Why Do Americans In Old Movies Sound British?

I mean Cary Grant sounded British because he was British tho

The aspirate "wh" isn't part of a contrived accent. My mother from the deep South did it all her life even after "losing" her accent.

Trasnalantic

I remember being taught aspects of the transatlantic accent in high school in 1961. Most of us reacted to the lessons negatively. I don’t think any of us adopted it. No one in the school spoke this way and Hollywood had long since abandoned this accent.

Did the American TV networks hire Canadian news broadcasters at some point as they had an unidentifiable & inoffensive (North) American accent?

because they WERE british.

Is it because we were British?

As a not native English speaker, I've always found the movie trans-atlantic a much easier English to understand. Presume it was to make Hollywood more accessible to the export movie markets too?

People from Boston 👁️👄👁️

Earth Vader IS a Disney villain

But hwhy?

What the hell is racist about wanting a universal english accent..?

That doesn’t sound like a British English accent AT ALL, even disregarding the fact that there’s a different accent every 5 miles in this goddamn country

I never gave this much thought, but what gets me is how all "old timey" people in movies speak with a British accent, even if they're ancient Greeks! And the funny thing is, even old timey Brits didn't speak that way, because the "British" accent evolved from the "American" accent, and not vice versa!

Speaking of weird, fake accents, why do all tv reporters sound the same? They have this weird way of speaking that no one else uses.

Honestly as a Brit it doesn’t sound British in the slightest

You should make a video on why British musicians in their music sound American.

They don’t sound British! It’s never been British! Anybody who has not even bothered to ask honestly doesn’t deserve tailored videos for them.

That accent is synthetic but it makes texts much clearer for people who use English as a second language and who will always sound foreign anyway. You make a slight mistake : the final r is non-rhotic but its presence is to be felt nevertheless. R in that accent, no matter initial or final, is actually a vowel, not a consonant : it is whispered short vowel not unlike u or uh the preceding or following vowel merges into as seamlessly as possible. A slight very delicate trill maybe added to it between vowels and a slight guttural growling may be added at the beginning of a word to give more intonation and effect to certain words but are not obligatory at all.

Now everything makes sense

I have wondered about this accent most of my life lol

It's the American RP.

In the English accent it’s not that you don’t pronounce the r it’s just is makes a different sound, to me an r makes an “ahh” sound.

Dammmmmmmm

Jokes on you Mr. Sam Wendover, Half as interesting guy! I actually know what a glottal stop is because I watched a Tom Scott video about it! So there.. Ha, all praise my intellect.

"Jetzt mal ehrlich, wir sind eh alle Deutsche also reden wir auch so." (100% support from Prince Philip and probably King Charles too)

WW2 was actually just about dropping the final R ... (Bavaria not getting independence, Vorarlberg not becoming part of Switzerland, ....)

Long before the English went to their isles like for instance Britain ... "r" and "l" used to modify vowel sounds in their language which is why many children once decided to drop them altogether and thus the difference between Swiss, Austrian and German was born where Swiss people somewhere in their youth manage to pronounce final r while Germans and Austrians never do and because America and the Britain is full of Germans who forgot their origin the same thing is going on there too

actually I filter out all the final "r"s in some English accents automatically - so I never know if they are there or not

Actually dropping r became the standard and pronouncing r became associated with Adolf (USA) .... and probably the USA really wanted to become a third realm successor

There's this elusive lighter post-transatlantic accent that lingered into television and film reporting into the 1950s onwards. I wish I sounded that way

Growing up around Boston, the dropped R sounded natural to me lmao never noticed that element.

Trasnalantic?

All Accents are Fake , Phony , Put on , Not real

If you want to know what Americans sounded like, look up Warren G Harding.

Lack of wine-whine merger was American, not English.

I grew up in my grandparent’s house and watched a lot of old movies and shows from back then and I got really good at imitating the transatlantic accent. I still sometimes slip into it

Yay, Aussies and Canucks showing the world how to speak property English! 🇦🇺 🇨🇦

It was said that Americans back when they were under the british rule and during the American revolution sounded very English

Poor R getting the treatment of poor accent

I genuinely can't not hear the R. Every time you say the R is dropped I still here an R, just a bit mumbled. Can't tell if it's a placebo R or what