Do You Speak American?

I thoroughly enjoyed the documentary Do You Speak American that we watched in class today. To me, the most interesting part of the documentary involved the history of the American Standard Dialect. So many new concepts were introduced to me that I cannot possibly remember them all. A few stand out to me, though: that Philadelphia is considered the cradle of "correct" English, that Pittsburgh has its own accent and that Pittsburghers cling to their accents, and that American accents changed from R-less pronunciations to pronounced Rs just after World War II.

For many years, I have wondered about why American actors' and actresses' accents seemed more like British accents than what I think of as an American accent. I had even discussed possible answers with my mom, but we could never come to any conclusions. I also remember noticing that Jackie Kennedy had this same kind of pronunciation in the 1960s that movie stars in the 1940s and 1950s had in the movies I watched. After discovering that Americans began to used pronounced Rs after World War II, I think I might now know at least part of the answer to that question.

I plan to watch the rest of the documentary...when I have the time....but not this week!