Dear American liberals, why do you so rarely actually ask questions?

[metatron]

I find it quaint that the denizens of small countries think that there are significant differences in accents from one end to the not very distant other end.

There are very significant differences between accents of English in actual England, no matter how you feel about it.
Acting like Oliver's accent was "posh" because English accents are alike is akin to claiming Bernie Sanders's accent was Texan because America is a thing.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

There are very significant differences between accents of English in actual England, no matter how you feel about it.
Acting like Oliver's accent was "posh" because English accents are alike is akin to claiming Bernie Sanders's accent was Texan because America is a thing.

There are different sounds, but not really significant differences since they are all just English at the end of the day. It may have mattered what sort of Englishman you were dealing with back in the 1600s, but in 2018 it really doesn't.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Your post appears to be rather antogonistic.
My point is, in my ears and those of my people in general only certain English accents work that way. Generally there's a lot of overlap with the accents the English themselves deem "worthy" albeit for arguably different reasons.
And then there's also an appreciation of certain American accents (which i suppose we value higher than Americans themselves do).
In contrast to that - that's my growing impression at least - Americans appreciate most English accents that way, even Oliver's.

My point is that for us Muricans it works exactly like you said in the bolded above... (I/we just don't have specific names and locales etc to define all the different accents)... and I said as much to you... but you seem to keep missing that... repeatedly... but I'm not upset with you. That's why I used the phrase "whatevs"... as shorthand for "no big deal, you're missing my point and misinterpreting my post, but I'm not upset about it, its not a big deal"

If you find that "antagonistic"... whatevs

 

[metatron]

My point is that for us Muricans it works exactly like you said in the bolded above... (I/we just don't have specific names and locales etc to define all the different accents)... and I said as much to you... but you seem to keep missing that... repeatedly... but I'm not upset with you. That's why I used the phrase "whatevs"... as shorthand for "no big deal, you're missing my point and misinterpreting my post, but I'm not upset about it, its not a big deal"

If you find that "antagonistic"... whatevs

Oh, you're correct, on the metacommunication.
I may be confused because Tim's seems to take a somewhat different stance and i suppose i got things mixed up.

The point remains - regarding your original speculation: No, Oliver's accent doesn't "work" here the way it does in America.
And my speculation is that's relatively common in Europe i.e. many Continentals have a much more stringent standard for judging English accents, largely coinciding with those employed by English persons who decide to be snobby about accents themselves.
In contrast: While you are probably correct in saying "not all" English accents can perform this function in the US, my impression is that, like, a lot.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Oh, you're correct, on the metacommunication.
I may be confused because Tim's seems to take a somewhat different stance and i suppose i got things mixed up.

The point remains - regarding your original speculation: No, Oliver's accent doesn't "work" here the way it does in America.
And my speculation is that's relatively common in Europe i.e. many Continentals have a much more stringent standard for judging English accents, largely coinciding with those employed by English persons who decide to be snobby about accents themselves.
In contrast: While you are probably correct in saying "not all" English accents can perform this function in the US, my impression is that, like, a lot.

I'd expect that Europeans are much more familiar with the nuances, origins, and associations of different British accents and thus more capable of differentiating the "high class" ones from the "plebeian" ones, similar to the way people in the US can distinguish accents from different states/cities regions, social classes, etc around where thy live.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Oh, you're correct, on the metacommunication.
I may be confused because Tim's seems to take a somewhat different stance and i suppose i got things mixed up.

The point remains - regarding your original speculation: No, Oliver's accent doesn't "work" here the way it does in America.
And my speculation is that's relatively common in Europe i.e. many Continentals have a much more stringent standard for judging English accents, largely coinciding with those employed by English persons who decide to be snobby about accents themselves.
In contrast: While you are probably correct in saying "not all" English accents can perform this function in the US, my impression is that, like, a lot.

Of course. From where you are the UK isn't a far away little country that doesn't really matter, it's a near neighbor that is an age old rival and the current primary wrecking ball of the EU. Naturally you are going to pay more attention to Englishmen.

 

[Traitorfish]

I find it quaint that the denizens of small countries think that there are significant differences in accents from one end to the not very distant other end.

France and Germany would both fit inside the continental United States, therefore, French and German are actually the same language, Europeans are just show-offs.

 

[brennan]

I find it quaint that the denizens of small countries think that there are significant differences in accents from one end to the not very distant other end.

Gosh I didn't notice this. Someone find Tim a Glaswegian and see if he changes his mind.

 

[Hrothbern]

There are different sounds, but not really significant differences since they are all just English at the end of the day. It may have mattered what sort of Englishman you were dealing with back in the 1600s, but in 2018 it really doesn't.

If differences in sounds make it practically impossible to understand each other for simple day to day discussions....

If I take as base Dutch like learned at school and spoken at the national TV.
Someone raised in that Dutch has no chance at all to understand Frisian (considered also a separate language), will have very big difficulties to understand plat-Gronings (Nedersaksisch) which is also spoken in Ost-Friesland in Germany (across the border) and will have no chance at all to understand plat-Limburgs (in a peninsula province surrounded by French speaking Belgium and Germany).
These "accents" are considered minority languages by the European Charter in order to protect regional cultures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Charter_for_Regional_or_Minority_Languages
So.. we have in that miniscule Netherlands a main language with everywhere the usual accents that keep the language still understandable and on top 2 accents so differing that they are considered minority languages and 1 true differing language.

My guess is that this is so diverse because these differences have been there since many centuries and already BEFORE the national bible started defining how to properly write the language and BEFORE schools to some degree and finally national television started to define how to speak the language.

 

[tjs282]

Someone find Tim a Glaswegian and see if he changes his mind.

Yeah but Glaswegians are Scots, not English (tips hat to @Traitorfish).

Comparing a Geordie (Newcastle), Manc (Manchester), Brummie (Birmingham) or Scouser (Liverpool) would fit the bill nicely though: 4 distinctly different regional English accents/dialects from cities within about 200 miles of one another (and only because I included Birmingham; otherwise it would have been more like 100). Plus maybe a nice Devonshoire lad/lassie for flavour from the southwestern end of the country...

 

[Bootstoots]

Yeah, the accent differences between one part of a small country and another tend to be large if the small country has a history going back more than a few centuries that doesn't contain something like "horde of pale hairy people appear, kill most of original inhabitants with their diseases, genocidally mop up survivors, settle now-empty countryside with a bunch of similar-accented people over large swath of land."

The thing that really strikes me about the premodern era is how fantastically diverse it was, compared to now, in spite of a much smaller total population. When people rarely travel more than twenty miles from their home, thousands of little enclaves are free to develop their own cultures and languages with little need to conform to those from a few dozen miles away. Even the occasional mass conscription event, or attempt by the imperial center to repress some of these cultures by force, doesn't have nearly enough power to create anything like the homogeneity that appears when there is a mass national culture with railroad/car/plane travel and universal literacy. Even the amount of linguistic diversity that exists in European countries today pales in comparison to 150 years ago.

On different English accents, Americans can identify the Cockney accent as lower-class, but that's about it - the English regional accents all kind of blend together. If Oliver is speaking with someone who is using Received Pronunciation, we'd mostly be able to identify Oliver's accent as the lower-class one, but he just sounds sort of generically English if he's speaking by himself to a camera.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You guys all seem to be missing my point.

Comparing a Geordie (Newcastle), Manc (Manchester), Brummie (Birmingham) or Scouser (Liverpool) would fit the bill nicely though: 4 distinctly different regional English accents/dialects from cities within about 200 miles of one another (and only because I included Birmingham; otherwise it would have been more like 100). Plus maybe a nice Devonshoire lad/lassie for flavour from the southwestern end of the country...

I'm not saying these people all sound exactly the same. I'm saying that if I run into someone tomorrow with what I would call an English accent, that a knowledgeable Englishman would be able to identify as "that's Liverpool," is there any reason at all why I would care that the Englishman is from Liverpool? The answer is no. Just like people from the USian southeast can identify "that's a Georgia accent" or "that's Alabama bottoms" where to me they're both just "southern." I'm sure if I lived there I too would learn the differences, but since I don't live there I just don't care. Those are Englishmen, those are southerners, that's as much as I need to know.

I was having lunch with my sister not too long ago, and at a nearby table there were about ten engineer looking guys speaking what I thought might be German. It was convenient that I was with my sister, who "speaks German"...I was going to say the way I speak French and Spanish, but actually she does speak German a whole lot better than my "hey I can pick up a word here or there if you go slow enough." Anyway, she said definitely not German, so we had plenty to speculate about. Dutch? Africaans? I kept saying it had to be something like German, and she kept trying to catch a common word. Random names of Balkan countries. But it was just a curiosity. When we saw a Swedish diplomatic car we knew they must have been speaking Swedish...which made no difference at all. Germans, Swedes, Dutch...or English. Some sort of Europeans in buying warplanes, basically interchangeable from our point of view.

 

[Hrothbern]

is there any reason at all why I would care that the Englishman is from Liverpool?

But it was just a curiosity. When we saw a Swedish diplomatic car we knew they must have been speaking Swedish...which made no difference at all. Germans, Swedes, Dutch...or English. Some sort of Europeans in buying warplanes, basically interchangeable from our point of view.

I think when it is just curiosity... anything goes.

Do consider that (regional) language and (regional) culture are interwoven, and not by imported immigrants (Bootstoots) but grown up together since many centuries.
Original it was for me moreover general (insatiable) curiosity in seeing that relation between history, culture, regional language, regional vocubalary from that same language, and sayings etc used.

But when I got involved in dealing with people from all over the Netherlands and later all over the industrial areas of Europe, it mattered a lot that I had a basic understanding of the culture of the people I talked to.
If I take again as example Groningen in the Netherlands, where there were areas with peat, and 19th century workers mining that peat, getting hardly paid, forced to buy food in the shops of the peat field owners.... one of the ways people from Groningen are described is : "they are made from peat, jenever (Dutch gin) and suspiciousness. With as joke: "if you say to someone there that it is a beautiful day, you get as answer back... hey, the day is not yet past !"
If I come from Amsterdam, from Holland, and sitting with a business customer on a table, I start with 0-3 against me compared to a competitor located in Groningen. That's where the small talk is for... to thaw the ice... to show you understand... that you can (also) be trusted. And because my mom came from that area, with family still living in those rural (very backward) small villages, I could drop that. And get talking.
Respect-understanding-shared similarities-communication-trust-deals.
For a tourist it does not matter. When you have to interact and have results, when you need to understand and trust between the lines, it is important.
Most things do not go by highly defined language, contracts, lawyers. Especially not with people not used to that and assuming with their business partners that they share the same context. Most business in for example Germany is small-medium family owned business. It is not as consolidated as the US. If you investigate (business) culture in a country it does matter a lot if you sample people from small business or big business. Only at headquarter level of big business the highly defined culture, more anglosaxon-international culture, has gained ground. If you USians meet people from Europe (not tourism), you meet people already used to that (alien) low context-high definition culture.
Within regions of (continental) Europe understanding culture to get trust is fundamental for success. More so for customer contact as production. Many international companies in B2B have their marketing/selling often split up NOT per country but per area. For example: it makes much more sense to wrap up South Germany (BW-Bavaria) together with Austria-(German speaking)Switzerland etc, than with North Germany.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

But when I got involved in dealing with people from all over the Netherlands and later all over the industrial areas of Europe, it mattered a lot that I had a basic understanding of the culture of the people I talked to.

I doubt that the people making whatever presentation was being made to those Swedes had any reason to give a damn about their cultural differences from Norwegians or Germans or whatever. I mean, any customer has a right to expect a reasonable level of respect, but when it comes to selling arms to petty states treating them all more or less the same seems like the most they can ask for.

 

[Hrothbern]

I doubt that the people making whatever presentation was being made to those Swedes had any reason to give a damn about their cultural differences from Norwegians or Germans or whatever. I mean, any customer has a right to expect a reasonable level of respect, but when it comes to selling arms to petty states treating them all more or less the same seems like the most they can ask for.

Those foreigners were the customers. And the US had a menu to buy from. And likely the foreigners had some minor wish list. And ofc some manuals written in Swedish. That's pretty much straightforward and a defined product. Hardly any other trust needed than the contract and lawyers. Defined low-context business of almost off the shelves products between end-manufacturer to customer-user.

That's far away from B2B in for example the competition towards delivering to the supplier companies for the car industry, or to machine building industry.
That's a lot of technical selling and price intermingled and often new investment related.... and NO contracts-lawyers etc... omnly a quote with when it's bigger some conditions (except the usual terms small print always there).

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Those foreigners were the customers. And the US had a menu to buy from. And likely the foreigners had some minor wish list. And ofc some manuals written in Swedish. That's pretty much straightforward and a defined product. Hardly any other trust needed than the contract and lawyers. Defined low-context business of almost off the shelves products between end-manufacturer to customer-user.

This is certainly accurate. I'd bet that any manuals written in Swedish would be translated by the Swedes themselves though. I don't think US arms manufacturers consider that to be their responsibility.

 

[Hrothbern]

This is certainly accurate. I'd bet that any manuals written in Swedish would be translated by the Swedes themselves though. I don't think US arms manufacturers consider that to be their responsibility.

That translated manual is from my experience the usual struggle somewhere in the negotiation between the buyer and equipment seller. There is a law aspect to it when it comes to claims. So any translation needs still the signature of the supplier ! Unless the seller power is so big, and wins in the (likely US) court anyway, that the buyer is already screwed. But the supplier making that translation is prudent risk avoidance by that supplier, to avoid court risks.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

That translated manual is from my experience the usual struggle somewhere in the negotiation between the buyer and equipment seller. There is a law aspect to it when it comes to claims. So any translation needs still the signature of the supplier ! Unless the seller power is so big, and wins in the (likely US) court anyway, that the buyer is already screwed. But the supplier making that translation is prudent risk avoidance by that supplier, to avoid court risks.

Well, generally speaking when an allied country buys arms from US manufacturers there is a deal between the governments where operators are trained by US military, requiring the buying country to supply English speaking operators to begin with. Manuals at that point are most likely a collaborative effort.

 

[Broken_Erika]

The Swedes have been buying arms from the US for a while.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remington_M1867

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Yeah but Glaswegians are Scots, not English (tips hat to @Traitorfish).

Comparing a Geordie (Newcastle), Manc (Manchester), Brummie (Birmingham) or Scouser (Liverpool) would fit the bill nicely though: 4 distinctly different regional English accents/dialects from cities within about 200 miles of one another (and only because I included Birmingham; otherwise it would have been more like 100). Plus maybe a nice Devonshoire lad/lassie for flavour from the southwestern end of the country...

If you can't hear the similarities between Manc and Scouser then you're not listening properly.

Having said that (ooh look I'm editing again, how naughty), the scouse accent is the only one I've ever noticed that seems to be subdivided into male and female versions (note that this impression primarily comes from Brookside and Bread, so may be false).