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Re: Midatlantic Accent

From:Tim May <butsuri@...>
Date:Wednesday, September 18, 2002, 21:49
Clint Jackson Baker writes:
 > This seems an awful misapplication of terminology to
 > me, as an American.  I would think of mid-Atlantic as
 > in the Mid-Atlantic states--therefore, the Baltimore
 > accent would be the standard.
 >

It's fairly common term for an Anglo-American accent here.
Presumably, the fact that the UK represents a smaller target looking
east than the US does looking west plays a part in explaining this
distinction.

 > Clint
 >
 >
 > --- Eamon Graham <robertg@...> wrote:
 > > With some recent discussion on the list about
 > > different accents and
 > > dialects of English, I decided to ask the list about
 > > something:
 > >
 > > In Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" (one of my all
 > > time favourites
 > > by the way), a character is described as being
 > > "midatlantic-accented."  In Paul Brian's study guide
 > > to the novel he
 > > defines this as  "An accent calculated to be neither
 > > precisely
 > > British nor precisely American, but somewhere in
 > > between."
 > >
 > > Can anyone tell me any thing else about a
 > > "midatlantic accent" ?
 > > What characteristics would make an accent neither
 > > precisely British
 > > nor precisely American?  I expect accent isn't the
 > > only thing - word
 > > choice would be important.  Grammar as well?
 > >
 > > Curious,
 > > Eamon
 >
 >
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