8mm Forum: North Carolina accent

This is topic North Carolina accent in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://8mmforum.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=003653

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on September 19, 2015, 05:43 PM:

Just for the fun, could one of our American memmbers have a look at the 17 first seconds of this French commercial and say if the policeman has the right accent ? The action is supposed to happen in Asheville, North Carolina. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBD6ajp-0ZQ

Edited : I've just found a second commercial with another state mentionned and it seems to be the same policeman so the accent is more than probably not correct https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORxEOkGEhRU

Posted by Bryan Chernick (Member # 1998) on September 20, 2015, 12:32 AM:

I'm not from that part of the country but I have been there. That doesn't sound like a North Carolina accent. North Carolina is South of the Mason Dixon line, that sounds like a Yankee accent.

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on September 20, 2015, 01:33 AM:

Thank you, Bryan. I guess that for a large country like the US, it must be impossible to know all the variations of accents.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on September 20, 2015, 05:36 AM:

To me the accent is more "TV Cop"!

Posted by Larry Arpin (Member # 744) on September 20, 2015, 03:25 PM:

Here's a good example of a NC accent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAqm5ls8Ep8

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on September 21, 2015, 02:58 AM:

Thanks for the answers.

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on September 21, 2015, 01:59 PM:

For many of us...Sheriff JW Pepper.. in "Live and Let Die" sums that Southern accent up [Wink]

Posted by David M. Ballew (Member # 1818) on September 21, 2015, 02:03 PM:

I am a native of Greenville, South Carolina, which is about an hour's drive south of Asheville. In fact, I worked as a cinema projectionist in Asheville proper for about a year in the mid-1990s.

I agree that the accent could be taken as generic "TV cop." I realize the actor speaks only four words, but I would further submit, speaking very subjectively, that he sounds to me like a Frenchman putting on a generic "TV cop" (or region-neutral North American) accent. Something in the second syllable of "grandma" is ringing this particular bell for me, and I repeat for emphasis that this is entirely a subjective reaction.

This seems an opportune moment to share a widely held opinion in South Carolina, that the only person in "Gone With The Wind" who sounds authentic is Clark Gable, the one person who refused to even attempt a Southern accent. :-)

UBB.classic^TM 6.3.1.2