British Accent

[David Lindon]

I was watching an english action movie (Lock, stock, and two smoking barrels) and I realized that a british accent sounds really cool! I wish I had one lol .

Maybe it was just the actors voice or something but it made him sound "cool."

Lock stock has a very northern accent if I remember correctly, only a minority speak it so its not a correct 'british accent'.

 

[Brookfield]

I love the bit in austin powers where they start speaking cockney to have a private conversation.

the point of the phrases is that they arn't meant to be understood. cockney is a slang language where word rhyme, it was invented so that criminals would talk in public about ilegal things without authorities having a clue what they were on about.

whilst I'm no kind of authority on it, I'll list a few colloquial phrases and the translations. (some of them you probably have in america too, cause I'm not going to stict to cockney phrases...

give us a monkey - can I have five quid? (quid - pound)
lend us a score - can I borrow twenty pounds?
Apples and pears - stairs
meat pies - eyes
I can't adam and eve it - I can't believe it.
you're having a tin bath/giraffe/birdbath - you're having a laugh
I don't give an aylsbury duck - I don't give a (it's rhyming slang figure the rest out yourself!)*
Tonight I'm going to the dolly mixtures - tonight I'm giong to the pictures (cinema).*
Trouble and strife - wife
Having a barclays / (having a barclays bank) - haveing a (again rhyming slang, figure it out)
I'm just off to the bath tub - I'm going to the pub*
I'll cut your billy goat, - I'll cut your throat*
mind you'r own bees wax - mind your own business
big ben - ten
bottle stopper - copper - policeman
it's all bubble and sqeak to me - it's all greek to me - I don't understand it
wooden plank - yank - american
Vera lynn and tonic - gin and tonic*
tea leaf - theif
thrupenny bits - tits
Barney rouble - Trouble
Poms - australians
He's a crim - he's a criminal
I'm going for a ten once rump - I'm going for a dump * don't understand it, ten once rump??
tin tank - bank
tit for tat - hat
thomas tank - masturbate* not this version!
Talk and mutter - butter
rabbit and pork - talk
rabbit - talk incessantly
rubarb crumble - grumble
going on the rock and roll - going on the dole*
going for a ruby - giong for a curry - (ruby murray)

can't think of any more right now...

I'm sure if you google it you'll find loads of places offering definitions.

Know some of these, those I haven't heard of I've marked with a *

 

[compguy91]

ya, i have always secretly admired english accents. i have a question for english accent bearing people: can you do an "american accent" like americans can do english accents? ive always wanted to know, but ive never known someone with an english accent to ask. also, do people over in europe consider themselves to have accents? or do they consider themselves normal and say that americans have accents? lol

I'm not english but I know it's been done. Hugh Laurie who plays Dr. Gregory House on the show House M.D. is British and naturally has a british accent but on the show he speaks with an American accent. He does a great job at it too! I thought it was American for awhile until I saw him on an interview and he said he was born in Oxford.

 

[GlasseyeUK]

Lock stock has a very northern accent if I remember correctly, only a minority speak it so its not a correct 'british accent'.

Lock Stock and two smoking barrels is filmed in the supposed east end, its a fictional take on east end gangsters.

As for the northern accent beng a minority, I don't believe that is true, the UK has such a wide diversity of accents, that you can travel 25 miles and notice a different accent. In that aspect the wide variety of accents that a england have in opposition to the size of our population.

What is the correct English accent, the upper class 'toff's' accent, the cockney londoner, (a la Very atrociously bad Dick van dyke)??

 

[99nasha]

Lock stock was a london accent!!

Watch snatch! The sequal, such an ace film

 

[GlasseyeUK]

Lock stock was a london accent!!

Watch snatch! The sequal, such an ace film

Yep Snatch was top notch, Brad Pitt was cool in it as well, although revolver (Guy Ritchie's latest) is cack

 

[Nik00117]

British accents are great.

I heard I got a accent too. I don't notice it.

 

[UK31337]

Try watching Rab C Nesbitt.

Rumour has it the BBC down south had to specially call in a Scot to do the subtitling, because nobody in London could understand the accent.

In fact, there's plenty of people up here that can't understand the accent. Try this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/r/video_clips/rabcnesbitt_7775310_1.shtml

I, being Scottish, understand every word

 

[Brookfield]

British accents are great.

Yes, I know,.....of course!

 

[99nasha]

Yep Snatch was top notch, Brad Pitt was cool in it as well

Do ya like dags?