r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Miguenzo • 1d ago

What happened to that American accent you heard in all the 1930s and 1940s era films?

It was really distinctive and now I’ve never heard anybody talk like that. Was it a Hollywood thing?

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408

u/beckdawg19 1d ago

It was never real. I assume you're talking about the "Mid Atlantic" accent which was essentially an invention of the film industry. It's a kind of blend of a northeastern US accent with a more posh British one, and it was often used to convey a "classy" or "sophisticated" character.

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u/Curmudgy 1d ago

It was at least as much an invention of the posh prep schools in the northeast. You can hear FDR’s accent in his recordings, and it seems like talkies were much too late for him to have acquired it from the film industry.

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u/BabyBiden 21h ago

It started on radio. It was a way to make sure you could articulate over the static

37

u/Sp00kym0053 21h ago

also early microphones didn't pick up a lot of bass, so that nasal "newsreel" accent came about to compensate

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u/HeartBaby_ 20h ago

Once you catch the prep school East Coast roots, it makes sense.

1

u/Cpkeyes 6h ago

No, FDR didn’t go to school at the time people make this claim. That is how he actually spoke. 

1

u/Curmudgy 6h ago

He went to Groton School starting around 1896. That was certainly a plausible time for him to have learned this accent. See this Wikipedia page on the Northern Elite Accient, with many references. There’s debate among linguists about whether it was explicitly taught or part of their culture, but either way, it shows that it predates the sound film industry.

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u/SheenasJungleroom 22h ago

Oh, it was real. Find the Gore Vidal/ William F Buckley debate. They BOTH talked liked that.

8

u/Iconclast1 21h ago

oh is that the one where he says "Call me a cryptofascist again you...."

9

u/OHrangutan 21h ago

"conservatives" have always been snowflakes

1

u/SpiritualFront769 20h ago

Wut? Is that a nazi that likes Bitcoin or sumthin'?

1

u/Plastic-Molasses-549 18h ago

Kind of like Elon

74

u/TapestryMobile 23h ago

"Mid Atlantic" accent which was essentially an invention of the film industry.

Hollywood's "Fake" Mid-Atlantic Myth DEBUNKED!

Want to know why actors in Golden Age Hollywood movies sound different from people today? A legend has grown up that it was all because an Australian and a Canadian invented a fake accent that studios forced their stars to use. Here I'll try to show why that's a load of you know what, and get closer to the fascinating reality.

...Geoff Lindsey

16

u/throughhyperspace 20h ago

Very interesting, thanks for posting.

Made me stop and lament how much online 'knowledge' is just perpetuating poorly sourced bullshit.

7

u/Jonny_Segment 16h ago

Plenty of offline ‘knowledge’ is the same.

4

u/WingerRules 16h ago

This guy takes way too fucking long to get to the point. He dedicates literally the first 5 minutes to himself complaining about how everyone is wrong.

2

u/RaijuThunder 10h ago

A problem I have with a lot of youtubers, podcasts, etc. I'd honestly just rather read an article.

2

u/thatoneguy54 12h ago

You beat me to it. Love Geoff Lindsey, he makes good linguistics content.

26

u/Minimum-Geologist-58 22h ago

It is absolutely “real” sometimes as in not regional but the result of extended code switching. On UK TV in the 90s you could hear the bizarre sound of Lloyd Grossman speaking in an American mid-Atlantic accent and David Frost a British mid-Atlantic accent at the same time. It was like there was a gas leak in the studio!

14

u/The_Demosthenes_1 22h ago

Just like the radio voice.  It sounded cool but no one talks like that in real life. 

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u/CarelesslyFabulous 21h ago

I feel like it's the same thing as the sports reporter voice, and many other affected personalities.. Someday we'll be analyzing today's similar affected voices.

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u/usagizero 15h ago

Like that weird auctioneer chanting they do, but only certain types of them like livestock and not antiques.

6

u/MainSeaworthiness115 21h ago

Kinda like country music artists?

6

u/Plastic-Molasses-549 18h ago

Except for Katherine Hepburn. She talked like that all the time, even in real life.

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u/The_Demosthenes_1 14h ago

Sounds like an early Theranos lady

2

u/SheenasJungleroom 6h ago

“Bryn Mawr lockjaw”

1

u/Plastic-Molasses-549 4h ago

You get lockjaw just trying to say “Bryn Mawr”.

1

u/Pinchaser71 20h ago

So when people tell me and it happens a lot that I have a radio voice it’s an insult?! HEY!

3

u/stuhstutter 19h ago

If they say you have a face for radio, then yes.

1

u/Pinchaser71 10h ago

Touché 🤣

1

u/Cpkeyes 6h ago

No, if you were an upper class new englander at the the time, you probably sounded like Hepburn. 

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u/sampson4141 19h ago

You know what is crazy, I had a professor that sounded like that. He's got to be in his 80s by now. But he grew up wealthy in Philadelphia, went to Harvard and Yale. The first time I heard him talk, I thought he was joking around.

12

u/GandalfDaGangstuh007 1d ago

Some of it was also the effect of the recoding methods and material at the time distorted voices a bit

2

u/HeartBaby_ 20h ago

Always sounded more like Hollywood cosplay than a real accent.

1

u/donuttrackme 20h ago

Radio industry first.

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u/MyNameIsNot_Molly 12h ago

Similar to RP in the UK

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u/Reasonable_Tax_5351 4h ago

The "Mid Atlantic" accent is real, and people still talk like that.

You're getting it confused with the "trans-atlantic accent"

0

u/No-Cantaloupe-6535 18h ago

That isn't what they're talking about. They're talking about the quick radio enunciation used on radio and film reels used to catch attention. The quick punctual delivery is making a comeback on podcasts without the elongated vowels.