I don’t have a good answer for you, and haven’t noticed anything unusual about her speech, but I think there were many cultural influences in her upbringing (born in India, raised in Queens, New York, so there’s that. Lots of languages and accents there) , and she speaks about four languages fluently. I’m always stunned when she does it on Top Chef.
2 Likes
My favourite is the graffiti of Bombolini’s saying of “better live hundred years.” 
I’m watching the latest season of My Kitchen Rules: Australia on Amazon Prime Video. Pete Evans is gone as a judge, replaced by Nigella Lawson for the first half of the season and Matt Preston for the second half. Other than that, the show seems about like usual with the typical assortment of talented and untalented competitors, some goofy but none as obnoxious as some of the contestents in past seasons…so far, anyway. I’m only mid-season now.
2 Likes
Oooo! Hope that’s up next! Thank you @Annegrace for helping me find unseen seasons of The Great British Menu! I’m in heaven.
I’ve only just found this show on Tubi. Only season 9 seems to be there. Where else (in the US) can one find more of this?
On an app called Dailymotion.
1 Like
Good news! MKR was my go to during covid lock down. I wondered if there would ever be other seasons. Thanks.
1 Like
I have to agree with shrinkwrap in that I don’t hear anything off in her speech at all. In fact I find her speeches to be pretty much ‘perfect’ and without accent or unusual pattern. There are so many people in the States from so many different places (both here and around the world) that it’s possible you’re not used to hearing accentless English. If you can watch any of the US cable news channels (CNN, Fox, MSNBC) I’d suggest that most of the presenters also speak with no accent. I may be missing something here but that’s my take.
Maybe that’s it! Padma and other presenters may be the exception, but I was thinking everyone has an “accent”, if that means their way of speaking is influenced by who they talk and listen to.
Maybe that’s not what it means. Of course I don’t always notice it where I live, but I was just in Brooklyn, and I don’t know if I met more than a few people who seemed like English was their first language.
EVERY speaker has an ‘accent’. There is no such thing as ‘accentless’ speech because pronunciation is NOT codified (as much as some might believe otherwise). The UK has ‘RP’ (Received Pronunciation) or as it more properly called these days, SSBE (Standard Southern British English). The US never really got on the standardized pronunciation train the way the UK did, though in general, ‘accentless’ US speakers are tending toward a flatter, upper-midwest accent, which is typical in places like Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and in most major non-east-coast, non-southern cities.
1 Like
Well, yes. Everyone has an ‘accent’ I suppose, but I’ve always thought there is a manner of speech in the US that is without any regional or otherwise geographic dialect. My mind went directly to TV news presenters and this article suggests that’s where you’re likely to find examples.
1 Like
What do you think of the article I posted below? I actually was composing that post while you were posting yours.
It basically says what I said, but more exactly and more thoroughly. There is no such thing as ‘accentless’ speech. There is no such thing as a General American accent, though the closest thing we have to it tends to favor (now somewhat outdated) speech patterns of the upper midwest.
Go back to the mid-20th century and you have the ‘Mid-Atlantic’ accent that was pushed quite heavily in posh boarding schools (mainly along the east coast). That gets you that vaguely not-british-but-maybe-sorta? accent of Cary Grant and Jackie Kennedy and Betty Davis and other “uppah clahss” types.
All of which is to say: Speech (and language in general) is DEscriptive, as opposed to PREscriptive. Speech that effectively conveys the desired meaning from speaker to listener is ‘correct’, regardless of the formal adherence to grammar, dictionary, and pronunciation guides.
1 Like
I get it. But I grew up on Long Island and, except for a few things (most of which I’m told I lost after moving to California years ago) I’m told that I have no accent. People call it a radio voice. I suppose they mean that, whatever my accent is, it’s not something that they can place geographically.
‘Lawn Guylind’ 
1 Like
Mostly an “a” thing for me. I used to say “are-a-gone” and was taught to say “ore-a-gun” for Oregon. . I had a friend in New York named “Garry”, but was corrected her to say something closer to “Geary” once I came West. I suppose Those show a California accent.
My English should sound super flat for any of you because I’ve never learned to speak in any particular accent. When I was learning I used to refer to British English, mainly the Oxford dictionary and British books. So I guess my English is far from American English, nor is it British.
When I speak, people ask me “how did you learn to speak good English like that?” I would tell them I don’t know. But that’s the Sri Lankans who have hardly spoken to a native English speaker. Lol. I know that my language is poor, but in the absence of anything better, even my English may be “great” sometimes.
2 Likes
Are you saying you learneed from reading rather than hearing English? That sounds so difficult! Oh; maybe just reading as a reference. Anyway, your English seems great to me, at least reading it!
1 Like
I’ve been speaking the language for decades now. I don’t think that one would learn to speak by reading alone. I meant when I was doing my studies that I used the Oxford dictionary. I used to collect every new edition of the Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Not sure where they are now.
My father belonged to the last generation that studied from the British at government schools in Sri Lanka. His English was much more closer to how the British speak I guess. But then we got “independence”.
2 Likes
The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1962 - Karel Zeman)
Long before Terry Gilliam brought his own warped sense of style and fantasy to the old German hero (based at least in part on a real Russian Baron in the Russo-Turkish war of the late 1700’s), Czech director Karel Zeman created something that is every bit the proto-Gilliam, replete with special effects and animation closely resembling Gilliam’s own cut-out manipulations. The Baron, ever the gallant soldier of superior bravery and intellect, at least in his own mind, goes to the moon (meeting the men from George Mielles Voyage to the Moon and Cyrano DeBergerac), attempts to woo a princess, gets swallowed by a giant fish, and rides cannonballs across battlefields.
Compared to Gilliam’s maximalist style, Kamel takes direct inspiration from the etchings of Gustave Dore’, painting set flats and matte paintings in a lined, graphic style that lends an elegant, minimal feel to what might otherwise be an ornate and overstuffed rococo set. Zeman also keeps the satire of the original tales much more in tact, allowing the Baron to come off as rather foolish and full of himself. Gilliam turned what was originally a mild spoof of the old soldier spinning tall tales and turned it into a grand quest for the last hope of poetry and imagination. Both can be found in Zeman’s film, and apparently, Gilliam was largely unaware of Zeman’s version until he began research for his own version.
This was an absolutely fascinating film, both enjoyable in and of itself and as a window onto a story I didn’t know much history about, and as an example of the stylistic and technical innovations that were happening in places OTHER than Hollywood in the mid 20th century. Truthfully, the sets painted to look like etchings or woodcuts would fit right in with today’s trend in animation to bring in drawn or painted textures to 3D worlds, rather than strive slavishly towards photorealism.
Have I mentioned how much I love this theater? I really really do.
3 Likes
