This article is about the cultivated accent blending American and British English. For the native dialect of the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, see Philadelphia English.
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The Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent,[1][2][3] is an accent of English, fashionably used by the American upper class and entertainment industry of the late 19th century to mid-20th century, that blended elements from both American and British English. Specifically, it blended features from both upper-class Northeastern American English and Received Pronunciation,[3] the prestige variety of British English. The late 19th century first produced recordings and commentary about an accent associated with the Northeastern elite and their private preparatory school education.[4] Then, in the earlier half of the 20th century, a related accent was taught at schools of acting and performed onstage for classical plays,[5] such as Shakespeare plays,[6] eventually also becoming associated with certain Hollywood actors.[7] The Mid-Atlantic accent is not a native or regional accent; rather, according to voice and drama professor Dudley Knight, "its earliest advocates bragged that its chief quality was that no Americans actually spoke it unless educated to do so".[8]
A similar accent that resulted from different historical processes, Canadian dainty, was also known in Canada, existing for a century before waning in the 1950s.[9] More broadly, the term "mid-Atlantic accent" can also refer to any accent with a perceived mixture of American and British characteristics.[10][11][12]
^Boberg, Charles (2020). "Diva diction: Hollywood’s leading ladies and the rise of General American English". American Speech: A Quarterly of Linguistic Usage, 95(4), 441-484: "Kelly was from Philadelphia. Rogers, from Independence, Missouri, and Shearer, from Montreal, are about half R-less. Adoption of /r/ vocalization by these actresses from r-ful regions presumably reflects both formal dramatic training and the generally high prestige of this feature in the early twentieth century" (455); "Rogers, Kelly, and Shearer produce an [a:] quality in BATH words out of respect for the British or Boston standard" (465).
^Knight, Dudley. "Standard Speech". In: Hampton, Marian E. & Barbara Acker (eds.) (1997). The Vocal Vision: Views on Voice.Hal Leonard Corporation. pp. 174–77.