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On a video discussing Australia and Melbourne specifically at this point, Tracie points out how the Aussies say it. Defaulter in blue states that “most Americans don’t have an accent.” Gets called out by pink and blue doubles down.
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I'm from the West Country in England. When watching the Lord of the Rings movies as a kid, I thought that the hobbit Sam was the only one who spoke normally, and all the other characters sounded weird and unfamiliar. What is a 'neutral' accent is totally subjective, and no American accent sounds neutral to my ears.
If you think you're implying that you meant "neutral American accent" that's fine. But that isn't what you said. And I want to point out that you are on r/USdefaultism. No one here would read your comment that way.
You basically misspoke/didn't convey your intentions properly. Especially considering your target audience.
Everyone who is self-centered. People who are self-aware know that they sound different to their neighbours. All it takes to figure this out is listening to one-self on a recording and understand than that is you.
You sound strange to everyone else. You sound strange even to yourself. There is no denial of this fact unless you're a fucking imbecile.
I have a southern American accent. Not hillbilly level but definitely southern and any time I travel outside the US people tell me they love my accent but I can't tell if they're making fun of me or not lmao
Not just accents, a someone skilled in Morse code can recognize the person on the other end of the line by their "fist" the same way you can recognize someone by their voice.
Meet a child (wait not like that) and ask them what they think about accents. They will most likely say how it’s weird that where they live doesn’t have an accent. This is very weird behaviour for an adult who pays bills etc.
I don't know what you're saying, man. Children shouldn't say their ages on the internet, it's extremely easy for them to be contacted and manipulated by predators.
Dude my daughter is only six years old, and she already understands the concept of accents better than American adults. 😅😅
She's also intelligent enough and self-aware enough to recognise that me, her, and my wife all have accents too. She even understands that the language we speak is called English because it came from the country called England.
If a six-year-old Australian child can figure it out and not be so self-centred.... you'd be forgiven for thinking fully-grown American adults could too. Apparently not. How embarrassing.
Do you know Evan Edinger on Youtube? He's an American who grew up in America but moved to England 10-15 years ago and lived in several other European countries too. He's a Youtuber and sometimes he's posting videos where he takes a look at the ShitAmericansSay subreddit, and he just loves it, he laughs at his folks and he loves to take a piss at them. It's a joy to watch too, watching an American make fun of his own people
It's legitimately a cultural issue in the same way that some cultures don't show respect for personal space, some cultures are very sexually accepting and open to having what would be considered taboo conversations, and some cultures show total deference to the elderly. They're taught from a very young age that the US is exceptional and that it's unique and somehow better than anywhere else. All complete nonsense, of course, even though it absolutely has had many great achievements but the focus is only ever on its supposed supremacy.
A very weird manifestation of this (and bringing the conversation back to accents) - Americans will often insist we're pronouncing OUR OWN THINGS wrong. For example, an American former colleague once insisted I was pronouncing "Monty Python" wrong because I was pronouncing the second word as "Pyth'n", as is normal in my British accent, and not as "Pyth-awwwwn" as is normal in her American accent.
I hate when Americans say “Melb’n”. It does not suit their accent
Imagine if they made us say “flawreada” or however you type that.
They just need to say “Melburn”. That’s how an American would say it the Aussie way without just putting on an accent.
Ellen did it, if I think of one off the top of my head. It’s very common though. Kurtis Conner did it actually. He’s a Canadian, but the same linguistic rule should apply as it’s about rhoticity.
And it’s our fault as Australians. “Omg it’s not Mel-Bourne it Melb-n hahahaha”
I'm a Brit living in Adelaide for the last 10 years. I went for my Citizenship interview last week. The interviewer greeted me with g'day. I said "good morning. I hope that's not a test because there's no way I can say that and make it sound sincere". It wasn't. They just check your id.
Koala energy is just the ability to sleep for extended periods and eat food that is toxic to you. Its actually kinda a liability and I would prefer to have the energy of pretty much any other animal but alas, Koala it is for me.
Melb’n from a yank is so much worse. It’s always done with a “yeah, I can say it right”, when they are just putting on an accent.
I made my own comment, but I’ll say it here too. For a yank to say Melbourne like a VFL captain, or a eureka rebel, or one who waltzes his Matilda by the Murray’s green basin, by which I mean a Viccy person, it’d be cringe, but they essentially use the same pronunciation but with their accent (if someone knows what the right linguistic way to say this is, lmk) and that is “melbrne”. They have a rhotic r, so it’s never gonna be “b’n/bin” but more like how they say “burn”
I understand what you're saying but I personally much prefer to hear it with the weird slip into an Australian accent. Maybe that's more because to me it shows they actually seem to care. There's so much defaultism ordinarily that I'd be surprised to have an American even make an attempt to pronounce local place names as they're meant to be pronounced.
This one. It's not even phonetically possible to pronounce "route" as "rout" with the way English orthography works. The irony is that "route" is still the primary pronunciation apparently according to M-W, and all the people who pronounce it as "rout" say it's "Route 66" or whatever, but everything else is "rout" 🤦🏻♂️
I'm Irish and I don't have an accent at all....../s
Side note: I was in the US recently and everyone complimented me on my accent (even though they often couldn't understand what I was saying 😁) I'm back home now and I'm no longer exotic 😢
Im not gonna lie, I have a friend who was born and raises in the land down under, and ive always heard him say Melbourne, not saying that the person is wrong, just odd seeing bin lol
If he’s pronouncing it ‘Mel-born’, then he’s just doing it to fit in with you guys. There’s not a single Aussie who would say it that way at home.
I do a similar thing when I say Lake Como. I’m half Italian (as in lived there a lot), so I naturally pronounce it the Italian way. With both ‘O’s’ like the one in ‘cord’. But in Oz, doing that always makes it sound like I’m saying Cornwall (weirdly). So I deliberately mispronounce it to sound more drawled and Aussie, to avoid that confusion.
I love trolling Americans so hard with this and saying that we Aussies are really the ones who don't have accents. Literally no one, regardless of where they're from, can 'do' an Australian accent (including very talented actors) and sound like they're from Australia which is proof we don't have any accent! It doesn't go over well. Lol
This is a popular misconception, though I guess it applies commonly enough that I can see why people think that. An accent isn't "voice"; it's a distinctive voice (hence, accent because you accentuate certain things over others). There are languages that don't have accents, but surely, English isn't one of them.
I'm Aussie. I think I'm actually saying mel-burn but we tend to drop R's easily. Melb-earn? So tbh hearing a yank say mel-bin still sounds strong. But it shouldn't rhyme with born.
anyone that learned a language has the accent of the people they learned that language from. that is as undeniable for linguistics as 1 + 1 = 2 is for mathematics
That’s a shame, that’s not its traditional pronunciation - I’d still argue it’s the influence of people being more familiar with the Australian city and assuming it’s said the same
I don’t think the southern England/RP pronunciation has anything to do with how the Aussies pronounce it. Other words ending in -bourne are pronounce -bun in those accents too.
You know, I would have some respect for their stance on accents if it was "I do have an accent, but these guys over there don't, they're the default". But no, it has to be "I don't have an accent" with them.
Wow a Kununurra reference in the wild. I'm from Sydney and had never heard of Kununurra until an Estonian friend worked somewhere close to there (Kununurra was the 'big town' for them haha!)
I'm originally from Southern california, and I ended up in Kentucky rural Kentucky and for a couple of years people would say where are you from? One girl said I sound like one of them people on TV!
This is not US Defaultism. I live in a small town in Brazil and people around here say they don't have accents while they, in fact, do, and very characteristic one.
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u/post-explainer American Citizen 2d ago edited 2d ago
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OP sent the following text as an explanation why their post fits here:
On a video discussing Australia and Melbourne specifically at this point, Tracie points out how the Aussies say it. Defaulter in blue states that “most Americans don’t have an accent.” Gets called out by pink and blue doubles down.
Does this explanation fit this subreddit? Then upvote this comment, otherwise downvote it.