Did George Washington have an American accent?

The accent would probably be unlike most modern "English" accents because Estuary English has expanded to eclipse so much of the country. I imagine he would probably sound actually quite Northern - wasn't his family from Washington up Norf?

Ha ha!

The right place, then, Kate.

http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/standardamerican/presidential/voices/

'George Washington never spoke publicly for more than ten minutes because his false teeth required him to keep his jaws clenched'

http://www.nndb.com/people/933/000026855/audrey-hepburn.jpg

Lincoln is generally described as having a high 'nasal' voice less suited to public elocution than say, Stephen Douglas.

"See, now I'll tell ya what we're gonna do there, General Ewing. We're gonna cross over the ice there, you see, and take out dose wise-guy British, trampin' all over town in OUR TRENTON!"

Named after Bourbon County, Kentucky

!!! Goddammit, I love the Simpsons.

which is named after the french monarchs, c'mon man.

So George Washington, being from Virginia, probably had an accent akin to the genteel southern accent.

I imagine him sounding like Katherine Hepburn.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locust_Valley_Lockjaw

I'm curious, do people in like idaho, utah, washington etc have their own way of speaking?

I think there is a distinct Northwestern accent (rounder, more "Canadian"), but it's subtle.

The Irish came late but amongst the earliest and biggest numbers of settlers were from Ulster (they virtually invented the South!) The Ulster settlers would have described themselves as Ulster Scots rather than as Irish, I'm not sure what accent they would have but I'm guessing not too far from present day Ulster (as opposed to actually having Scots accents)

I have a 91-year-old upper-class English neighbour back home who left London in 1947 and that's where his voice has STUCK ever since. Using both these models I have a pretty good idea of older accents so from there, I'll extrapolate.

Washington could have sounded like Worzel Gummidge if his UK ancestors came from the south-west or East Anglia, where lots of Puritan emigres tended to sail from, but if he was a bit posher than that (and seems to be) I bet he sounds like someone's old, donnish farmer grandfather. But probably did not sound a lot like TS Eliot.

you know, i always suspected the medium, tracer, but thought it had to do more with frequency response rather than an affectation deliberately put on in order to cut through the mix of static and poor quality audio.

i wish people still talked like that though.

Get one $620 Atlas of North American English.

http://www.open2.net/openminds/GRAPHIC/wk11/detail/detailimages/billy.jpg

!!! Goddammit, I love the Simpsons.

Hmm?

Hello!

(yes, they did - a lot were from either Lincolnshire, or the fenland bits on the Lincolnshire-Yorkshire border. The same area that Methodism came from, in fact)

gah, I think my meds are getting to me - that should be Charleston, obv.

• I am 79 years old. I bring this up first to help explain my question. In the late 1930s or early 1940s, I was looking through an old stack of Life magazines, and there was a picture of an old couple sitting on the porch of a cabin (or shack) up in the mountains somewhere in Appalachia, with the notation: "The King and Queen of America?" The small article with the picture stated that if George Washington had become king of the U.S., these two would (under the usual custom) be our king and queen. I have thought of this from time to time, even doubted it. (It might have been part of the propaganda of the time, the Depression years, that we were all equal, etc.) I am dimly aware that George Washington had brothers, and that it is possible that the descent is known. As I remember, it was a lovely picture, the old couple looking out over a valley, with mist, and smoking their corncob pipes. Can you find the picture? Can you tell me whether there was truth in the assertion?

if youve ever seen the hbo mini series john adams u know what it sounds like when gw talks

I only saw a fleeting bit of that, but Paul Giamatti seemed to be talking with a British accent, or am I wrong about that?

if you've ever read Mason and Dixon by Thomas Pynchon you know that George Washington liked to smoke pot.

http://tbn0.google.com/hosted/images/c?q=94f41e2a731d55fb_landing

In response to the bit on who would be king had Washington been crowned, see http://www.newsweek.com/id/162914/page/1

It's fun to think about but it presumes a) a complete fizzling of the republican feeling that (at least in part) gave us the revolution, b) no dynastic changes or inconvenient Cromwells coming along and mucking things up, and c) (most damningly) the highly suspect notion that everyone's marriage and reproductive choices would have unspooled exactly as they did in the absence of having the throne to consider.

As Washington was childless, the line would either go through his step-grandson G.W.P. Custis (whom he adopted) or if you stipulate blood relatives, his nephew Bushrod (who inherited Mount Vernon).

And in re. Appalachian accents, please keep in mind that the Washingtons were a Northern Neck/Piedmont phenomenon and decidedly non-Appalachian.

BUSHROD

Puffin I don't think it "presumes" those things, I think it takes a what-if curiosity and uses it so we can all congratulate ourselves on being better than monarchists. Though you are right that the family tree would be rather different if it were a royal one. (Also that guy would not be wearing that shirt.)

I mean, I wouldn't get too analytical about it, it's basically saying "good thing we were so awesome that we did away with monarchy, but check it out, if we hadn't, LOL: this ordinary American Joe turns out to be straight down the line of succession! (And he don't think he's better than nobody!)"

totally, broski

he was from northern virginia, not the american part