How a fake British accent took old Hollywood by storm
[1] If you’ve ever seen a movie made before 1950, you’re familiar with the accent used by actors like Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and Ingrid Bergman: a sort of high-pitched, indistinctly-accented way of speaking that also pops up in recordings of politicians like FDR and writers like Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr. It’s easy to gloss over today, because movies have captured a few different accents that aren’t really present today, like the Borscht Belt Jewish accent of Mel Brooks and the old New York “Toity-Toid Street” accent. Is it British? Is American? Is it just “rich”?
[2] But the accent we’re talking about here is among the weirdest ways of speaking in the history of the English language. It is not entirely natural, for one thing: the form of the accent was firmly guided by certain key figures, who created strict rules that were aggressively taught. And it also vanished quickly, within the span of perhaps a decade, which might be related to the fact that it isn’t entirely natural.
[3] Today this accent is sometimes called the Mid-Atlantic Accent, which is deeply offensive to those, like me, from the actual Mid-Atlantic region of the United States.
[4] What that name means in this case is that the accent can be placed somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, halfway between New England and England. Its popularity, though, in pop culture can be tied to one American woman, and a very strange set of books.
[5] In the 1800s, once relationships with England began to normalize following the Revolutionary War and War of 1812, the cities of Philadelphia, Boston, and, especially, New York City quickly became the new country’s most powerful. Financial and cultural elites began constructing their own kind of vaguely-British institutions, especially in the form of prestigious private schools. And those schools had elocution classes.
词汇词组：
1） Revolutionary /ˌrevəˈluːʃəneri/：革命性的，创新的
例：The effects of technological development are revolutionary.
2） Elite /eɪˈliːt/：精英
例：an elite group of senior officials
3） Vaguely /ˈveɪɡli/：模糊地
例：I can vaguely remember my first day at school.
4） Prestigious /preˈstɪdʒəs/：有名望的
例：It’s the city’s most prestigious and exclusive hotel.
5） Elocution /ˌeləˈkjuːʃn/：演讲术
重难点句：
Financial and cultural elites began constructing their own kind of vaguely-British institutions, especially in the form of prestigious private schools. And those schools had elocution classes.
金融和商业精英们开始构建他们自己的模糊的英式团体机构，最典型的就是有名望的私人学校。而且这些学校里都开有演讲课。
分析：elite这个词要认识，精英的意思。Vaguely是副词，它的形容词就是去掉ly，模模糊糊的，看不清楚的，没有细节的意思。Especially同样也是副词，特别是/尤其是，表示强调的意味。Prestigious，这个词非常好，高端大气，而且确实上档次，prestigious，有名望的，形容词。Elocution，演讲术，口齿清晰的演讲，这种词了解一下就好，认知型词汇。
[6] The entire concept of an elocution class is wildly offensive to most of the modern linguists I know; following the rise of super-linguist Bill Labov in the 1960s, the concept that one way of speaking is “better” or “worse” than another is basically anathema. But that wasn’t at all the case for the rich kids of Westchester County, Beacon Hill, or the Main Line (those would be the home of the elites of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, respectively).
词汇词组：
1） Anathema /əˈnæθəmə/：因立场相对而讨厌的事物
例：Racial prejudice is (an) anathema to me.
重难点句：
The entire concept of an elocution class is wildly offensive to most of the modern linguists I know; following the rise of super-linguist Bill Labov in the 1960s, the concept that one way of speaking is “better” or “worse” than another is basically anathema.
演讲课的整个理念对于大部分我认识的语言学家来说，都是极大的冒犯；按照20世纪60年代知名的语言学家Bill的话来说，这种一种说话的方式比另一种更高级或者更低级的概念是完全错误的。
分析：concept of sth，指的是什么的概念，分号后面的句子有点难理解，following，字面意思是跟随，但我们在此要隐身理解为按照什么，或者根据文章，就谁谁谁的话来说怎么怎么样，后半句里，is basically之前全是主语，当然它又是一个从句，是一个同位语从句，这个concept是个anathema，而anathema的意思是，因立场相对而讨厌的事物。
[7] “There's a long history of dialect features of Southeast England in Eastern New England dialects, tracing back directly to the colonial era,” writes James Stanford, a linguist at Dartmouth College, in an email. “European settlers throughout New England on the east side of Vermont's Green Mountains tended to stay in closer touch with Boston, which in turn stayed in touch with Southeast England through commerce and education.”
词汇词组：
1） Tend to：趋向于，常常
例：Women tend to live longer than men.
2） In turn：结果是
例：Increased production will, in turn, lead to increased profits.
重难点句：
“European settlers throughout New England on the east side of Vermont's Green Mountains tended to stay in closer touch with Boston, which in turn stayed in touch with Southeast England through commerce and education.”
在Vermont的绿山东部的新英格兰的欧洲殖民者或者移民者更愿意和波士顿保持紧密的联系，而结果却是因为商业和教育，他们和英格兰半岛的东南部一直保持着联系。
分析：stay in touch，保持联系的意思，加一个closer，就是密切的保持联系了，tend to表示趋向于或者是常常怎么样，我们给一个例子，Women tend to live longer than men. 女人通常比男人的寿命要长。接下里，which同样是引导一个非限定性定语从句，但它指代的是前面讲的european settlers，in turn，在这儿的意思是，结果上怎么样，同样，我们来看一个例句，Increased production will, in turn, lead to increased profits. 增加产品数的结果是会带来更多的利润。
[8] The upper-class New England accent of that time shares some things with modern New England accents. The most obvious of those is non-rhoticity, which refers to dropping the “r” sounds in words like “hear” and “Charles.”
重难点句：
The upper-class New England accent of that time shares some things with modern New England accents. The most obvious of those is non-rhoticity, which refers to dropping the “r” sounds in words like “hear” and “Charles.”
那个时期的新英格兰上层和今天的新英格兰口音有一些相同之处。其中最明显的就是不卷舌，也就是说，在“hear”和“Charles”这些单词里字母R就不发音了。
分析：这一段难度不大，但有几个点还是要提一下，share这个单词非常好用，而且大家要大胆地用，和什么有共同之处，当然，他还有分享的意思，接下来的non-roticity中non-是一个前缀，表示否定，这个词的意思是不卷舌，反之，roticity指的是卷舌音的意思，which在这儿引导了一个定语从句，来修饰non-roticity，refer to的意思就是指的是什么，和什么相关，做进一步解释说明。
[9] But while parts of those accents are natural—some New Yorkers and many Bostonians still drop their “r” sounds today—the elite Northeastern accent was ramped up artificially by elocution teachers at boarding schools. Miss Porter’s School in Connecticut (where Jackie Onassis was educated), the Groton School in Massachusetts (FDR), St. Paul’s School (John Kerry), and others all decided to teach their well-heeled pupils to speak in a certain way, a vaguely British-y speech pattern meant to sound aristocratic, excessively proper, and, weirdly, not regionally specific. A similar impulse created the British Received Pronunciation, the literal Queen’s English, though RP’s roots arose a bit more gradually and naturally in Southeastern England.
词汇词组：
1） Well-heeled：富有的
2） Aristocratic /əˌrɪstəˈkrætɪk/：贵族的
例：His features were aristocratic—high cheekbones and a Roman nose.
重难点句：
and others all decided to teach their well-heeled pupils to speak in a certain way, a vaguely British-y speech pattern meant to sound aristocratic, excessively proper, and, weirdly, not regionally specific.
其他人都决定教他们有钱的学生去讲一个特定的说话方式，有一点点英式的感觉，这样就会听起来贵族一点，及其正统，但也会有一点奇怪，不是说哪一个特定区域的口音。
分析：well-heeled，是一个形容词，就相当于rich或者是wealthy，有钱的意思，meant to sound是分词后置定语来修饰speech pattern，aristocratic指的是贵族的，形容词，我们给一个例句，His features were aristocratic—high cheekbones and a Roman nose.他的样貌特征很有贵族范儿，高颧骨，高鼻梁。这一段是在讲，口音的演变过程，后半部分还提到了received pronunciation，都是在一定时期身份的一种象征，当然，RP保留下来了，而且也被越来越广泛的传播着，跟今天的GA差不多。
[10] The book that codified the elite Northeastern accent is one of the most fascinating and demanding books I’ve ever read, painstakingly written by one Edith Skinner. Skinner was an elocutionist who decided, with what must have been balls the size of Mars, to call this accent “Good Speech.” Here’s a quote from her 1942 book, Speak With Distinction:
词汇词组：
1） Codify /ˈkɑːdɪfaɪ/：编纂，把什么写成规定
2） Painstakingly /ˈpeɪnzteɪkɪŋli/：煞费苦心地，费力地
例：The building has been painstakingly restored to all its former elegance.
重难点句：
The book that codified the elite Northeastern accent is one of the most fascinating and demanding books I’ve ever read, painstakingly written by one Edith Skinner. Skinner was an elocutionist who decided, with what must have been balls the size of Mars, to call this accent “Good Speech.”
那本编纂了精英东北部口音的书是我都过得最神奇的最约束性的书之一，而且是一个叫Edith Skinner的人煞费苦心写出来的。Skinner是一个演说家，她也不知道哪儿来的勇气管这种口音叫正确的语音。
分析：这一段写的很有味道，我们一起来看一下，开头这个句子就有点复杂，整个句子的框架式sth be one of sth，核心主语是the book，that codified是后置定语来修饰the book，codify本身的意思是编纂或者把什么写成规定。demanding我们的理解就是，这本书里的条条框框，前文也提到过，这个很奇葩的口音是个什么样子，painstakingly的意思是煞费苦心地，费力气的，我们给一个例句看一下，The building has been painstakingly restored to all its former elegance. 这栋建筑很费劲的被修复回了原来的优雅模样。接下来重点来了，前方高能，written by one Edith Skinner，你注意，作者用了个one Edith Skinner，一个叫Edith Skinner的人，很讽刺啊。然后呢，她是个演说家，接着，with what must have been balls the size of Mars, 是一个插入语，表一中状态，有着应该是balls the size of mars的勇气，决定称这种口音为正确的语音，balls the size of Mars，很形象啊，我们首先得了解到balls它有勇气的意思，然后，夸张加喜剧的效果，the size of sth，有什么体积大小的balls，那太厉害了。当然这并不是一种惯用法，你甚至都google不到太多这个词组的解释，而且它多少也有点不符合语法规则，但人们就这么用了，所以，我们还是要多积累，多看。
[11] "Good Speech is hard to define but easy to recognize when we hear it. Good Speech is a dialect of North American English that is free from regional characteristics; recognizably North American, yet suitable for classic texts; effortlessly articulated and easily understood in the last rows of a theater."
词汇词组：
1） Suitable /ˈsuːtəbl/：合适的
例：I don't have anything suitable to wear for the party.
[12] Skinner is now woefully outdated and many of her ideas are so contrary to the way modern linguists think that her books are no longer taught. (To find a copy of Speak With Distinction, I had to hunt through a performing arts library in New York City’s Lincoln Center plaza.) She’s what’s known now as a linguistic prescriptivist, meaning that she believed that some variations of English are flat-out superior to others, and should be taught and valued as such. I mean, come on, she named this accent, “Good Speech.”
词汇词组：
1） Woefully /ˈwoʊfəli/：悲伤地，使人痛苦地，糟糕地
例：‘I’ll never see him again,’ she sighed woefully.
2） Plaza /ˈplæzə/：广场，大市场
例：Shooting broke out in the main plaza in front of the presidential palace.
3） Prescriptivist /pɹɪˈskɹɪptɪvist/：规范主义者
4） Flat-out /ˌflæt ˈaʊt/：直率的，坦白的
例：She just flat-out hated me.
5） Superior to：比…高级
例：This model is technically superior to its competitors.
重难点句：
She’s what’s known now as a linguistic prescriptivist, meaning that she believed that some variations of English are flat-out superior to others, and should be taught and valued as such.
她作为一个语言学的规范主义者而被人熟知，也就是说，她觉得英语中的一些变种明显优于其他的种类，或者应该被教学被重视之类的。
分析：meaning之前的这个句子，虽然看起来复杂，但结构还是清晰可见的，主语就是she，而宾语则是一个从句，what’s known now as a linguist prescriptivist，be known as，作为什么而被人熟知，后面的prescriptivist，这个词也是个生僻词，指的是规范主义者，后面开始解释，meaning引导了一个伴随状语开始解释，meaning that后面的成分又做了meaning的宾语从句，flat-out，差不多相当于just的感觉，一目了然，直率的。后面的A is superior to B的意思是A比B要好，A优于B的意思。
[13] Her influence was felt in filmmaking in a very roundabout way. Film began in New York, only moving en masse to Los Angeles in the mid-1910s. Skinner was born in New Brunswick, Canada, but studied linguistics at Columbia and taught drama for many years at Carnegie Mellon, in Pittsburgh, and Juilliard, in New York City, all highly elite schools. It was in the Northeast that she created Speak With Distinction: an insanely thorough linguistic text, full of specific ways to pronounce thousands of different words, diagrams, lessons on the International Phonetic Alphabet, and exercises for drama students.
词汇词组：
1） Roundabout /ˈraʊndəbaʊt/：绕弯子的，不直接了当的
例：It was a difficult and roundabout trip.
2） En masse /ˌɑ̃ː ˈmæs/：一起，全体
例：The young folk were emigrating en masse.
重难点句：
Her influence was felt in filmmaking in a very roundabout way. Film began in New York, only moving en masse to Los Angeles in the mid-1910s. Skinner was born in New Brunswick, Canada, but studied linguistics at Columbia and taught drama for many years at Carnegie Mellon, in Pittsburgh, and Juilliard, in New York City, all highly elite schools.
她对电影制造业的影响感觉上是绕了一个大圈子。电影发源于纽约，只是在20世纪第一个10年的中期才全部转移到洛杉矶。Skinner是出生在加拿大的New Brunswick， 但是是在哥伦比亚大学读的语言学，之后又在匹兹堡的卡内基大学和纽约的Juilliard还有偶所有的高层次精英学校任教过。
分析：influence，影响力，roundabout，本身是兜圈子绕弯路的意思，在这儿就提到了Skinner这个人怎么就兜兜转转影响到了电影制造业。En masse是从法语里借过来的词汇，这种现象在英语里很常见，我们熟知的C’est la vie, 这就是生活，也是从法语里借过来的。后面提到了几所大学的名字，一个是她学习的地方，columbia，另外两个是她任教的地方，Carnegie Mellon, in Pittsburgh, and Juilliard, in New York City。我就梦想着有一天能去Juilliard都一个stage performance之类的课程，欸，要继续努力呀
[14] Yep, drama: by this point, movies with sound had begun to hit theaters, and then came the disastrous story of Clara Bow. Bow was one of the silent film era’s biggest stars, a master of exaggerated expressions. When the talkies came along, audiences heard her voice for the first time and it was a nasal, honking Brooklyn accent. Though the idea that speaking roles killed her career in film is not entirely accurate (there were plenty of other factors, ranging from drug problems to insane pressures of film studios), it’s certainly true that her career took a nosedive around the time audiences heard her voice, possibly creating a cautionary tale for newly heard actors.
词汇词组：
1） Range from…to：从什么到什么，表范围
例：Accommodation ranges from tourist class to luxury hotels.
2） Nosedive /ˈnoʊzdaɪv/：俯冲
例：Oil prices took a nosedive in the crisis.
3） Cautionary /ˈkɔːʃəneri/：警告的，告诫的
例：a cautionary tale about the problems of buying a computer
重难点句：
Though the idea that speaking roles killed her career in film is not entirely accurate (there were plenty of other factors, ranging from drug problems to insane pressures of film studios), it’s certainly true that her career took a nosedive around the time audiences heard her voice, possibly creating a cautionary tale for newly heard actors.
尽管有声角色终结了她的演艺生涯这种说法是不完全正确的（还有一些其他的原因，从吸毒问题到电影公司疯狂的压力），但她的演艺生涯，在观众听到她的声音之后，确实来了一个大下坡，也给后来的新近有声角色演员们敲响了警钟。
分析：第14段着重讲了电影制作工业的发展，从默片时代到了有声电影时代，对一些演员的影响之大，我们来看句子。先看括号里的，提一个点，range from sth to sth，表示范围，从什么到什么。括号前面，though引导的一个让步状语从句，the idea that这是一个同位语从句，is not entirely accurate是核心谓语和表语，接下来括号后面是主句，it’s certainly true that，it是个形式主语，that后面才是真正的主语，而主语是一个从句，事业迅速的下滑，nosedive，有点俯冲的感觉，around the time引导的时间状语从句，后面的possibly creating 是分词表伴随状况，a cautionary tale要提一下，这个一个很常见的搭配，是一个警示或者说敲响了警钟。
[15] It’s now the 1930s, and Edith Skinner is Hollywood’s go-to advisor for all things speech-related. And Edith Skinner has extremely strong opinions, bred in the elite universities of the Northeast, about exactly how people should speak. So she forced her own “Good Speech” accent on stars, and other voice coaches, and soon her accent became the most popular accent in Hollywood.
[16] Speak With Distinction is incredibly dense, but it’s also very thorough. You can see very clearly, right there on the beat-up pages, why Katharine Hepburn speaks the way she does. “In Good Speech, ALL vowel sounds are oral sounds, to be made with the soft palate raised. Thus the breath flows out through the mouth only, rather than through the mouth and nose,” she writes. (She capitalizes things a lot.) “Each vowel sound is called a PURE SOUND, and the slightest movement or change in any of the organs of speech during the formation of a vowel will mar its purity, resulting in DIPHTHONGIZATION.”
词汇词组：
1） Thorough /ˈθɜːroʊ/：完整的，完完全全的
例：The police carried out a thorough investigation.
2） Beat-up：陈旧的，破烂的
例：a beat-up old truck
3） Palate /ˈpælət/：腭
4） Mar /mɑːr/：玷污，损坏
例：The game was marred by the behaviour of drunken fans.
重难点句：
Speak With Distinction is incredibly dense, but it’s also very thorough. You can see very clearly, right there on the beat-up pages, why Katharine Hepburn speaks the way she does.
卓越的表达这本书非常的压抑，但是它写的非常详尽。你在那陈旧的书页里就可以很清楚地看到为什么Katherine Hepburn会那样讲话。
分析：16段开始就来讲这个及其奇怪的口音具体在语音学上是一个什么体现，各种的口腔舌位要求。Thorough，这个词要学习一下，没有加ly，在这儿是个形容词，表示完整的，详尽的。后面的beat-up也是个形容词，表示陈旧的破烂的。这一段的后面具体什么舌位的介绍我们就不做详细的了解了，但是palate这个词要提一下，我们所说的硬腭软腭的腭就是这个palate，当然，硬腭就是hard palate，软腭就是soft palate。最后一句里面出现了mar这个词，也要注意一下，及物动词，表示玷污，弄脏或者损坏的意思。
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[17] She demands that “r” sounds be dropped. She demands that the “agh” sound, as in “chance,” should be halfway between the American “agh” and the British “ah.” (Interestingly, this is very different than the typical New England accent today, which is highly “fronted,” meaning that the vowel sound is made with the tongue very close to the teeth in words like “father.” The British, and Mid-Atlantic, vowel is pronounced with the tongue much further back.) She requires that all “t” sounds be precisely enunciated: “butter” cannot sound like “budder,” as it mostly does in the US. Words beginning in “wh” must be given a guttural hacking noise, so “what” sounds more like “ccccchhhhwhat.” She bans all glottal stops—the cessation of air when you say “uh-oh”—even between words, as in this phrase, direct from her book: “Oh, Eaton! He’d even heave eels for Edith Healy!” Go ahead, try to say that without any glottal stops. It’s enormously difficult.
[18] She cracks down on the most obvious of regional cues, railing against what’s now called the “pin-pen merger.” Today, the pin-pen merger—in which the word “pen” sounds like “pin”—is a very easy indicator that a speaker is from the American South. Yech, the South. That will not do for Edith Skinner.
词汇词组：
1） Rail against：抱怨责骂
重难点句：
She cracks down on the most obvious of regional cues, railing against what’s now called the “pin-pen merger.”
她打破了各地区最明显的特征，抱怨谴责在今天我们所熟知的pin和pen融合的现象。
分析：同样举了一个典型的例子，cue本身是暗示提示的意思，在这儿我们隐身理解为特征这个概念，rail against，抱怨责骂的意思，表示批判，而后面提到pin-pen merger，我们之前学习过的，就是有些地区的人是不分小口的/i/和小口的/e/。
[19] Because Skinner was so influential, and her “Good Speech” was so prominent in movies, it began to leak out into the drama world at large. Other teachers began teaching it. In fact, even up until just a few decades ago, this accent, now called “Mid-Atlantic,” was being taught in drama schools. Jaybird Oberski, who teaches acting at Duke University, got his MFA at Carnegie Mellon in 1997, and he says the class was, amazingly, still being taught then. (He isn’t a fan of the accent.) “The Mid-Atlantic accent is considered the neutralization of regionalization, to bleach out character so everybody sounded the same,” he says.
词汇词组：
1） Prominent /ˈprɑːmɪnənt/：卓越的，重要的
例：He played a prominent part in the campaign.
2） Bleach /bliːtʃ/：漂白，文中指的是去掉的意思
3） 例：His mousy hair had been bleached by the sun.
[20] Weirdly enough, this accent class was called a “neutralization technique” at Carnegie Mellon: theoretically, the idea is that it removes regional signifiers like the pin-pen merger. But there is no “neutral” or “accentless” accent; you can replace one accent with another, but the idea that there is some perfect, unaccented variety of English is a myth that’s long been squashed.
词汇词组：
1） Myth /mɪθ/：错误的观念，荒诞的说法
例：It is time to dispel the myth of a classless society (= to show that it does not exist).
2） Squash /skwɑːʃ/：挤扁，塞进
例：Move up—you’re squashing me!
重难点句：
you can replace one accent with another, but the idea that there is some perfect, unaccented variety of English is a myth that’s long been squashed.
你可以用一种口音代替另一种口音，但那种所谓的完美或没有口音的口音这个想法只是长久以来强加在人们脑海里的错误观念罢了。
分析：but后面的句子有点复杂，句子的主框架是the idea is a myth，什么样的idea呢，一个同位语从句，什么样的myth呢，后置定语来修饰一下，myth这个词要提一下，他指的是错误的观念或者荒诞的说法。
[21] This particular accent, too, is far from neutral. It’s immediately recognizable and strange, a take on a clipped upper-class New England accent with even more Britishisms tossed in the mix. In her efforts to create a neutral accent, Skinner created one of the most non-neutral accents in the past few centuries.
[22] The film craze of Mid-Atlantic English was short-lived. By the late 1960s, the New Hollywood movement, complete with innovative, gritty directors like Francis Ford Coppola and John Cassavetes, began to depict the world as it was, rather than the fantasy lives presented by earlier films. That goal necessitated the dropping of the Mid-Atlantic accent; there’s no point in showing the grim realities of Vietnam War-era America if everyone is going to talk like they went to Choate Rosemary Hall, so the actors in those films just...didn’t. And elocution classes at those schools began to be dropped as well. “The prestige of non-rhoticity and other British-related features began to change in the mid-20th century, and scholars suspect it may be due to the role of WWII and American national identity—a new identity on the world stage, no longer so closely tied to England for national identity,” writes Stanford.
词汇词组：
1） Gritty /ˈɡrɪti/：坚定的，有勇气的
[23] The accent vanished quickly, now only surviving as a weird hallmark of that era of filmmaking; the only time you hear it now, really, is if a movie is set in Hollywood, in the film industry, prior to 1960. The real Mid-Atlantic accent, the accent of Philadelphia and Baltimore, luckily, lives on.