What is it with Americans and English accents? No Brit can be in the US for more than a few days before one of the natives will burst out with the declaration that they "love your accent". Usually women, which may have something to do with the female urge for self-improvement, or flattery.
But it is completely wrong-headed. Because there are also plenty of Americans - usually, but not exclusively, men - who take just as much delight in mocking Brits for their accent. Their idea of wit is to go as posh as they can and produce their idea of a cartoon English upper-class twit. So any American who really got their wish and acquired an English accent would soon find themselves on the receiving end of this ribaldry.
So which is it to be? Is an English accent a good or a bad thing?
My current riposte to any US jokers is to point out that they too have an English accent, it's just that it's the one people used to have in Britain 200 or 300 years ago. We Brits have moved on, I tell 'em, but Americans are stuck in the 17th or 18th centry, accent-wise.
And it's true. If Shakespeare were to return to earth, he would find the American accent far more congenial than the strangulated, back of the throat tones that middle-class southern Brits spout.
Maybe it's time for American's to develop their own accent, not one borrowed from their former colonial masters, whom they pretend to despise.
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