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Irish people talking like US teenagers?

bobbyss

Heard a Martin Kenny TD on the radio last week (never heard of him before) talking about something or other and noticed very clearly an American influence whereby he finishes his sentences with a question kind of tone?
The way some Americans do? Especially teenagers?

I found this surprising as a debate in the Dail last year (where he said something like 'after I done a lot of research...') he showed no evidence of this frailty at all. Does Micheal Martin suffer the same?

Invariably if you listen to the radio or tv across the spectrum this kind of use of language is pervasive. Miriam O'Callaghan is particularly guilty here. Yet strangely in England I note it little used compared to here. What explains this?

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amtc

I have a very middle class northside accent...a Castleknock accent...and i call my mother mom!

Funny about different nationalities though...my cousin in Australia...when we were minding him my mother him not to be bold and put something in the press. He looked at her blankly until she changed the words to naughty and cupboard. Plus my grandfather got cautioned in Australia for asking for rooting powder for plants. Apparently means something different!

s7ryf3925pivug

Klinkhammer wrote: »

I think we're talking about the type of accent that Eoghan Murphy has. No one over the age of 50 talks like that.

Looked that up. Personally I sound more like Brian O'Driscoll. Not sure if it's a different accent or not. I stand by my points regardless.

Think this thread is giving me a headache. I'll leave you with my final thought, which is that anger about other people's accents is nonsensical.

retro:electro

There are two US exchange students in my class and they have that really annoying raspy vocal try. Why any right minded person would want to sound like that is beyond me. I feel so overtly Irish around them and totally amp it up. Holybetajayustisyourself

Klinkhammer

Kohen Green Servant wrote: »

Looked that up. Personally I sound more like Brian O'Driscoll.

Your whole point was that you felt it was an attack on middle class southsiders and now you're telling us that you talk like a middle class northsider.

Stovepipe

Callan's pisstake of Varadkar and Eoghan Murphy is just perfect.

Stovepipe

Regarding middle class, a teacher of mine defined it as the class of people for whom going to college is regarded as automatic, so it's not regarded as up for discussion; college attendance is expected, as if it were a right and not a privilege. A middle class person expects to enter a non-manual professional job, such as the law, Civil Service, medicine, academia and/or private employment. A working class person does not automatically expect to get to third level, expects to get a manual job via an apprenticeship. It's all about expectations, really.

Charles Babbage

Klinkhammer wrote: »

Your whole point was that you felt it was an attack on middle class southsiders and now you're telling us that you talk like a middle class northsider.

You can't be slagging middle class northsiders, they are a rare species unsure of their own place in the world.

bobbyss

whatever99 wrote: »

A lot of Irish teenagers have slight American accents these days. It’s really grating.

And the use of “mom”. The only people I heard using that while growing up were people from Irish-speaking areas, as that’s what mother sounds like in Irish.

It’s definitely a result of too much American television.

I don't know. Someone said Mary Lou McDonald speaks like this although I have not noticed that myself. I definitely heard Micheal Martin speak thus. Miriam yes.

But Mary Lou and Michael Martin are hardly sitting down to reruns of Friends or iCarly? Why are adults speaking like this? We can understand the young ones. They hopefully will grow out of it. But adults should have a bit of cop on about themselves.

DickSwiveller

bobbyss wrote: »

I don't know. Someone said Mary Lou McDonald speaks like this although I have not noticed that myself. I definitely heard Micheal Martin speak thus. Miriam yes.

But Mary Lou and Michael Martin are hardly sitting down to reruns of Friends or iCarly? Why are adults speaking like this? We can understand the young ones. They hopefully will grow out of it. But adults should have a bit of cop on about themselves.

Mary Lou definitely speaks with the inflection at the end of a sentence. Just youtube some of her comments in the Dail.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Klinkhammer wrote: »

No they weren't. Are you saying your grandparents talk with a Mid-atlantic accent because I bet they don't.

It was certainly around at the beginning of RTE. In fact in general from listening to old programs I think Irish people enunciated better back then. The schools enforced it.

Franz Von Peppercorn

By the way the American uptick has been replaced by the vocal fry, which is the lowest of the human registers and a fall off in the last sentence.

So low that the vocal cords barely move and it can sound like a bubble, or popping sound. When the Irish kids pick that up, it’s time to worry.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocal_fry_register

Klinkhammer

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

It was certainly around at the beginning of RTE. In fact in general from listening to old programs I think Irish people enunciated better back then. The schools enforced it.

The RTE accent was way more British sounding than whats happening now.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Klinkhammer wrote: »

The RTE accent was way more British sounding than whats happening now.

Maybe but it was also what was then mid Atlantic accent. As in that accent was more British than American.

[Deleted User]

Haven't heard many Irish people say "mom", although I think this version always has been common in the North.

As far as I can hear Irish people use 'Mam' less than they used to. "Mum" seems to have become standard, as is notable from most advertisements.

Your Face

I remember awhile ago there was that awful trend of people in Ireland adopting an antipodean intonation.
Instead of flatly finishing a sentence, the tone was raised a bit at the end and sounded like a question.

Klinkhammer

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Maybe but it was also what was then mid Atlantic accent. As in that accent was more British than American.

That's true. The younger generation are going way more American with it now though.

Every English speaker is going to end up speaking the same because of the internet anyway.

whatever99

It’s not just the inflection at the end of sentences that I’m talking about. It’s the American accents that are prevalent amongst (mainly) people younger than mid-20s. And I don’t live in Dublin, so it’s not just a version of the D4 accent. It’s cringey and extremely grating. I don’t think they’d sound American to Americans, but they certainly sound American to me. They come across as vacuous, reality tv-obsessed and as being heavily influenced by the Kardashians, for example.

A lot of my friends who have children are called “mom” by their children. When I was growing up in the 80s & 90s, everyone called their mother mam or mum.

Chrongen

SmartinMartin wrote: »

I really don't like the American influence on accents here, but my hatred is reserved especially for those who start a sentence with 'So...', and those who speak of past events in the present tense. Horrible bastards.

This burns my ass.

"So it's Saturday afternoon and I'm driving to town...."

It's not it's fcuking wednesday and you're standing in front of me trying to tell me what you did last weekend you turd.

I also loathe those crappy phrases that have crept into the vernacular. Crap like "the wow factor", "my comfort zone", "I did a 180", etc.

Suck me!

Chrongen

whatever99 wrote: »

A lot of Irish teenagers have slight American accents these days. It’s really grating.

And the use of “mom”. The only people I heard using that while growing up were people from Irish-speaking areas, as that’s what mother sounds like in Irish.

It’s definitely a result of too much American television.

How the fcuk does "Mo mhathair" sound like "Mom"?

dxhound2005

I'm happy to report that there is no sign of this in Co Louth. The Dundalk and Drogheda accents are thriving, as are the local accents elsewhere with their variations every five or ten miles. And listening to the three hurling pundits on the radio today, including John Mullane, local accents are in fine fettle down South as well.

whatever99

Chrongen wrote: »

How the fcuk does "Mo mhathair" sound like "Mom"?

I was talking about mamaí/mam.

Mamaí (or shortened to mam) is another way of saying mammy/mam in Irish, and it’s pronounced “mom”.

Skedaddle

Language tends to morph. Short of closing down the internet, banning non-Irish television programming, shutting down the international phone connections and banning foreign travel, our accents are inevitably going to change a bit.

In reality, Ireland's accents are actually clinging on pretty strongly considering the huge influence of US media on culture in English.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Chrongen wrote: »

This burns my ass.

"So it's Saturday afternoon and I'm driving to town...."

It's not it's fcuking wednesday and you're standing in front of me trying to tell me what you did last weekend you turd.

I also loathe those crappy phrases that have crept into the vernacular. Crap like "the wow factor", "my comfort zone", "I did a 180", etc.

Suck me!

The historic present. Grammatically correct.

Gwynplaine

Heard a lad say 'my bad' in a strong waterford accent one night. I started to blush and had to walk away.

dresden8

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Then there’s the use of that appalling American neologism “OK” for yes, or alright.

What does it even mean? What’s the O and K mean?

It's short for okie dokie.

dresden8

Kohen Green Servant wrote: »

This is just bashing southside Dublin people. I'm from southside Dublin and am regularly taken to be American because my accent sounds that way to some people. (It doesn't sound that way to Americans though.) It's not an affectation or me imitating US TV shows. When I grew up we only had a few channels and the content was mainly English or Irish. It's just my accent, get over it.

People from higher status backgrounds have more geographically homogenous accents. People from poorer areas have more regional accents. It's not an American accent, it's a middle class accent some people associate with Americans. So really this boils down to reverse snobbery and bashing people because of where they're from.

You should have a posh English accent. Like Lord Ross of Stepaside.

Sam Kade

freshpopcorn wrote: »

A guy I went to school with used often talk about the shopping cart, parking lot, the trunk and the sidewalk. He just watched to much American TV!

Looks like he wasn't the only one.

Pero_Bueno

Nothing new, Irish teenagers/20s especially girls have been speaking with this D4/Beverly hills accent for 20+ years now ..
tossers

SEPT 23 1989

Has Wibbs posted yet?

Its a topic that rattles his cage

Rala_

A lot of people with a chip on the shoulder in this forum. South Dublin is awesome.