tend to speak in the standard Buffalo “eyacksint”, with a shrinking number of older residents speaking Chicktovegan) and, for lack of a better term, the “old black man accent”. Yiddish inflections also seemed more common in the past among American-born Jews than now. ---
**Author:** ![Libre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85e7bf/32.png) [@Libre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Libre)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-upper-crust-accent/472119/13 "2008-11-11T19:00:02Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > Sandhurst. **Libre’s** probably talking about Received Pronunciation, but you don’t have to go to a provate school to talk like that. Ahhh, thank you. I’d never heard of Received Pronunciation. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-upper-crust-accent/472119/14 "2008-11-11T21:29:00Z")
Discussed in more depth than you thought possible in this column by [William Safire](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEFD91738F93BA25752C0A961948260). I think that’s our beloved **Eve** who’s quoted in the article. ---
**Author:** ![freckafree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freckafree/32/3050_2.png) [@freckafree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freckafree)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-upper-crust-accent/472119/15 "2008-11-11T21:50:18Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Discussed in more depth than you thought possible in this column by [William Safire](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEFD91738F93BA25752C0A961948260). > > I think that’s our beloved **Eve** who’s quoted in the article. Excellent linky! Thanks for finding that.