What is America’s “posh people” accent?

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Traditional-Roof-980@reddit

Southern-wise, there's a special type of "old-school" drawl reminiscent of, say, the prosecutor in My Cousin Vinny

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Traditional-Roof-980@reddit

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say, imho, it's perhaps something akin to Gore Vidal's or maybe William F. Buckley's accent. Those have that distinctive "upper class" feel to it

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danceswithturtles286@reddit

It’s usually more related to vocabulary, but a less nasal accent (a softer “a,” for example) is generally seen as more refined and a deep southern accent tends to be viewed as less so

complement (vb) = goes well with

Ex.: I picked out my new plum-colored tie today because it complements my dark red lips and rosy complexion.

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I’ll attack you!

Small world. Ive lived in Newark Delaware. Also Philly (215?).

Also chester county which is not chester in Delaware county which is not in Delaware (just another fun thing to explain)

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KevrobLurker@reddit

Then there is Newark, OH. My sister's in-laws taught me to say that as Nerk. The DE town is indeed New Ark.

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belinck@reddit

Hey, there is no reason to feel silly. I just got kicked in the teeth this week for accounting rules that I had no background in, no instruction about and apparently I'm supposed to be responsible for.

I’m a Speech Pathologist and one of the first strategies I teach my patients is pacing and being comfortable with pauses/silence.

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rubiscoisrad@reddit

It's amazing what happens when you slow down your speed and get comfortable with silence in between words and sentences.

If by dropping consonants you mean dropping the "g" in dropping, my sister is incapable of speaking, I mean speakin', properly. Runnin'. Workin'. Keepin'. As a Southerner, I worked for years to rid my vocabulary of certain words, such as y'all, fixin' to, yonder, little bitty, itsy bitsy, nekkid, get a holt of (instead of reach), tin (instead of ten), secont (instead of second), gonna, wanna, hafta, done (as in I done "tol" ya), and more.

I don't care if your outfit costs $5,000. The way a person speaks makes an impression. People judge. You may have a PhD from Rice University, but you wasted your money if you sound like a country bumpkin.

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KevrobLurker@reddit

It makes me smile to know people from different backgrounds and cultures from all over find joy or interest in similar things.

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kjm16216@reddit

I honestly think actually learning to hear myself donut was the hardest part, so you're halfway there.

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ImAlsoNotOlivia@reddit

I recently heard one of the local meteorologists using “um” a lot during his forecast. Dude, you’re supposed to be a professional. Get it together!

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dkinmn@reddit

Which is funny, because that is more an artifact of media crafting than reality.

Ums and ers increase clarity and result in greater audience comprehension. Really!

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kjm16216@reddit

I have read it signals the brain to chunk the information it just received, much like flipping a slide.

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dkinmn@reddit

It also calls attention to important words or signals that an upcoming chunk may be similar to another chunk and so you need to listen closely.

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surelyshirls@reddit

How’d you do it

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kjm16216@reddit

The hard part was learning to hear myself do it.

I went at it with the philosophy of all or nothing. I know I have different ways of speaking to different audiences (like not cursing around my family), but the ahs and ums i work d across the board.

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Federal_Pickles@reddit

I have difficulty not selective coding. I have a Deep Texas accent I hide most of the time. But you get me with my family and a cooler of beer, we can’t help it 😂

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There are also different conversational styles. People from large families tend to see a silence as an invitation to jump in, whereas smaller families learned to wait for a clear sign someone's finished before taking their turn.

I noticed I was over-talking with certain people because I would slow down and pause, then speed up again and keep talking, until I'd been monopolizing the conversation for ten minutes straight. I realized I was subconsciously waiting for them to break in with their own thoughts, like my siblings do. We very much have a "everyone start talking at once and the loudest and most interesting person wins" group conversation style, as well as taking any sort of verbal ellipsis ("so... anyway....") as a sign we can jump in.

I really need to credit my wife, who is a lawyer, for the insight. She mentioned how it took her a long time to slow down in court, and was only really able to do it when she realized nobody was going to interrupt her if she slowed down or paused.

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ForestElf3@reddit

Being a woman

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KevrobLurker@reddit

Our family dinner table was normally up to 11 people. Slow talkers rarely got a word in edgewise! Our parents played traffic cops and made sure the younger ones could participate. We did grow up within 60 miles of New York City, where our parents grew up. Most everyone we knew spoke at a decent clip.

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Electronic_Bus7452@reddit

We are twins then! But seriously, why do I always work with people who talk over me all the time!!

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rubiscoisrad@reddit

I know I shouldn't bother going here, but I really do feel as though the advent of internet and email combined with social media messed with any sensibilities of interpersonal interaction. If I watch an old movie (like, something black and white with Cary Grant) there's a lot of "pauses" in the dialogue. You only see that today in cinema for comedic effect, and well - I suppose culture changes. Art imitates reality, which in turn imitates art?

In my time in pacific countries, esp Kiwis love my accent, but were surprised to hear that my hometown is known for crazy wealth and tax breaks, assuming the south is all poor

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largemargesentme__-@reddit

Is this a new thing? Southern always coded as unintelligent inthe US halls of power. It's tge same with many Midwestern accents. California even had a bit of a slacker reputation for many years.

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ljb2x@reddit

One of my favorite Jeff Foxworthy (Southern comedian for those uninitiated) bits is something to the effect of, "when people hear a southern accent they automatically deduct a hundred IQ points".

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PhilosophyBitter7875@reddit

My comment was made 3 days ago, you're just assuming it is because of foreign influence now? You are out of your mind just take the L.

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largemargesentme__-@reddit

I was having a conversation, I didn't realize there was so.e sort of competition occurring.

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username_redacted@reddit

I don’t think that perception is uniform. Very few highly educated people have strong accents anymore due to the media monoculture and deliberate attempts to fit academic or business norms. At the very least, people from those backgrounds learn to code-switch depending on the audience.

When I hear a strong regional accent I don’t necessarily assume a lack of intelligence, but I do suspect a rather isolated upbringing and perhaps a limited world view as a result.

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Ready_Corgi462@reddit

Yeah, you’re definitely right that this type of bias is prevalent. I grew up on Long Island and intentionally started working to shed my accent pretty shortly after I went away to college because people did actually think I was less intelligent and uncultured because of it.

But the reality is that I grew up going into NYC and was genuinely gifted a true cultural education from my parents. My dad was a manhattan professional in a creative field who traveled around the world for work and my mom was a high school teacher with her masters of literature. They took me to art exhibits, live music, theater, ballet, book signings, etc often. But I was mocked immediately upon arrival in college (got my first comment literally at orientation) and made to feel like I was some unsophisticated dimwit because I pronounced “chocolate” differently or whatever.

I haven’t lived in the NY area for 15 years now. My accent would’ve softened regardless, but sometimes get sad that I don’t sound like I grew up there anymore. You used to be able to hear that I descended from a long line of working class New Yorkers when I spoke. So whenever I meet someone now with a little rough around the edges northeastern regional accent (Boston/Philly/Jersey etc.) I’m predisposed to be endeared to them.

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username_redacted@reddit

Do you notice yourself slipping back into it when you visit or talk to people from the area?

I grew up in the Northwest, where there isn’t a distinct regional accent, but in rural areas there is a vague Western drawl that I unintentionally adopt when talking to anyone that has it.

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Ready_Corgi462@reddit

Not really. Maybe if I was there for a long time. My mom’s accent is thicker than mine ever was (she grew up in the Bronx) and I don’t really emulate it when I speak to her.

I would say that the accent does remain in some ways. I definitely still don’t have the merry-mary-marry merger - those are pronounced as three different words (which I think is correct so would never lose intentionally). I also hit certain vowels differently than someone in California might, but they’re not the vowels that one would obviously associate with a long island accent. Meaning you wouldn’t hear me say dog, coffee, horrible, Florida, orange, water, long with a long island accent. But I would pronounce the word “mad” with a long island accent - or I would pronounce Anna with an A similar to Apple, and not an A sound similar to Ham or Onna. I never worked something like that out of my accent because people can’t place them, especially in the absence of the more obvious signs.

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shasbot@reddit

Yea, a lot of people try to get rid of their accents to avoid judgement. My mother had a very pleasant regional accent that now I only hear when she talks with relatives. I find it a bit sad to see that happen to folks.

You probably don't mean it negatively, but the attitude in your second paragraph is part of why people feel pressured to give up their accent and culture.

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Ready_Corgi462@reddit

Aw, I typed a response touching on my experience purposely losing my regional accent and how it makes me sad to look back on now all the years later. Then I read your comment right after. Thanks for saying this, you never hear people talk about how it is sad!

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I was second, and it took me a year to get rid of it using PBS.

The vowels pop back in when I'm tired OR I'm talking to a trades worker. For some reason, my brain code switches when I talk about our plumbing or my car.

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VioletCombustion@reddit

'Channel 10" 😊

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KevrobLurker@reddit

...regional idioms...

Very, very true. It is nearly always socioeconomics that determines which accents are “preferred“ over others. Linguistically speaking, there is no reason at all that any dialect performs better than any other. AAVE, Appalachian and New England blue collar, as well as East London or cockney, are as rule-based, grammatically consistent, predictable and fully able to convey meaning as any other dialect spoken.

Kim Cattrall has always spoken so well.

hottakesandshitposts@reddit

People who use this form of English in America tend to think of it as having no accent, but they do sound different from the people that they claim do have accents

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Bubbly_Safety8791@reddit

So, American accents don’t have ‘class’ markers, just markers of education, confidence, regional background and economic success.

What do you think class is?

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jittery_raccoon@reddit

It's very different than how British accents work though. The accents there are extremely regional and class based from hundreds of years of families remaining the in the same class. Linguists with a good ear can actually tell with crazy precision exactly where someone grew up in England and what class they are. It's something you can't change with education

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Bubbly_Safety8791@reddit

This isn’t really as clear cut as all that. Class isn’t inherent even in the UK. For the most part middle class accent markers are indicators of good education, typically to university level. Upper class accent markers are indicators of elite education - public schools and elite universities.

Obviously people also pick up those accents from their parents so you can get a dropout who was brought up by high court judges who’s homeless on the street but speaks like Prince William, and you can get someone who grew up on a council estate but was sent to Cambridge and still talks like a market seller.

It’s honestly not that different to how US accents vary with education and family background. Why would it be?

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ASingleThreadofGold@reddit

I don't think our accents are from education at all though. Our accents in America are generally based on geography. Vocabulary is one thing but that's not an accent.

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Popular-Local8354@reddit

I think you miss the point. You can sound like a redneck but be speaking well and using big boy words and you’ll be seen as better than someone with a very rich New York accent using simple vocab.

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Kellaniax@reddit

Is there a rich New York accent? I feel like the stereotypical New York accents are perceived as more working class.

Some of my cousins on my dad’s side are rich New Yorkers and they have that generic General American accent that reporters and actors are taught to use. Meanwhile, my mom, who grew up poor in Queens, has a very stereotypical Queens accent and people definitely perceive her as lower class for it.

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Bubbly_Safety8791@reddit

Where did I say ‘class’ implies ‘better’?

There’s a classic British trope of the ‘upper class twit’ - Month Python has a sketch called ‘upper class twit of the year’; examples in comedy abound, like Hugh Laurie in Blackadder, or … Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster, etc.

An upper class accent combined with idiocy doesn’t take away the class.

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Yes, but this conversation was started in the context of a post about accent and class. The point is that we have class markers, and that they’re very different from yours.

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Bubbly_Safety8791@reddit

Don’t you think sometimes you ever infer those things from someone’s accent?

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I get what you’re saying. People will assume you’re stupid if you have a southern accent.

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ritchie70@reddit

You’re right for the most part.

People will assume that strong regional accents or subculture accents are indicative of less success and intelligence.

BanishedFromCanada@reddit

The last living speaker of "Boston Brahmin" might be John Lithgow

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Salarian_American@reddit

The transatlantic accent (also known as the mid-atlantic accent, which is confusing because there's an actual mid-atlantic accent) was completely made up, and then taught to rich kids in elite schools and by acting and voice coaches. That's the weird accent you hear in old movies. It didn't really survive the 1940s but it was a thing for about 20 years.

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jub-jub-bird@reddit

The transatlantic accent (also known as the mid-atlantic accent, which is confusing because there's an actual mid-atlantic accent) was completely made up.

This is a popular theory but isn't really true. It's true that the accent was taught in speech classes and posh boarding schools as the "proper" way to speak and many people adopted it as such.

But those speech coaches were promoting and to some degree systematizing an existing non-rhotic upper class accent (or accents) which had existed for at least a couple generations prior to their "invention" among the upper classes in the northeast. Many famous examples actually predate the invention and popularization of the invented accent. Old recordings of people like Henry Cabot Lodge Sr. are using this accent before William Tilly came along to invent it. And some of the most famous examples of all came before the publication of Edith Skinner Speaking with Distinction which was the book that popularized the formalized teaching of the accent in schools. For example perhaps the single most famous example of the accent is Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant especially in the movie 1940 movie The Philadelphia Story... which came out two years before the publication of Speaking with Distinction in 1942.

Kathrine Hepburn didn't learn her accent from a speaking coach. That was her natural accent that she grew up with as the product of wealthy parents in Connecticut. Cary Grant's accent likewise was the product of his mixed British/American upbringing. And you can see how the accent is explicitly used as a class marker in The Philadelphia Story. Grant and Hepburn playing the people born into elite "Philadelphia Main Line" upper classes have the accent. The self made millionaire and the reporter don't pointedly don't have the accent.

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Charlesinrichmond@reddit

It actually did survive in certain New York City private girls' schools, interestingly enough, at least to the 80s.

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TooManyDraculas@reddit

I had a teacher in the 90s who had been sent to a high end boarding school with an all French staff in the 50s and 60s.

And she was taught a Transatlantic accent, often with corporal enforcement. Also taught British spellings and grammar exclusively, and outside of English language subjects all classes were conducted in French.

I knew somebody with that accent back in the 90s. She must have been in her early sixties at the time.

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crinnaursa@reddit

completely made up, and then taught to rich kids in elite schools and by acting and voice coaches.

Which is pretty much the most posh thing ever. Catherine Hepburn had this accent.

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TooManyDraculas@reddit

There's no specific accent associated with the Mid-Atlantic Region. There's plenty of regional accents in the Mid-Atlantic.

The Mid-Atlantic is New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. Which is a hell of a set of varied regional accents.

The General American Accent comes largely from the Midwest, with some influence from Western New England. People mistake it as coming from somewhere in the Mid-Atlantic, largely because of how common it is there, and the New York based media's roll in proliferating it.

Where the Mid-Atlantic comes into it, it's as a third piece. From the areas of NY and PA that run into Western New England and the Upper Midwest. This is also why General Canadian sounds so similar, that developed in the parts of Canada right up against the spots where General American came from.

was completely made up, and then taught to rich kids in elite schools and by acting and voice coaches.

Not exactly. It grew out of American Elites sending their kids to be educated in Europe, and later to American Prep schools with European staff. There it was enforced on the kids as correct English. So it more or less grew out of what happens you teach rich kids from New England British English. Then just developed into it's own durable, natural accent. Multiple generations of people speaking that way, will just speak that way at home.

Foghorn Leghorn is lit

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JudgeWhoOverrules@reddit

The character is simply a Looney tunes version of a popular radio character of the time, Senator Claghorn from the Fred Allen show. It's not even a parody, Claghorn is just as boisterous and ridiculous especially in the "I'm from the south" routines

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CupcakeGoat@reddit

Wow I had no idea. TIL too

id actually argue jason isaac’s accent in white lotus is more so the upper class southern drawl, rather than parker posey’s. hers was more so a weird cross between mississippi sorority girl and drunken tidewater virginia non rhotic accent.

before i saw ur comment i was gon respond n disagree. since ive been dating n meeting new ppl, i can clock a baltimore, wv, va, philly, ny accent easily.

On that Transatlantic/Mid-Atlantic accent. A sort of artificial accent that developed among the upper classes in the North East. Originally as an outgrowth of rich kids being educated at prep schools with European staff or in Europe. So it was sort of an affectation, but was generally sort of enforced on people as the "proper" way to speak from a early age.

It combined features of upper class New England accents with the Received Pronunciation British accent.

It's pretty much died out, and mostly only exists in theatrical context today. That version often call "American Theater Standard".

Which is why "all bad guys sound British", and all those actors in the period pieces sound vaguely British. This accent is taught in performance training. Especially for stage actors, as it's frequently used for historic plays like Shakespeare, and anywhere a character is meant to be upper crust or nobility. Originally as a reference to how America's elite really did talk that, it's just a performance convention at this point.

Catherine Hepburn and FDR are the classic examples of widely known people with versions of Transatlantic accents.

Similarly. Foghorn Leghorn was a parody of/homage to Senator Claghorn. A fictional character parodying Southern elites and politicians. It's again something that faded but stuck around as narrative convention. Most recently appearing with the Knives Out Series, where Daniel Craig affects a version.

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p333p33p00p00boo@reddit

I don’t think we’re losing them at all.

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Just_curious4567@reddit

We are losing the southern accent because of mass migration to the south.

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SuzQP@reddit

Wait. You really don't hear a difference between "ken" and "can" in these rhyme examples?

We ken get that hen

We can get that man

3catlove@reddit

I’m from Iowa but have been told I sound like I’m from Chicago and/or North Dakota. I don’t personally don’t hear an accent when I hear people from Chicago speak so maybe I’m missing something. (Other than old SNL sketches - Da Bears.)

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Zaidswith@reddit

If you don't hear it that's because you probably have it and are used to it.

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uranium_geranium@reddit

It's me. I grew up in North Central Iowa. I sound like a Minnesotan. People out eat routinely ask if I'm Canadian. I'm also white trash 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

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earthdogmonster@reddit

I’m Minnesotan who talks to people all over the country regularly for work. Most people peg midwestern by listening to me talk, but it’s usually spread across MN, MI, and WI.

throwraW2@reddit

He from the south side? It definitely seems more common there in my experience.

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yeetskeetleet@reddit

Oswego, so yeah I guess so

yes now its called “General American” and is closely aligned with a proper Midwestern accent (Think Arizona, Nebraska, or Colorado and not Duluth).

When I started it was still MidAtlantic which is from the middle of the ocean; a mix of English and American. It is a bit posh sounding.

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BromaGrande@reddit

It's called the "mid-Atlantic accent." It happens to be my accent.

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Conscious-Magazine50@reddit

They have a lot of call centers in Tampa, Florida and one of the execs of one said one reason they started that was the lack of accent/average American accent there.

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WhichWitch9402@reddit

My mom was from Midwest and trained as a speech therapist. My dad was from New England and had a pronounced accent. I think I have a neutral/general American accent. I do get crap for pronouncing “aunt” as AH-nt instead of line the little insect. Mainly because my two New England aunts preferred that. Oh and a call a round about a “rotary” and say “top of the street”. I do occasionally hear the flat Chicago “a” sound pop up in my speech if I’ve been around my maternal cousins too long.

I would agree that America doesn’t have a “posh” accent and it has more to do with vocabulary and overall eloquence. I do have a large vocabulary and have been ribbed for it saying I was trying to be “snooty”. I’m just a nerd that was a sickly kid that read a lot. One summer I read A-Z of the World Book Encyclopedia (dating myself) and another I read the dictionary. A lot of it stuck.

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SquarelyNerves@reddit

Really? Not like… California?

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That's not what they mean. I'm Southern and went to a prep school that was one of the oldest in my state. Many people in my class who were locals didn't have the local Southern accent. The strong accent was associated with hillbillies and "county schools". And when the older money people did have accents, it still wasn't strong like the hillbilly people.

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NYCRealist@reddit

Really everywhere outside the South.

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mcjb@reddit

Which is why military brats are often mistaken for coming from money, when theyve just lived in bith coats and various spots in the mountains or Midwest prior to 12 lol

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Boner-brains@reddit

I think this is the answer

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GradStudent_Helper@reddit

Bring back the Mid-Atlantic (or Transatlantic) accent!

Traditionally, the Brooklyn accent was considered lower or working class, but it's been dying out.

Doortofreeside@reddit

Tbh that's the way most people in Boston speak. The Boston accent is a minority accent at this point with certain areas (often outside boston) where it's more common.

The Boston accent is definitely more blue collar so there is a class element to it and an even stronger generational element.

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donner_dinner_party@reddit

This is true. The most likely to have the accent are plumbers, electricians, painters I have found. It is delightful and I wish more people had it.

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There was a strong anti-Irish Catholic sentiment among the Boston elite. By JFK’s time their influence was dying the Kennedys were certainly wealthy and important enough to get and do anything they want, but they were an exception. JFK’s maternal grandfather, John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, eventually became mayor of Boston, but he was the son of an immigrant and he went to Boston College instead of Harvard. BC was started as an alternative to Harvard for wealthy Irish-American families.

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silviazbitch@reddit

Absolutely not!

And this is good old Boston The home of the bean and the cod, Where the Lowells talk to the Cabots, And the Cabots talk only to God

Well, they were, about 6 or 7 generations ago!

abouttothunder@reddit

No. Vocabulary is also an element, and pronunciation really matters. Strong local dialects are associated with lower SES (note: applies to the Northeast). And, those who have or attempt to have the regional "posh" accent shun the local working class pronunciations. For example, I said wooder for water as a child (grew up in a Philly burb), but I intentionally use the standard pronunciation as an adult. My baby sitter when I was in 3rd grade added a shadow "v" sound in front of her "r" when saying "right." That definitely wouldn't be considered posh.

TL/DR: There are a lot of little tells in vocabulary and pronunciation within regions, and each region will have it's own version of a posh accent. The general broadcast accent, which is now less common in broadcasting, is considered educated but not posh.

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connor42@reddit

No, for example posh people in Scotland have completely different accents to middle and lower classes, much closer to the south of England ‘traditional posh British accent’

This is a great comment to highlight the difference in the UK and US class system.

Wealth =/= class.

You can't buy posh

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Any_Translator6613@reddit

Right, and often posh can't buy much.

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Bubbly_Safety8791@reddit

Same applies to the archetypal British RP accent to be honest - young people don’t have it. Listen to Princes William or Harry compared to their father or grandfather and you’ll hear something very different.

That doesn’t mean they don’t have a ‘posh’ accent though. What a posh accent sounds like has changed.

Also the very proper New England, family came over on the Mayflower. Not an accent as much as a pompous cadence and extreme dedication to pronunciation. I imagine it is sometime spoken at Yale and Princeton reunions. I’m basically thinking of Richard Gilmore lol

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VioletVenable@reddit

My grandfather (son of a wealthy Georgian) spoke that way. My dad had a lower-key version, and I have hints of it, too.

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Zaidswith@reddit

It died out after the war doesn't mean it literally vanished overnight. That's some crazy literal interpretation.

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warneagle@reddit

It declined after the war when non-rhotic speech stopped being considered prestigious. Obviously it didn’t die out overnight but it’s basically gone now.

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IllustriousRanger934@reddit

Buddy you’re arguing nonsense. You said that accent doesn’t exist in Virginia, and then you said it existed in Richmond.

There are 4 distinct regions in VA that can be broken down to sub regions, and they all have some sort of historic accents that can be broken down even further, but it’s nonsensical to talk about how people from one town in Shenandoah talk from a town an hour north.

People from outside the south definitely equate today’s southern accent with the southern gentry, even though that’s wrong. People don’t actually talk like Gone with the Wind anymore.

And no, I never said the southern accent is dead. I’ve been arguing against that the entire time. Maybe if you left Montgomery, and touched some grass instead of playing with Pokémon cards, you’d find people that talk a certain way.

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Zaidswith@reddit

A bit hot headed, aren't you? But it's fun you've read enough of my profile to know I'm in Montgomery. I'm not from Montgomery though, and it's not a big city devoid of small southern influence or a tiny isolated place in the middle of nowhere that leads to isolation.

My entire point is that you're arguing against a claim that was never made. You agree that the southern aristocratic accent is mostly gone. That was the claim. You made the argument conflating that with the decline of all southern accents. You built a straw man to argue with because no one before you claimed it. You've since moved the goalposts recognizing the days of foghorn leghorn have ended.

And no, I've lived outside the south. No one thinks the generic southern accent is the southern gentry one. They just can't fake anything else so that's the one they put on. A mixture of Blanche Devereaux and a generic drawl.

I'm a little too old to have even the first set of Pokemon cards released in the US.

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dragonmuse@reddit

I'm def not trying to argue with you, just sharing some nerdy linguistic info I know as a native Virginian- but I would say the "Virginia" accent is dying instead of dead.

There is a distinct regional accent in Virginia known as the "Tidewater" accent. It is coastal and follows the rivers west into the piedmont and as far north as Triangle. It is basically a non-rhotic (r) "southern lite" "genteel". The "thick" Tidewater accent is pretty much only found in the 70+ native/rural community- but you can still hear markers of it in their kids. Listen to how a non-NoVA or non-appalachian Virginian says "Water" or "Mirror" or "Cattle". If it sounds like "Wooder/Wadder" or "Mir-rah" or "Kettle", you are hearing the tidewater accent. A's instead of E's in a lot of cases (Kara instead of Kira 🙄 (keeruh)) Important note that Richmond natives have some extra distinct characterists.

Go talk to a Newton or Sullivan family member in Stafford (I actually think its still quite common in Stafford, particularly in White Oak and Widewater), or a Lewis/Silver/Byrd family member in Fredericksburg, or a Townes/Ukrops/Dooley family member in Richmond- and you'll hear it. (It definitely is down in Hampton roads, VA Beach, etc- but I don't know any family names). If you talk to an oldddd rural King George resident, they damn near sound british-lite. Which is what the Tidewater accent is based off of.

My grandma's tidewater accent is very distinct. My mom you only really peg with specific words. I think I sound general Mid-atlantic, but non-southern friends peg me as "some type of southern" every time.

Its dead in NoVA. Obviously there are exceptions, but if you dig into it, I'd bet their family was established along the rivers or moved up from aquia or further south.

The (southern as opposed to ohio river valley/Pittsburgh dialect ) Appalachian accent is alive and well in Western Virginia.

Sorry for the info dump! Lol. Tidewater and Appalachian accents are a very niche interest of mine.

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IllustriousRanger934@reddit

I grew up in Hampton Roads, you’re right that the tidewater accent isn’t exactly dead, but finding anyone younger than 40 talking with it is rare.

I don't think Trae Crowder is the best example....I don't have a better one, but Trae's accent seems more upper-class Appalachian if that's a thing (it's not)...like more polished. Actual deep-in-the-hollers-Appalachian accents are difficult to understand, much in the same way a heavy Baltimore (Bal'mer) accent would be.

tierrassparkle@reddit

Tbh I'd say the Connecticut accent. Whatever it may be but every person I've met from Connecticut has a beautiful way of speaking clearly and eloquently.

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RupeThereItIs@reddit

We aggressively pretend to be a classless society.

The mere concept of a high class accent is an affront to our cultural core.

This is why we usually call our boss by their first name, and have dropped the shirt & tie in most industries.

It's patently offensive to be seen as defining yourself as a 'better class', thus our class distinctions are far more subtle & downplayed.

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Bubbly_Safety8791@reddit

Right, American accents don’t have class markers. That’s why Frasier and Niles sound exactly like their dad.

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They’re fictional characters based off of real life observances. Grammer and Hyde Pierce didn’t just come up with those accents just because they were funny. Those accents exist and that’s why it was funny. Boston Brahmin is a thing, as is old money east-coast prep education.

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lonelygayPhD@reddit

They don't sound like Martin to me. They have a mid-Atlantic accent that's a bit pretentious.

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Bubbly_Safety8791@reddit

1) well done for noticing. Maybe that was my point.

2) Americans tend to use the word pretentious when they mean posh. Frasier and Niles were not meant to be pretending to have Harvard psychiatry doctorates and like opera; those characters were really like that.

The difference between UK and American interpretation of class signals in accents comes down to this - Americans think anyone who has accent markers associated with education or wealth is ‘pretentious’. British people accept that some people are just like that.

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Crimble-Bimble@reddit

The Mid-Atlantic accent is not a regional accent in the US, it was created for Hollywood. It does not signify class to us because it is not real.

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Louisiana_sitar_club@reddit

A real American would say “different from the one in the UK”rather than “different to the one in the UK”. I do believe, ladies and gentlemen, we have found our British spy.

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AMA454@reddit

I’m from Texas but I live in London

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Louisiana_sitar_club@reddit

Well played, double agent AMA454. Well played.

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holytriplem@reddit

What about that New England preppy thing?

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MissDisplaced@reddit

Not true at all! And there are definitely at least three “posh” sounding accents.

The Mid-Atlantic (or Old Hollywood) accent. It’s a blend of British RP and American. It’s still used at Ivy League schools and old money places.
The Southern upper class accent
The “flat” Midwest (news anchor) which is actually no particular accent at all yet still very articulated and educated sounding, so it reads as being posh or authoritative.

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fakecoffeesnob@reddit

I have two ivy league degrees and I’ve spent plenty of time around old money types. I’ve never heard anything resembling a mid-Atlantic accent, certainly not from anyone below 70 years old. Modern old money speaks like Anderson Cooper, not Gloria Vanderbilt.

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Charlesinrichmond@reddit

It was present at my Ivy League school, but really only limited to Chapin, Spence, and Brearley.

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MissDisplaced@reddit

I still hear it occasionally around the Main Line horsey people. But it’s definitely fading out with younger generations.

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bigmt99@reddit

No, that really does not exist anymore. Never heard anyone talk like that unless they’re doing a bit
To an untrained ear, sounds exactly the same as a normal southern accent unless they’re exaggerating it for a comedy bit aka Calvin Candie from Django Unchained
Everyone I know talks with a flat midwestern accent.

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Curmudgy@reddit

The Mid-Atlantic ... It’s still used at Ivy League schools and old money places.

I question that, unless somehow it's been making a comeback. It wasn't at all common back in the 1970s. I can't say I hung out with any of the wealthy class but it's not as though I didn't know any of them or preppies in general.

We do have some that some parts of out country looks down on. Like an extremely thick rural southern accent to a Northerner, or an extremely Yankee accent to that same rural southerner.

But it's true, we don't have any agreed upon posh accent

It probably has something to do with how large our country is.

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America has, or has had, several upper-class accents, varying by region.

The classic 'Mid-Atlantic' accent, a hybrid of US and UK English created when rich Americans in the 1800s sent their children to study abroad (or hired tutors to come here). You've heard this accent in movies, newsreels, and radio from the 1930s/40s. It's mostly defunct now but lives on to some extent in the 'broadcaster voice' of TV news.
The Boston Brahmin accent, b belonging entirely to the old-money upper crust of Boston society. I think the last remaining full speakers are in their 90s.
The Georgia, Southern gentleman, or 'plantation' accent. The "Ah do declare, suh [I do declare, sir]" kind of thing you might have heard in Gone With the Wind. Most Southern accents are considered lower-class but this variety makes people think of white suits, mint juleps, and monocles.

Alert-Painting1164@reddit

Well that’s because money and class have little to do with each other in England. You can be upper class and have bad teeth and little money which in the U.S. you cannot do. The U.S. does not have a real upper Class accent and it’s all better for it. Weirdly in the U.K. I’ve noticed a rise of people really leaning into whatever accent they have. Some of the regional accents have become more pronounced and people who used to be middle class are now really leaning into trying to sound plummy.

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DiscombobulatedLie91@reddit

how is someone with no money upper class? i know nobles rarely exist in the UK anymore

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Carl_Schmitt@reddit

The funniest English show about lower class striving is Keeping Up Appearances, about Mrs Bucket (pronouced Bouquet). But now the upper classes all try to speak like street people.

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largemargesentme__-@reddit

Class and wealth are really two different things though. You can be high SES and make near the poverty line in the US. You can also be rich and considered a rube.

A lot of people forget that Lewinsky was from a wealthy family that emphasized education. She grew up in Brentwood and Beverly Hills, went to Beverly Hills High School, then transferred to Bel Air Prep before going to college. And it was a family connection that got her the White House internship.

There were posh accents but they've been dying out: The "Boston Brahmin" accent (. Charles Winchester III in M*A*S*H), The "Locust Valley Lockjaw" (Thurston Howell III), the mid-Atlantic accent you see used by reporters in the 1920s-1950s and by upper class people in old movies (Katherine Hepburn). It's called the mid-Atlantic accent because it's a non-rhotic American accent which was heavily influenced by the posh British accent thus the accent of some theoretical point half-way between Britain and the USA.

There are two big class axes in America, education and money. There is a lot of overlap, but it’s not perfect.

Politically, those who over-index on education tend to vote blue and gravitate to three types of areas: big coastal cities, college towns, and areas of natural beauty. These people tend to all lose their regional accents and adopt a more generic American accent, with a large vocabulary. They brag about travel, care about food, and downplay money (often because they don’t have as much as they think they deserve)

When you say “Southern posh accent”, I know exactly what you mean, that dropped r Carolina “This flowuh is wiltin’ in the hahd heat” accent.

Comedienne Jeanne Robertson is a great example.

https://youtu.be/ZhlKPK1B1Qg?si=a0YqfDIb7L5sBrMx

Sadly, this accent is nearly dead. It is hard to find anyone under 50 with this accent these days.

Best i can do.

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lorddragonstrike@reddit

Thats lower class new england coastie accent. You cant open your teeth when speaking for the posh one. Smile like the joker but teeth closed with no r's. Also, why use five words when one will do.

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riarws@reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/4dwjs1/til_that_the_stereotypical_upperclass_american/

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tmanred@reddit

“It's chowder”

https://youtu.be/2-bbYH_akHg?si=eRlkPGyp_CeQ_LLo

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Ecstatic-Seesaw-1007@reddit

There’s no “neutral accent”.

That’s what I’m terming the media accent, in linguistic anthropology (at least when I was in college) it was labeled as the Western accent, which was a melting pot blend as you go towards the west coast in the US.

In reality, now, it’s more of a media accent. TV, News, movies, etc.

But even that has changed, especially as tech moguls have started to use the media to get billions from investors.

Look at Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos. She modulated her voice and character to emulate Steve Jobs. Notably a pitch shift in her code switch.

Youtubers and influencers and the archetypes for influencers, the Kardashians, have also heavily influenced speech and cadence for what really poor people think wealth, taste, influence sounds like.

Trump has also really changed the image poorer people expect in America. More and more politicians have begun to emulate his one word sentences: terrific, beautiful, etc.

It’s been rapidly evolving.

In general:

I’d say college educated people are influenced easily by tech moguls that talk around in circles about esoteric points.
Under-educated people are influenced more and more by simpler, watered down speakers and people that speak with disdain towards everyone else.

It’s made this branching view of class in America.

When I think of proper posh talk, I think firstly of New England old money elites. People for whom work is an amusing diversion that they use to fill the time & have something to jovially laugh about at cocktail parties. The kind of people who have a summer house in Nantucket or on Cape Cod and a yacht or two in the harbor. Some sectors of New York high society also come to mind. Old Southern Posh is like Gone With The Wind.

Here's some examples that sound posh:

The Kennedys (not the idiot currently ruining the Dept of HHS, but the others like Jack & Robert)

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Thurston Howell III & Mrs. Howell from Gilligan's Island

Charles Winchester III from MASH

Louis Winthorpe III from Trading Places (sooo many IIIs...)

Maude Lebowski from The Big Lebowski (She said when she was devising the character that she wanted her to sound like she spent time in a boarding school)

Frasier from Cheers & Frasier

“Too many accents regionally”

What are you comparing that to, exactly? More regional accents than the UK?! 😂😂

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Dudewtf87@reddit

Put it to you this way: I live in Cleveland, OH, right on the south shore of Lake Erie. Our accent, exemplified by someone like Tom Hanks(never left the west side, did ya Tom?) is a light but decidedly great lakes accent. You go 2 hours south to the state capital of Columbus, you run into what is generally considered the most neutral American English accent generally mimicked by American newscasters, and exemplified by folks like Robin Meade and Kirk Herbstreit, both Columbus natives. You go two hours-ish west/northwest into southern Michigan you start encountering stronger great lakes accents, not quite as notable as Wisconsin or Minnesota or even the Upper Penninsula, but it's definitely there. You go two hours southeast into Pittsburgh, you get the Yinzer, a mix of English, Dutch and inbreeding.

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BlaggartDiggletyDonk@reddit

Tom Hanks is from San Francisco. IIRC, the old San Francisco accent was this neutral 'back east' accent that was at odds with the rest of NorCal.

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Dudewtf87@reddit

I hear it as a Clevelander, especially when he talks about baseball. It's how "Carnagie"(one of the cross streets of our ball park) becomes "Car-NAG-ee"

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Key_Telephone2336@reddit

Certainly that true, and I love the specificity of the examples. In the UK that huge variation happens over much much smaller distances. It’s a way older country, where language evolved before ease of travel, and long before national media where anyone had exposure to other accents. A 20 mile distance in the UK can come with an accent change that is baffling to hear, completely with an entirely different vocabulary and idioms.

A) Historically that might be true, but is it still?

B) I hear similar claims made about certain regions in the US (usually regions as big as or larger than the UK). Older Texans will say things like this, for instance. Texas is 3x as large as the UK.

C) They probably have more accents relative to size of the country, sure. But that wasn’t the claim.

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SneakyCroc@reddit

Yes. It is still true.

It is not a competition and you're the only one who decided to bring up UK accents as a comparison.

PomPomMom93@reddit

Oh yeah, never drive that sort of distance with the mindset to “make good time”! If I’m driving like that, it will be so I can see the country!

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Not totally related, but what's interesting to me is that even a "neutral" American accent usually has tells for where the person is from (at least in a broad sense). Here where I live the "neutral" accent tends to use more rounded back vowels, have more low back vowel distinctions, and have Canadian raising.

So even someone with a "neutral" accent often still has some regional flair which I find very interesting. Though I do wonder if these accents will become more distinct with time or (due to media and connectedness) if they will become more and more similar.

On a more related note, I do agree that regional accents often face a lot of stigma with many being unfairly viewed as "low class" or "uneducated", though I do think there are some regional accents that aren't necessarily viewed this way.

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TimeProfessional7120@reddit

Interesting observation! There might be something to that.

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Key_Project5763@reddit

New Orleans has this as well.

For instance, I am from Michigan. We probably sound exactly the same as people from NYC, except, we sometimes mix up the double “t” sound with “d” sounds, so “Kitten” sounds more like “kiddin.”

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Kielbasa_Nunchucka@reddit

the Trans-Atlantic accent popularized in the golden age of movies is probably what you're looking for. but I've met high-class hillbillies out this way too.

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Revolutionary-You449@reddit

Silence

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Spiritual-Fig5706@reddit

It’s California vocal fry. I.e. the kardashians and every LA nepo kid

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BigReception7685@reddit

There are accents that get stereotyped as inelegant, but we don't really have a designated 'posh' accent. It's more just average association or below.

Boston Brahmin

It’s a specific type of “Boston Brahmin” accent associated with the type of people who live on Beacon Hill, go to Harvard, etc…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Brahmin

Not to be confused with the type of accent you’d hear from Good Will Hunting, Mystic River, or the Departed

Example: (the sea monstah) https://youtu.be/8n2cIeIpzLA

from: fancy a biscuit or crumpet with your tea, Miss Twiddlytwinks?

As much as there’s some joking about this in the replies, this is actually how it was with old films. It’s called the Transatlantic Accent or “Good American Speech”, and it was a consciously learned accent used primarily in acting and radio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_American_Speech

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Mikellow@reddit

I thought Niles in Frasier was just fancy as a kid.

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WhiskeyDeltaBravo1@reddit

Quite right! Jolly good observation! Brilliant!*

ljculver64@reddit

😂

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Categorically_@reddit

Ello gov'na!

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DonGately@reddit

No, there really is an Ivy League accent. Nasal, pretentious, dominant.

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g-burn@reddit

MAIYBEE THA DYINGOWS AITE YOAH BAIYBEE

Having "no" accent (the standard tv American accent)

It's not really considered posh, but if you don't talk like that, you're considered "uneducated."

Here, it's less about sounding posh, and more about who sounds the most hillbilly, i guess

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WaitWhatIMissedThat@reddit

Like other comments have said, we don’t really have “posh accents” like you guys do. But I’d say the closest example to US people who “sound posh” (or at least rich/well-educated etc) would be the Pierce family from Succession.

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GiantSaintEverything@reddit

Emily Gilmore.

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CarterG4@reddit

British

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Catripruo@reddit

Vocabulary, grammar, coherence, and confidence are what count. Confidence comes through by not using a lot of ums, and ers.

I think we enjoy the variety of accents.

Oh — and not use “like” every other word.

I always think that British “posh” accents implies upbringing. As in you were born into a wealthy, aristocratic family. The United States has people with all sorts of accents who are judged more on their education.

I was the Union rep at my job. We were union technologists and researchers. A very education level of Union workers. Some doctors made the mistake of judging some New York accents as being low class and stupid, much to their chagrin.

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Velvet_Cyberpunk@reddit

East coast New England, or Mid Atlantic. You know how they talk in the old 1930s films? Katherine Hepburn is a good example. That's a good example of a Mid Atlantic accent.

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dorkpool@reddit

Having no accent is the posh

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bi_polar2bear@reddit

We don't have a posh accent. I've met very rich, some CEO's, and generational wealth. They come from such a diverse background. America truly does give anyone a chance to become wealthy from nothing. From small start ups, oil, or toy inventors, to Wall Street and real estate tycoons. Some start from nothing, some have parents that helped, but they don't come from certain areas of the country. I knew a mult millionaire who sounded and looked like he lived in a mobile home in backwoods Mississippi, coveralls, work boots, and old ball cap. He designed and manufactured light ballasts for lights and sold world wide. He had a his and he garage, cement floor on the 2nd floor, a grand staircase, and an elevator. Dude was a down to earth as you could get. And he shopped at Walmart and ate at Waffle House. On the flip side, I met an oil tycoon from New Orleans who treated everyone like they were beneath him, because he left home at 15 with 37 cents in his pocket. He was the largest asshole I ever met, and had a New Orleans accent with a southern flair to it.

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Cryptidly@reddit

IMO we have less of a posh accent and more a spectrum of “low class” (not my thoughts) accents. A lot of people have prejudice against for example: AAVE, Southern accents, immigrants, valley girls, excessive use of filler words, etc. some people might train themselves out of speaking with those accent features. From there on it’s more about speaking with confidence and being able to articulate oneself well to bring about further respect.

If we’re being funny/sarcastic we’ll parrot a posh English or Parisian accent.

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EMHemingway1899@reddit

I have a fairly good command of the English language, so I try to choose my words carefully

I’m trying to stop using slang words like “gonna”

I have a pronounced Appalachian twang, which I like but which a lot of people find funny

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Ok_Hovercraft4528@reddit

Nowadays the upper class will oftentimes be very plain and generic sounding basically just a general American accent the only time you really see someone with a noticeable accent it's either because they come from a wealthy rural family and have the same country accent a poor person from that region would have or it's some politician or celebrity faking an accent thinking it makes them seem more like the common man. Outside of that the only upper class accent I can think of that's really noticeable is the California valley girl accent but that's not scene as posh for a lot of people it's the exact opposite

Part of that is due to a lot of the wealthy elites being neuve riche and part of it is the increase in movement as well as tv and internet consumption leading to people sounding more and more like each other. Back in the day the most noticeable accents for the elites was the mid Atlantic but that's nearly dead and way back the upper class Southern accent but political, economic and cultural changes left that in the past.

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SugarsBoogers@reddit

I have known the extremely wealthy who grew up going to boarding schools around the world, and they have a very particular accent that is like American tinged with English, but some other hard to identify flavors in there too. International school in Hong Kong, maybe some Swiss, you get the idea. But I’ve never seen it reproduced in media, and it’s been so long I couldn’t describe it now.

Sober_Navajo1996@reddit

I’d say it’s more of a class thing than a local thing. Especially if they’re in social isolation really only interacting with people of the same upper classes as themselves

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Prestigious-Talk1112@reddit

In America we don't have like a class system as much as the UK does ...not hardly. I mean there are upper class people but we just kind of put things in terms of rich or poor. What that means is some people become inside the wealthy but their accent doesn't indicate it.

There's an old Southern accent where you could sound like you might have money but then there's poor people that have that accent too so I don't think we really have a definitely posh accent.

I think up in New England they do have an accent that is known to be very wealthy ( NorthEastern Elite) and it sounds a tad bit British but I don't personally have contact with somebody who has that accent because I live in the South.

Eh I believe that I understand how you think but I very much disagree.

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Adventurous_Crab_761@reddit

I used to attend a bunch of snooty dinner parties and worked a bit in donor relations. Spent a good chunk of my 20's feeling like an extra in Walt Stillman's Metropolitan, LOL. I once had a conversation with a guy who made fun of a lower class party attendee about how he held his silverware. So, it's okay if we disagree.

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Spiritual_Air_31@reddit

I think that you are correct about the Northeastern Elite accent. It's what I thought of when I first read the OP; it's how people like William F. Buckley Jr or Gore Vidal used to speak. I think it's something that was mainly taught in elite boarding schools in the first half of the twentieth century, so it's not very prevalent nowadays.

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riktigtmaxat@reddit

There is absolutely a class system. It's just that the US upper class doesn't really have any class.

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On_my_last_spoon@reddit

It’s not the same. In the US, we have more of a possibility to change our class. Whereas the UK has a sort of baked in permanent upper class in the Peerage system. Even if you’ve lost all your money, if you still have your title you’re “better” than some people.

People who made their money any time after that, would technically be considered “Bourgeoisie” or “Nouveau Riche”; they had to make their money. Consider Industrialists. If you can picture a stereotypical Texan in a white “ten gallon hat”, you’ll see how absurd it is to have an Oil Tycoon to speak according to your definition of posh. But I assure you, that man has A LOT of money.

We do have a class system, the wealthy just do not associate with the poor though so most of us aren't living our daily lives in contact with them

In Minnesota there is a city where the wealthy live where you're not even allowed into the city without having an invitation. Their kids go to private school, and the most wealthy often send kids to boarding schools, and they go to ivy League colleges before getting high paying jobs with their parents friends. They stay within their own circles.

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No-Needleworker-1388@reddit

Manhattan, or Boston coastal maybe (Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard).

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Normal-Emotion9152@reddit

There really is not an equivalent in the usa. It is more of the verbage being used. I guess a Californian accent to a lesser extent but not really.

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KevrobLurker@reddit

Tom Wolfe on the New York Honk.

https://nymag.com/article/tom-wolfe-new-york-accent-honks-wonks.html

Id say now its probably California Beverly hills with a vocal fry.

For a long time it was north eastern, like think Kennedy or women from Grey gardens.

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Unrelated, but "born in the 90s" took me out (I'm a 97 baby and I'm not used to that being significant).

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ForestOranges@reddit

You’re almost 30… Gen Alpha is gonna think you Mrs a grandma

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ZaphodG@reddit

Sure, but you’re treating American business English as a foreign language. For me, it’s the only English I speak.

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ForestOranges@reddit

They aren’t entirely different languages, but they are considered recognized dialects of American English. For some Americans, those dialects are their natural way of talking just like how business English is natural for you.

For someone that grew up in a super segregated area, Business English is almost like a second language they only use at school. When writing an essay at school they have to “translate” what they want to say into “academic” or “business” language.

In my small town business English was the standard way of talking, but if I went 15 minutes away into the city I’d get laughed at for how I talk because it sounds “white.” My cousins who grew up in the city also used to make fun of me and had a harder time connecting with me because of it. My one cousin used to call me “the King of England” because I used business English.

And then you have Miami, my favorite example. Linguists have identified a new dialect there. It’s basically speaking English but with a lot of direct translations from Spanish. You’re not “married to” someone in Miami, you’re “married with” someone. You don’t throw a party, you “make a party.” A police officer won’t ask you to exit or step out of the vehicle, they’ll tell you to “get down” from the car. And linguists know it’s an actual dialect and not just “broken English” because native English speakers from Miami use these phrases too.

So no, they aren’t different languages, but they’re recognized dialects and for some Americans, it’s literally how they naturally talk.

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and re: other markers of posh/upper class: etiquette classes are still taught (cotillion for early teenagers for example, debutante balls in the south for university aged girls), and the idea that billionaires are the upper echelon of society in the entire usa is laughable, because you cant buy your way into the class system in your immediate generation. perhaps 2, 3, 4 generations down the line of wealth can get you close, but it’s never immediate. that is the biggest difference between posh in the us and posh in the uk: your kids have a chance to move up in socioeconomic class if you do well for yourself.

i think theres a general recognition of lower class accents, even if people will deny the existence of an upper class, and sometimes regional accents get a bad rep for no reason; see: appalachian or east coast city accents like baltimore, philly, new york, and boston. i imagine it is probably much the same as the general accent discrimination that people from liverpool, manchester, and northern cities experience, to name the ones off the top of my head that im familiar with that have working class connotations to their accents.

there’s also the intersection between class and race and accent, but that’s a whole other beast of its own. black people in a region will sometimes have a completely different accent than white people in the same region - lowkey it gets kinda crazy. you hear a lot of the accent differences between races in the south, as there was insane amounts of segregation/redlining of neighborhoods, and general non-interaction on social levels for decades. richmond and atlanta are big examples of the accent switch between white city natives and black city natives.

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DotYeg@reddit

There used to be a Mid-Atlantic accent, mostly used by Holywood to make characters sound "sophisticated" without sounding British.

Green_Evening@reddit

The Frasier accent.

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vi_sucks@reddit

There isn't one.

There sort of used to be back when FDR was growing up, for example, there was a mid-Atlantic accent that all the rich east coast elites picked up from their private boarding schools and from going to the same Ivy League schools.

But since about the 50s, that went away because the centers of wealth and status stopped being intensely concentrated into a single region.

So accent isnt really as much of a signifier of class in the US as it is in the UK. It's more of a purely regional thing, so that a rich Southern California girl will have a different accent than a rich guy from the Midwest, who will have a different accent from a rich person from New York City, etc.

bryku@reddit

There isn't one.

Accents cover a much larger region in the USA, so most people within that area will have that accent regardless of their wealth, status, or education.

That being said, sometimes the lack of an accent might indicate wealth. This isn't always accurate, but you tend to see it more often than not.

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Ok-Hat-8759@reddit

If I had to name a “posh” accent, I would say something along the lines of tidewater Virginia, Or even Louisiana / Mississippi, that southern plantation owner.

ThatInAHat@reddit

The closest thing I can think of would be a transatlantic accent, but it’s a little old-timey.

There was a version of it called the "Mid-Atlantic Accent" or "transatlantic accent" that was very popular among elite circles from the 1920-1950s. It was a basically an artificially constructed accent used for first radio and then in movies. It was taught in elite private boarding schools in the Northeast and in colleges and universities (Ivy Leagues).

Almost all the stars/movies of Old Hollywood spoke in that accent for films. Likewise, well to do political figures from that era all spoke like that too. The Roosevelts and Kennedys being notable examples.

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Neferknitti@reddit

I need to look up that episode. That sounds hilarious!

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JumpingJacks1234@reddit

Yes! Back then it was not unusual to hear those posh American accents from real people in the media. I had no idea at the time that those accents were on the way out.

The character Tom Wambsgams from Succession might be a fictional example of a midwesterner who went to an Ivy League college and adopted a mild Eastern posh accent as an adult without going full trans-Atlantic.

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SpiroEstelo@reddit

We, of course, make fun of posh British people in America as well with our best, "Most indubitably, my good sir," that we can muster. However, if your talking about upper class accents originating in America, the best modern day example I can think of is a slightly deepened, casually confident, perfectly clear and grammatically correct, almost narrated, white male voice that basically says, "My credit score is over 800, and all of my bills are paid on time," without actually saying it. This voice is carefree, deliberate, articulate, and slow because he has already achieved all of his goals in life and just wants to play golf after watching his son's American football game then drive home in his expensive European car with a bag of thousands of dollars worth of golf clubs in the trunk. His biggest issues in life are not improving at golf and his debit card not scanning.

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KikiCorwin@reddit

A fake "transatlantic" accent like a Golden Age movie star or the Roosevelts. It's a learned accent.

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Lokidemon@reddit

Emphasis on words, slower rate of speaking, enunciating, using words correctly and in the right context work for me.

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Terry93D@reddit

we don't really have a posh accent anymore. we used to: one was the "Boston Brahmin" accent of Jack Kennedy and his ilk. another was the trans-Atlantic/mid-Atlantic accent, an artificial creation that proliferated in Hollywood and was passed to the children of the societal upper-crust—so you'll hear it all over movies of the period, as well as in the voices of William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal.

finally, and this actually can carry a class connotation sometimes, there is the "Deep South" accent, something akin to what Daniel Craig does for Benoit Blanc in the Knives Out films. you might also call this the "Big Daddy Plantation Owner" voice; inasmuch as it has a class connotation, it is not necessarily a positive one.

I think this would be better answered on a linguistics sub reddit.

brilliantpants@reddit

I think it’s less that we have accents that are specifically considered posh, and more that we have accents that are considered low class/poor/uneducated.

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TissueOfLies@reddit

I would say that someone without the trace of a discernible accent is more upper crust. Like how broadcasters must sound more midwest. I knew someone from NYC whose father made her get allocution lessons to erase her heavy accent.

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don_teegee@reddit

I grew up believing that wealthy people sounded like Thurston and Lovey Howell on Gilligan’s Island.

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serpentjaguar@reddit

There isn't one. There used to be a handful of accents associated with the elite along the east coast, but they've mostly died out.

The closest thing we have is speaking grammatically correct American English with a fairly large vocabulary in a way that indicates higher education.

Conversely, there are a lot of regional and ethnic working class accents.

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berriobvious@reddit

I think Christine Baranski has a very posh accent, which isn't necessarily as unmarked as the "standard accent"

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Clopidee@reddit

The way Emily, Richard, and all of their society friends speak on Gilmore Girls, is what I think of as American Posh accent.

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bignotion@reddit

Though it’s mostly gone now, he used to be the Larchmont lockjaw. Still exist in pockets though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_elite_accent

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ToneThugsNHarmony@reddit

Wouldn’t say there’s a way posh people talk, but there are certain words/phrases you could say that would immediately let everyone know that you aren’t “posh.”

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deepsigh8@reddit

Holland Taylor’s accent in Legally Blonde.

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Background-Bad9449@reddit

Frazier and Niles Crane

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Mededitor@reddit

The "Boston Brahmin" accent (think William F Buckley) was long considered a sign of erudition. Maybe 30 years ago that held true. But in general terms, less-preferred accents are those that pinpoint you to a specific location. The way Sylvester Stallone speaks, for example, puts him in a fairly small district in Philadelphia. Senator John N. Kennedy has this Foghorn Leghorn deep Louisiana drawl that makes him sound like a backwater hayseed,

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I always think that whatever accent news anchors are using is generally the "posh" accent. Many people in broadcasting make a conscious effort to eliminate their accent, so whatever is left is probably the "posh" one?

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socom18@reddit

If there is one, the wealthy New Englander is probably it.

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OldEnuff2No@reddit

Not speaking with a heavy southern accent either. Sadly.

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seejay13@reddit

William F. Buckley used to sound like he was English

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MaxSmartypantz@reddit

The accent is "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?????"

I don't know how much it's still a thing, but I know the South historically had an accent difference (I'm sure there's technical names, but think "yee-haw!" Southern vs "I do declare" Southern). The posh Northeastern accent (the weird one you hear in old-timey movies) is dead. I don't know if the Midwest, Northwest, and Southwest ever had posh accents.

These days, a stronger regional accent is usually an indicator of lower class status, whereas wealthier people tend to have fainter, more neutral accents. But that's not really a reliable indicator of wealth, even middle class people have pretty neutral accents these days

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electric29@reddit

Gore Vidal.

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Calaveras-Metal@reddit

There is a northeast accent that a lot of politicians have. This started to decline in the 80s and 90s. But we still have examples in people like Mitt Romney. It's distinct from the typical New England accent that runs a spectrum from Peter Griffin to South Boston.

In the South we have a hilarious contrived posh accent. It's a weird combination of north east upper middle class, but with just a touch of southern twang. What makes me laugh is what happens when a speaker encounters a word they aren't sure to twang or enunciate so they kind of do both at the same time. Usually adding a syllable.

My favorite example is how they say New Orleans.

Most of us say New Ore Lenz. Some say Nawlinz.

But a proper posh Southerner hits all the vowels on the way out the door. New Ore lee unz. With a weird hesitation in the middle of the second word that is almost a schwa.

My dad does this when we are in uptown company. But around people of a similar background he reverts to New Ore lenz.

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CartoonChibiBlogger@reddit

Some people would consider Southern accents posh, like a Southern Belle.

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PutYrPoliticsUpYrBum@reddit

In the US, having "no" accent is upper class, and having a thick regional accent from anywhere is lower class. Especially southern or country accents.

I don’t think there is an accent that telegraphs I’m super rich.

There are norms for how you communicate in business but not how you sound while taking amongst friends.

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canthinkof123@reddit

I don’t see that anyone’s said this yet so I’m gonna assume it’s an unpopular opinion. At least in the early 2000’s the valley girl accent seemed to me to be the posh accent in the US. I still see it as the “influencer accent”. Key feature being the vocal fry.

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jvc1011@reddit

We don’t have a single posh accent so much as we have accents that are looked down on (Appalachian, for instance).

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246lehat135@reddit

When I think of a posh American accent the only thing my elder millennial brain goes to is Fraser and Niles Crane.

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Bargle-Nawdle-Zouss@reddit

There's no such thing, especially since the so-called Harvard accent has disappeared.

It is more about sentence construction, correct grammar, and possibly the use of more obscure, more formal words.

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Stop_Drop_Scroll@reddit

The Boston Brahmin accent. My dad still has some weird vestiges of it, definitely didn’t grow up rich though lol can’t is “cahn’t”, he says “shahn’t” shouldn’t. Interesting linguistic tic.

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Riker_Omega_Three@reddit

There isn't one

The old money people in Texas sound way different than the old money people in New York

They difference is old money people typically have a more refined education and that refined education makes them sound more put together...or as you would call it "posh"

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OodalollyOodalolly@reddit

I definitely feel there is a more refined way of speaking but perhaps it’s more about tone, volume, control and thoughtfulness. Perhaps like Lady Gaga, Meryl Streep, Hector Elizondo comes to mind. Viola Davis, Dolly Parton, James Earl Jones… all different accents but they have a dignified way.

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fairwinds2025@reddit

Their ain’t one

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Ok_Annual6021@reddit

As a lot of replies have said, America doesn’t really have a “posh” accent, but heavy versions of the accents from any region of the states tend to be associated with poverty or working class backgrounds.

That said, there IS a set of accents I would argue is viewed as a “neutral accent” and thus seen as the most trustworthy/pleasant, and that would be the accents found primarily in the Western states. I lived in Utah for a while in my early 20s and there’s a LOT of call centers there, that was the bulk of available work where I lived that wasn’t factory or construction. Most actors and other entertainment personalities will use this accent, and only use “non-neutral” accents if they’re playing a character whose regional identity is important. I did acting in college in Alabama and almost none of us used our “natural” Southern accents on stage because of this.

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WhereNextCols@reddit

lackawanna lockjaw dialect

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Emotional_Tip3888@reddit

the golf club crowd

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Dave_A480@reddit

At one point it was a NYC accent.....

But there really isn't one anymore since all you need to be rich is 5-10 years at one of the big tech firms.....

And most of our presently super rich earned it in their own lifetime (again, tech industry) rather than inheriting multiple generations of wealth.....

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Pixelated_Penguin808@reddit

We used to have one actually, but it fell out of use because it was somewhat affected and a product of upper class schooling, where students were trained in elocution and public speaking. It was thought superior for that.

Watch "Gone With The Wind" and that'll give you an idea of what a "posh" American accent sounded like.

It's called the Trans-Atlantic Accent, though lost popularity around the 40's.

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poopiebutt505@reddit

New England accents, West Coast accents. Northern Great Plains. Not Southern accents. Not Noth Midwest. Not Oklahoma, Texas Appalacian, Ozark states.

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bartokat@reddit

I find it really funny how many people are calling out the Mid-Atlantic accent as posh. I'm honestly not sure what that is but I've lived my whole life in Baltimore, smack dab in the middle of the Mid-Atlantic, and our regional accent is the furthest thing I can think of from posh. Linguists have speculated that it evolved from Cockney or East Midlands because of our shared port city heritage.

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drdpr8rbrts@reddit

In the US, our equivalent of RP is the midwest neutral accent (what TV broadcasters use.)

But we're at least nominally an egalitarian society where we don't have social classes. (Yes, I realize the UK actually has better social mobility.)

But at least attitude-wise, we don't have an accent that indicates higher social stature.

Perhaps vocabulary can indicate elitism. But in America, we also respect plainspoken people. Using too many big words can backfire and make you sound like an a-hole.

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hermitinbeige@reddit

Basically extinct but the transatlantic accent you hear in old movies

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D3moknight@reddit

We don't have an accent that indicates someone is "posh." Basically anyone could sound like they are from any region and be ridiculously wealthy and you wouldn't necessarily be able to know without them telling you directly. Some of the most backwoods, redneck-sounding people you could imagine are multimillionaires, and some of the most educated and neutral-sounding accented people are barely making ends meet.

ryguymcsly@reddit

There’s a certain New England old money accent that comes to mind. It has a hint of your British “posh,” a little hint of Boston, and a lot of hard enunciation. It’s weirdly a little nasal.

If you want to hear some examples of what it used to sound like in the 60s and 70s go no further than old speeches by JFK and George HW Bush.

It’s less nasal now but still has rounded vowels and very sharp consonants. It’s often called an Ivy League accent in certain circles because people also pick it up at Harvard and Yale.

https://youtu.be/QTjkQ1_BYt4

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SkyerKayJay1958@reddit

Any TV anchor. The non accent is the sound of educated wealth

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Neeneehill@reddit

Are you old enough to remember the Friends episode where Phoebe meets Mikes parents for the first time?

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AcitizenOfNightvale@reddit

Primarily has to do with grammar and vocabulary more than anything. That being said, when I’m around upperclass folks I drop most of my southern accent in favor of my more European influenced accent I picked up from growing up in a international community. Also add in more vocal fry.

Our accents are more connected to region than socioeconomic status. There isn’t really a “posh” accent here.

In my region of North Texas, rich people look and sound very much like everyone else. They don’t wear expensive clothing. They wear jeans and t-shirts and boots. They don’t wear expensive watches. They drive the same Ford F150 truck as everyone else. They sound the same, they talk the same, as everyone else. You can’t pick them out of a crowd. You don’t know they’re rich until they take you home to their 5000 square foot house that is decorated like hobby lobby threw up in it.

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The correct answer is Mid-Atlantic, but that doesn’t really exist anymore.

The closest you come is to appear to not have an accent unless you are intentionally trying to have an accent(Politicians do it all the time).

For example, the “Boston accent” is nonexistent in Boston and really only found in more blue color communities outside the city. I’d argue that accents are dying overall. Children are exposed to a lot more speech with TV and the Internet compared to when the only speech they were exposed to was their parents, local community,radio…etc

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machagogo@reddit

There is not really a distinct accent, and we don't use the term "posh" either.

thegabster2000@reddit

Grew up in the south all my life. I noticed a lot of native Floridians have a bit of southern twang. Same thing where I grew up in Virginia. As you moved up and made more money, a lot of people just sounded 'normal'.

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GSilky@reddit

It used to be Transatlantic, you could still hear it in the 70s on TV and radio. The affectation today made my dad think they are pretending to be gay. It's a considered way of speaking, hard to explain.

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CODMAN627@reddit

It’s not necessarily the accent that makes someone posh here. It’s the words they use someone who who speaks with a high vocabulary is highly indicative of a well educated background.

Go watch any of Barack Obama’s speeches and you’ll see what I mean.

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ForestOranges@reddit

As others have said, the “posh” accents have died off. Also, class is much different than the UK. You guys call Adele low class even though she’s rich just because she grew up poor. You guys will also look at a poor person and consider them “upper class” if they grew up privileged and have a fancy accent, even if they live off the dole as an adult.

As a POC my answer for “posh” is being able to toggle between slang/informal speech in casual/social situations and being able to snap right back into standard English with no strong accent or slang when you’re at work or it’s a serious/formal situation. With friends or other young coworker I might say “I ain’t finna do all that” but I would never say that to my boss, I would say “I can’t get that done today.”

Human_Copy_4355@reddit

Southern accent has been the opposite of posh but it's changed. Now, there's not really low-class accent anymore.

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ALLoftheFancyPants@reddit

Generally speaking, the less identifiable an American accent is, the more “posh” it is. If you can immediately tell someone is from SoCal, Wisconsin, Boston, or the Deep South, for example, they didn’t go to prestigious schools that taught them to speak without the accent.

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Churlish_Performer@reddit

As people have already pointed out, it's a lack thereof that really distinguishes. To add a bit more to that point, it's moreso a way of speaking - succinct, direct, with eye contact. Short delivery, expressing an accuracy and a purpose. If you're going to be funny, you'd best be universally funny. If you're going to be serious, you'd best deliver the news without impunity or coarseness - and above all, may only your threats be vague.

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AnitaIvanaMartini@reddit

It’s called “Long Island Lockjaw” and it’s the accent of “old money,” summer houses in the Hamptons, or Block Island, boarding schools, and families with oil portraits of five generations, big hairy dogs, Swiss nannies, and three-story libraries they actually use, plus 1967 VW Beetles the kids drive up to Cambridge or New Haven. Their grammar and manners are impeccable, and they make you feel comfortable, never ”less than.”

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secrerofficeninja@reddit

I can say it’s not possible for people with a southern US or Texas accent to sound “posh”. They can sound intelligent but not posh.

Hmmm……I guess the only posh American accent is made up in Hollywood. It’s a pretentious choice of wording from “old money” rich people but now the you ask, I guess I have a hard time thinking of real world people.

Maybe anyone you hear speaking at the Oscar Awards.

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lakeorjanzo@reddit

The posh people accent would be to have no noticeable accent and just speak in a neutral American accent

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SuperiorGrapefruit@reddit

Depends. I’m from the south and old southern accents with dropped rs often signify coming from older money

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No_One113812@reddit

It’s about vocabulary, speaking skills, and bearing in the US. There is also no ideal accent. That said, there are “trashy” accents, and vernaculars which are looked down upon, but without a corresponding aspirational high class accent.

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Intelligent_Wait3988@reddit

The United States is so big and varied that I would say it is hard to pin down.

ladyorthetiger0@reddit

Mid Atlantic and Trans Atlantic accents are not the same thing even remotely.

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cthulhu_on_my_lawn@reddit

Agreed. William F. Buckley is a good example of the sort of transatlantic/Mid-Atlantic accent. You can watch a few clips of Firing Line for an example.

There's also an episode of Cheers where Kate Mulgrew (aka Janeway from Voyager( plays a real upper class Bostonian.

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kaemos13@reddit

The mid-Atlantic accent is the first thing that comes to mind, that Katherine Hepburn/Cary Grant accent. It’s not natural at all. Speakers were taught it.

Whatever George Plimpton’s accent was, that was posh, lol. His Simpsons appearance was excellent.

There are some accents in both New England and the South that sound like their houses have decorative columns around them, lol.

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Lovebeingadad54321@reddit

Google mid-Atlantic accent… it isn’t even a real accent, it’s something for TVand movies.

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New England Hyannis aka “Kennedy accent” or Maine’s “Bush accent” and New York “Manhattan elite” accents like the ones you’ll hear the private schools, country clubs and financial centers. You don’t hear the accent as much as we used to, but when you hear it you won’t forget it. The “Valley girl” accent of California is often associated with the rich people who live there though again it isn’t heard as much.

A lot American rich have purposefully choose to speak like poor people. You’ll see they avoid wearing extravagant clothing and at least in public speak with the old accents they used. Mainly to avoid getting caught by poor people of being “different” a lot of American politicians of the patrician class avoid it because especially the old RINO wing of the GOP. So that country club elite simply eschew their accent and use social issues to target their opponents.

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Someone trying to sound posh is more likely to come across as trashy.

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Jazzvinyl59@reddit

There is the “Trans-Atlantic” accent which was a cultivated way of speaking that incorporated elements of RP and the Old Yankee accent associated with upper class white Protestants in New England. It was generally something learned in prep schools and passed down in upper class families until the mid 20th century.

Notable speakers were Franklin D Roosevelt, Jaqueline Kennedy-Onassis, and Katherine Hepburn.

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Candleforce-9728@reddit

There are upper class and lower class Southern accents. But otherwise speak like a news anchor.

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UncleOdious@reddit

Mid-Atlantic like George Plimpton.

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damageplan72@reddit

A "flat" or non-localized American accent can occasionally indicate that a person "of a higher class" in that it indicates that person is "white collar". My understanding is that Texas oil money is an exception to this.

There aren't any posh accents in the US.

There are accents which will unfortunately be seen as low class though.

Probably the black american accent has the worst stereotypes followed by the white southern accent. If you have strong southern or black accents, it can be harder to get certain jobs and people will think you're uneducated.

Chicano (no foo instead of no fool), california "valley girl," minnesotan (dontcha know), italian NY accents (think sopranos), jewish NY accents (sounds very nasaly), and boston accents (paak ya caa) are not exactly standard english accents and may have stereotypes associated with them (california = airhead, jewish = annoying, italian or boston = working class, chicano = esse) but I don't think you'd struggle to get a job with those accents or anything.

Most other native english accents in the US will face no issues whatsoever and don't even have any stereotypes associated with them. Like if you're from Ohio no one is going to think you're posh, but you'll just be seen as generic accent.

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pakrat1967@reddit

Jim Backus. Many of his characters, in particular Mr Howell on Gilligan's Island. Poked fun at the posh people. Another good example is how Dan Akroyd and his friends at the beginning of the movie talk.

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StopNowThink@reddit

It's subtle at times, but I think Ed Bolian of VinWiki is a good example. Iirc he started as a car dealer who wanted to sell really nice cars, so he taught himself how to speak "highbrow". He articulates and annunciates well. When he says "comfortable" he uses all 4 syllables.

Adventurous-Chef8776@reddit

The Harvard accents the Kennedys all had was seen as upper class at one point.Therevwas the Mid Atlantic accent but it wasn't a natural accent. When talkies became popular a lot of stars had bad speaking voices so they created a US version of RP English and taught it to actors

Grace Kelly and Katherine Hepburn are two famous examples of the accent. It almost sounds British but not quite.

The current administration affects white working class rudimentary speech to appeal to it's uneducated base.

Class in the US is a money thing -- and US billionaires tend to be illiterate thugs . . .

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datsyukianleeks@reddit

It's regional and generational, and very specific. In New England there is a transatlantic accent in older generations that basically sounds like a highly affected British accent. In South Carolina, and this one persists to this day, there is among men a kind of flamboyant genteel southern accent (that makes a lot of non Carolinians gaydars go off incorrectly). Those are the only 2 that I am aware of.

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TerminatorAuschwitz@reddit

like this

Really tho there isn't one.

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s7o0a0p@reddit

Ironically enough, I think a “valley girl” type of accent, with vocal fry and some stereotypical Southern Californian attributes, is often what rich young people are perceived to talk like.

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billymondy5806@reddit

Melania!

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tenehemia@reddit

Probably the one that more people than any other would call posh is a Mid-Atlantic accent. It achieved this notoriety largely because it was the accent used by mid-20th century movie stars in their films. In many ways Mid-Atlantic isn't an accent but an attempt to create a way of speaking that is without accent. At the same time Hollywood was employing the accent, it was also being academically codified as the "correct" way of speaking, first and chiefly by a man named William Tilly (who, fun fact, was actually an Australian himself).

Into the late 20th century, Mid-Atlantic fell out of favor in entertainment specifically because it felt too posh and stuffy and popular movie stars started being known for distinctive and even "improper" ways of speaking. This decline left the accent largely to academics who insisted on its "proper" distinction and that's shaken down over time to the point where if you hear someone who speaks that way you assume that they had the kind of childhood that would result in that accent, which could nearly only be from wealth, private schooling, etc.

Within specific regions there are other accents that are recognized as posh or at least posh in comparison to other local accents, but which people from elsewhere in the country wouldn't recognize as "posh". Like many Americans can't tell different Southern accents apart, but Southerners absolutely can and there's a loose social hierarchy around them. Where I'm from in Minnesota there's something similar and the "Minnesota accent" as seen in movies like Fargo is more common in the rural parts of the state and is certainly viewed in less lofty terms than the less extreme version of the accent that you're more likely to hear in large cities. But most people in the country couldn't tell the difference.

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Potential_Minute_409@reddit

As someone from rural Minnesota who moved to the cities later in life l, this was my first thought.

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ShelbyDriver@reddit

You can't tell how much money someone has by their accent. You can tell how educated they are by the way they talk; as in the words and grammar they use, not the accent.

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There's no exact equivalent, because we don't have a hereditary class system. The closest thing would be a general North American accent, because that's what you hear in metro areas where the population is made up of people who moved there from all over the country/world.

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AdrianArmbruster@reddit

IanDOsmond@reddit

General American, the one that people are taught when they learn American English.

The United States has developed into a country where upper class people don't want to appear upper class. So General American is the baseline. All other accents may be seen as charming or fun or having character, but that makes them less posh.

We used to have posh accents like Mid-Atlantic and Boston Brahman, but they stopped being used in the latter 20th century.

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brak-0666@reddit

It's more about being well-spoken than having the right accent. You want to sound articulate, not posh.

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Lakonikus@reddit

Watch Frasier.

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scrappybasket@reddit

It depends man. That’s like asking for the posh people accent of Europe

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Yankee_chef_nen@reddit

We really don’t have accents considered “posh” anymore. Due to mass media the “general American accent” is supplanting regional accents. We don’t use the word “posh” either, we do know what it means though.

One accent I haven’t mentioned which was considered a wealthy accent was the Patrician Boston accent. Think Major Charles Winchester on the TV show “MASH”.

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humble-meercat@reddit

There are so many accents in the US that “upper class” is more what you speak about and your vocabulary than an accent.

Conversely, there are definitely certain vocabulary patterns that can mark you as coming from a working class background. There’s the obvious “redneck” accent that varies by region but is easily identifiable. Not knowing when to not remark on other people’s money is a dead giveaway. Appearing overly impressed by people’s things is more subtle but you can tell. Mispronunciation is a big one. Dropping the”to be” in a sentence is another, for example “that needs warshed” or “that needs cleaned”. Or “I axed him about it” instead of “asked”.

A Ivy league, upper class Boston accent.

One regional accent that is usually associated with wealth is Boston Brahmin, which is very different than the better known “pahk ya cah” Boston accent. A close example of Boston Brahmin is John F Kennedy.

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Silver_Prompt7132@reddit

Never have I ever thought of Emma Watson’s accent as anything other than “British”. Y’all be weird about your accents.

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27ce@reddit

valley girl?

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I think we just consider all British accents posh. At least I do.

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ElectricalTwist4083@reddit

Our accents are regional but from there they do have some distinctions. There is also a large divide between ‘class’ and ‘wealth’. Plenty of trashy people can attain wealth in the U.S. this does not mean they are cultured. The ‘posh’ in the U.S. are usually defined by their measured, well annunciated manor of speech as opposed to a particular accent or idiosyncrasy.

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Sataypufft@reddit

On the East Coast there's a small but distinct WASPy accent from the old money parts of New England. In the mid Atlantic there's a specific lilt to the accent of folks from old money in DC/MD/VA. It's pretty regional and the best way I could describe it is 'Virginia Gentleman' but it's there and when you hear it, you'll know it. It's fading out pretty rapidly though. I don't hear it much from the under 60 crowd these days.

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alicelestial@reddit

being from california, there isn't really one here? there's some minor differences in speech throughout the state, but usually the accents are so subtle it's not like you can immediately figure out where the person is from or if they're poor. it's more often racists will be judgy to hispanic and latino people with accents and stuff like that. but i hear non-american accents more than any different american accents, but having a southern accent will get you stared at sometimes. but that's an accent from a decent distance away.

Northern accents. Southern is the poor and stupid half

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Curious-Cranberry-27@reddit

This isn’t a thing in most of the US.

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bloopidupe@reddit

I had a great aunt who was an actor during the 50s and up and she spoke kind of in mid-Atlantic and that was very posh.

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Dazzling-Trick-1627@reddit

Here it’s not about accents. The distinction is more about whether or not you conjugate all of your verbs correctly.

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TectonicMongoose@reddit

That's a very good question. We used to have an accent that they taught at East Coast boarding schools that was sort of post but no one has spoke it for decades. It varies a bit by region but our presidents John F Kennedy and Franklin D Roosevelt spoke these. They were non rhotic (r dropping) and some of them sounded somewhat similar to a British RP accent. One was s called the Boston Brahmin accent.

https://youtu.be/lK8gYGg0dkE?si=7UObyh0NGu9sqfqf here is FDR.

Here is jfk

https://youtu.be/3YWIIV19U70?si=4Of-k8CqCG265PWG

They are really fun accents I kind of wish they were still around but there are maybe 3 105 year olds that might still speak it.

Here is the Boston Brahmin accent from a 80s linguistics documentary. One of the speakers might have gone to school in the UK but people that never studied in the UK also spoke it. They actually talk about their accent and how it's declining and thereay only be 1000 people left that speak it.

https://youtu.be/HwvONJXJUO4?si=zg2x9iz-HqRvLIdX

There would have been nonrhotic upperclass southern accents too in all the major port cities. If you skip to the "United States " section there is a map of cities where over 50% of White American speakers spoke nonrhotically at one point. Only a few of these cities are still nonrhotic however.

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LeGranMeaulnes@reddit

the Brahmin dialect of Boston?

Almost non-existent now, but Franklin D. Roosevelt's and William F. Buckley Jr.'s accents sounded as close to your "posh" to my ears. Today, the "Broadcast Accent" is as close as it gets. Even many television journalists have veered away from it.

I agree with the poster about the Mid-Atlantic accent, as long as there's no heavy Philadelphia or New York City area influences. Compared to some accents, there are fewer sentence crutches and upward inflections used.

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PomPomMom93@reddit

Do we have this?

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1029394756abc@reddit

Movie accents. Posh accents. What’s next.

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Delicious-Ad5856@reddit

Whatever the Main Line accent is. Those people do sound different from those of us who live around the Main Line.

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panthian@reddit

Well, New York City and Boston have distinctive dialects. Those cities are very expensive places to live. It doesn't necessarily mean someone is well-off if they're from those areas, but they certainly have good opportunities available. Southern accents, on the other hand, typically make people sound less wealthy and intelligent even if that's not true for everyone.

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