I have a question for the Brits out there. Would you say that Rupert's native British accent has changed over the years? How so? Any and all details would be much appreciated. Thanks!!
[We asked @awisecherryblossomstudent (@FillouAnne on Twitter) from the @notourhomeland crew to answer this. She is a lecturer in English at a university in England, so we think we found the right girl!] *
How lovely to be invited to explore Rupert’s style of speech and its evolution over time!
In a Reddit chat in 2015 he declared, “I can do lots of voices. People think I am a very serious guy but what I REALLY want to do is silly voices.” One thing about Rupert is that he is very interested in language and enjoys playing around with different accents (his Scottish one was amazing in Stryka!). So, looking into the matter of his speech patterns…
The earliest interview I found (for The Libertine in 2004) served as my base, and features a classic relaxed style of speech in the London/Southern England vein. There are many glottal stops (not pronouncing the final “t” in “got,” “part,” or “about”). This continues to be a feature of Rupert’s speech, always mixed with a good deal of emphatic dental pronunciation (for words he really likes such as “exciting,” “create,” “fascinating,” and “dictum”). The standard English pronunciation of “Peter” is with a strong dental “t,” and Rupert generally pronounces it this way. See the post-S6 finale Facebook Q&A, although just once, at the end, he pronounces it the American way! For a beautiful example of “Britishness” listen to him say ‘Peter Quinn packs tuna fish’ in the SAG awards interview from 2016.
But how far is he being influenced by living and working in the States? Generally his accent has remained remarkably unchanged. In terms of vocabulary, he noticeably uses “aeroplane” and “plane” rather than “airplane,” for instance. And he still (usually) says “kind of” rather than “kinda.” While he does use “Americanisms” such as “awesome” and “badass,” these are so widespread that they are hardly diagnostic. More significant is the way he occasionally pronounces words in an American way, such as “moustache” (Standard English is “mus-tarsh”) and “premiere” (Standard English is “premy-aire”) in the 2015 interview for Hitman 47.
This trend continues, so that in his 2017 Facebook Q&A there is an increasingly slack treatment of the medial “t” in “Capitol Hill,” “bittersweet,” “political,” and even “British.” He also uses “gotten” (where Standard English would be “got”). Most dramatically of all, in a 2017 CBS This Morning interview he says “semi-paralysed” as “sem-eye” (Standard English is “sem-ee”). Clearly, even though much of his accent remains unchanged, slowly and surely the edges are being worn off!
* All of the double quotation marks above were originally single quotation marks in @awisecherryblossomstudent’s original draft. Sara didn’t realize it’s the British convention to use single quotation marks. #donoteditenglishteachers! Kinda (ahem, kind of) funny in the context of the post so I left it as is. - Cynthia
titsay
romaincrisis
yousharknotpass
