Forum User of the Month: September 2019

Now you’re testing me :joy: English comes from England, so if anyone doesn’t have an accent, it’s the people taught to speak properly in England :eyes:

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Yes but originally, English ppl spoke more like Americans with a rhotic pronunciation of “r” but sometime after colonization of the US, non-rhotic speech became all the rage in England and only cities with a lot of contact with England still (like New York and Boston) began to speak with this new accent.

So Received Pronunciation is younger than American accent, which I’m sure did not evolve (jk, language is a living, ever-evolving thing and people from the past would have a hard time understanding both of us, even me with my completely neutral (for the US) accent).

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The rhotic R is not the only thing that defined speech, though! Up until the end of the American version of the Great Vowel Shift, people didn’t pronounce any vowels anything like how they do in modern America. In fact, Shakespeare most likely spoke like someone from the North of England now. And vowels make up a lot more of the language than the rhotic R!

It also depends on what arbitrary line we’re making when it comes to “proper English”, because in the Middle Ages, proper English would have sounded a lot like French!

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Plus languages are always changing! If we define correctness by history, we’re going to end up being left behind! In fact, most other countries with ex-colonies still define the way their language is spoken and formulated. They just call the others “Brazilian Portuguese” or “creole” or any other word that’s supposed to indicate a difference in and/or bastardisation of their language :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Oh god, not zee French!

Hehe, yeah I know rhoticity isn’t the only defining thing because technically I guess Irish and Scottish people pronounce their Rs but there’s no way that they’re speaking right!

Jk, language is in a constant state of flux and everyone’s right in their own way.

Side note: here’s one of my fave quizzes about American dialects by the New York Times. It could tell I’m from Florida/lived in NEw York haha

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I love speaking language. It’s so much fun!

But Americans are just wrong all the time. You lost your ability to claim you do anything correct when you voted trump in, America :wink:

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I mean, I always knew you were wrong. Pssht. Sorcerers stone my ass. It’s a real myth that really existed before Harry Potter, but we had to dumb it down for the yanks

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Oh yeah, my French husband can barely understand Québécois French haha. Or he can but it sounds very funny.

Actually so does southern French. Bien is pronounce bienggg here.

Oh my goodness, it’s possible that my husband is a snob. And it’s definitely true for me.

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:joy: I’m a complete snob too. You should see how I take the mick out of Deluge’s accent :eyes:

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The majority of us didn’t! It’s those founding fathers that doubted the masses and created the electoral college to water down individual votes.

Nicolas Flamel lived in Paris!!! And when I found out he was real, pretty much made Harry Potter a work of non-fiction in my eyes. And I blame the publisher! But in terms of selling books, we’ll never know if it was actually necessary or not, unless there’s a parallel dimension to ours with only that one thing changed and we can find out what happened there.

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God I hope that’s true. Sign me up for the parallel dimension where America learns a little about world history, please!

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also this made me laugh way more than it should have.

https://amp.businessinsider.com/economist-intelligence-unit-2017-democracy-index-best-countries-2018-1

The business insider doesn’t consider America to be a full democracy :joy:

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It’s clearly a low bar. Britain has a Queen and we were still considered a full democracy :joy:

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Yasss mah queen @Duckling sksks, congrats, girl! :star_struck:

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Next time somebody makes fun of my accent I’ll tell them this

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@Duckling congrats on winning even if you don’t think you should be , you deserve it !!

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CONGRATULATIONS CHICKEN NUGGET @Duckling. :tada:

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It’s not a full democracy.

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Congrats! :sparkles::blue_heart:
@Duckling

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Omg congrats @Duckling!!!

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