<laughing>

I was born and raised in Tennessee, but taught to speak by teachers from Minnesota. Those of you across the pond might not catch the difference, but I suspect it's like Skid's accent dilemma? confusion?

My sister kept teasing me about my Northern accent, and my best friend who has a seriously slow Southern drawl pulled my accent the other way... But my mother has very little accent and tried to get me to speak the same way. English is hard enough without having to remember all those little details. The end being, I sound like whoever I'm talking to.

The funniest thing that ever came of that was after I'd spent 2 weeks in London on a school trip (cool school!), another American mistook me for a Londoner.

My speaking voice is inconsistently accented and generally has an overtone of sarcasm. I think I'd rather have someone else record my speaking parts. Not Skids, though, as I usually don't have a British accent, however lovely I think British accents are.

(One of my former co-workers is from Scotland, and I think he got away with being a difficult person sometimes just because so many people loved to hear him talk...)

I reckon if we could just get hold of Johnny Depp he could probably do us all.

!

May I be excused from being "done" by JD?

I'll re-phrase for the childlike amongst us.

Given his extraordinary talent for unusual accents, I'm sure Johnny Depp would be able to provide the voice over for us all.

Now can you all stop sniggering and return to your work please.

Ah, the funny voices!

When I went to England many years ago friends said I sounded like I had lived in OZ but wasn't a native. When I returned people here said I sounded like a pom.

When you don't hear properly, learn to speak proper at 14 yo, and have a good vocabulary and have a Scottish father who was born in India you tend to have an ambiguous/unplaceable/incomprehensible way of speech. I also hate hearing my own voice, which is a problem as I read the local newspaper onto tape for visually impaired people and have to hear this droning noise filled with sibilants as I still don't pronounce the sibilants pwoperly. To me it's a bit like a bagpipe fighting a tin whistle. Who has a voice like that?

VM, I get it even if nobody else does since I live even further south-
I've lived in AL most of my life (except for a brief stint in IN) but fail to have a consistant accent-
wherever I am, they say I must not be from around here...

I think most of you can relate to the reason why: I read constantly!

This overrides any natural accent & adds the dialect of whatever voice you currenty have in your head-
which makes for a fun time in the Deep South when you've been reading Irvine Welsh...

I think we should all aspire to speak like the mythic people in the hills of Wales but tempered by our local accents.

I wonder what a Welsh Geordie would sound like?

Ah Irvine Welsh - that takes a while to get your eye in when you are reading his works. I always remember that scene in Trainspotting with Ewan MacGregor doing a Sean Connery-Bond impersonation "Ah, Miss Funny-..."

As for me, I come with a much reduced Swindonian accent that has been beaten out of me by the Aussies. At one stage I had a full blown West Country Ooh Aar, I've got a brand new Combine Harvester Wurzles-style accent.

<Watched the video - noticed the green corduroy flares - then they mentioned giving up Scrumpy and I lost interest.>

The accent triggered a memory of listening to a record on a wind-up clockwork gramophone somewhere around 1950. I remember a couple of couplets -the first verse:

"Naow Oi've luived in Zumerzet arrl ov me loife,
In fact as Oi quaart ovten zez ti the woif...

Then the start of the chorus:

"Naow fer them as loiks Lunnun Oi z'pose it's arrl roight,
But Zumerzet is good enough for OOOIII!"

There's a faint chance - anyone recognise it?

There are two possibilities that come to 'mind'.

One is 'I come up from Zomerzet....'

and the other one is actually about Devon, starts

'I be now on ninety seven
born and bred in dear old Devon....'

but at least it's not:

Come to glorious Devon
where you're woken up by seven
and you have to beg
for a new laid egg
and you're hungry by eleven.'


wanders off for little white pills, one of which is strawberry flavoured.

I think Ringworld would be pretty difficult...

This is where someone tells me they already made it of course....

I think there was some sort of problem fitting the set into the Studio...

Dayworld would be good, although finding an actor who could convincingly play seven different personas before cracking up completely would be tough.

Alec Guiness and Peter Sellers did it.

Where are the 'stars' of today who are of that standard of talent?

The stars are around, but don't work in movies. Movies are an awful art form at present. Look on television instead. Benedict Cumberbatch could do it but not comedically.

I blame the internet - all the people who should be writing scripts are wasting time being witty on Forums instead.

It's criminal!

Sadly any creativity I may once have had is now being entirely used up imagining Benedict Cumberbatch in various Ealing Comedies.

It's a cruel and ironic world.

I see... Stick a man in a Moffat show and everyone loves him instantly it seems.

Can anyone think of anyone else that could do it?

EgonSpengler Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The stars are around, but don't work in movies.
> Movies are an awful art form at present. Look on
> television instead. Benedict Cumberbatch could do
> it but not comedically.


You are watching the wrong movies, obviously!