"That Dumb-Ass Euro Accent" (long article)

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     This long article is reprinted for scholarly purposes only.
     From the New York Observer, 17 January 2000, pg. 1, cols. 1-2:

_Thank Kyeew!  Madonna's Phony Accent_
_Is the Latest Fashionable Thing_
By Amy Larocca
     Most people think it all started with Madonna.  It was subtle: She'd
take the stage of an awards show, and before you could hear it: "Thank
_kyeew_.  Thank _kyeew_."  Suddenly she wasn't some naughty Catholic girl
from the Motor City.  She sounded sort of...continental.  All proper, with
flourishes thrown in, in unexpected places.
     Take her speech at the 1998 VH1-_Vogue_ Fashion Awards where Donatella
Versace and Sting presented her with the Gianni Versace Personal Style Award.
 She was dressed in a sari and was barefoot.  "Gianni Versace was a great
talent, and it's an honor to receive this award in his name.  Especially from
two people I'm so very fond of."
     She was hyper-enunciating.  Until she came to the end.  Then it almost
sounded translated--like she said "_vahhry fohnd_."
     "If I hadn't known that she started out as an American, I would've said
she was an English person who wanted to sound like an American and made it
part of the way," said George Jochnowitz, a professor of linguistics at City
Univeristy's College of Staten Island, when asked to explain the Material
Girl's dialect.
     Some have taken to calling it mid-Atlantic English, by which they don't
mean the language of Pennsylvania.  "It's like you've spent so much time on
the Concorde you're all caught up in the middle," explained Hannah Lawrence,
director of public relations at Helmut Lang who really _is_ from London.
Picture Gwyneth Paltrow over international waters--with _Emma_, _Sliding
Doors_, _Shakespeare in Love_ and countless cover photo shoots behind
her--not exactly
(Continued on pg. 11, cols. 1-3, as "That Dumb-Ass Euro Accent"--ed.)
sure how to pronounce the word "really."
     As far as anyone can tell, the Concorde accent was picked up on the
_faah-shion_ show circuit and brought to America.  It has quickly spread
through the mastheads of the fashion books--where in the lower ranks they're
trying to make you think they went straight from Vassar to _Vogue_ via a year
abroad in Venice--and beyond.  Very Institut Le Rosey.
     It says, "I'm interesting--or at least you're not sure that I'm not."
And it's fun.  With her Audrey Hepburn affectation--part leftovers from being
cast British, part proof that she's a serious actress--Ms. Paltrow never
shows up out of character.  With Madonna's dialect from nowhere--part
imitating the Italians who dress her, part "I _can act_!"--she gets some kind
of mysterious one-woman-without-a-language mystique.
     It's Grace Kelly or Katharine Hepburn cross-pollinated with
double-cheek-kissing Ingrid Bergman.  It's ending sentences with an innocent
little Italian "_no_?"  Or using words like "_shall_" and "_quite_" and
giving them a rhythm.
     "It's probably because of the way I was brought up," lilted freelance
fashion consultant Polly Mellen--who is always being told she sounds somewhat
British.  "Probably because I always went to private school and had a really,
sort of, very, how can I say it, _priv-i-leged_ education and life.  I was
really sort of packed in cotton."
     Candy Pratts Price, creative director of the 1999 VH1-_Vogue_ Fashion
Awards, said her biggest offense is saying "_taahsel_" instead of "tassel."
"I didn't go to public school, you know," she said.
     Some claim it's an accident.  "Every now and then I'll catch myself,"
admitted Lee Carter, editor of _Hint_, an on-line fashion magazine.  "Like
one time I said '_claahs_,' when I meant to say 'class.'  And I was like, 'Oh
no!'  It just happened.  It was definitely not conscious.  I was like, that's
so fake and phony, I've got to stop doing this!  I think it has to do with
wanting to sound professional."
     But it always sounds affected.  "It's certainly not the case that most
people beyond teenage automatically shift their English fast if they go to
another area," said Bill Stewart, a professor of linguistics at City
University.  "They would have to make a conscious effort to do so.  And they
would often not get it right."
     "You can tell when it's put on because people think it's chi-chi," said
Ms. Mellon.  "I mean, there's a woman in a very, very big, big job and _she
never used to talk like that_.  That's easy to spot, and that's usually
younger people who are learning."
     Sam Chwat, director of New York Speech Improvement Services, usually
works with actors preparing for a role.  But nowadays, he said, some of his
clients are just preparing for their roles in life.  "There's snob
appeal...Since this whole Madonna thing started, we've had a few more clients
looking for British accents.  We try and warn people if they're American and
adopting British accents, it's going to sound phony.  And they're going to be
found out."
     Nonetheless, the clients know what they want.  "I had a client who was a
man in his 50's, a C.E.O. in the fashion industry," said Mr. Chwat, "and he
had a very, very strong New York accent which he felt was an industry joke,
that here he was, Armani-clad and otherwise elegant and powerful, and his
speech was belying his image.  He had an Italian-based, Tony Danza-type
accent.  Now if you met this guy, you would swear that he was vaguely
continental.  That he did not go to school in this country."
     In other words, he just sounds sort of expensively confused.  It's the
occasional--but not uniform--"_cahn't_" instead of "_can't_," or "_rilly_"
instead of "_really_."  But it's there.  It's a softening of vowels, it's
keeping T's as pinpointed little T's instead of allowing them to morph into
thudding D's.  "One of the most consistent differences between British and
American speech is what you do with a T in between two vowels," said Mr.
Jochnowitz.  "Like 'nom-i-na-ted.'  Most Americans use a sound that's closer
to 'D.'"
     According to Mr. Jochnowitz, Americans trying to sound British tend to
first soften their A sounds into "ah" sounds, and then drop their R's.
"People in fashion have to speak about their product all the time," he said,
as he watched a tape of _Vogue_ editor at large Andre Leon Talley
commentating on last summer's couture collections in Paris.  Mr. Talley was
speaking loudly and clearly.  Each word was distinct.  He rarely pronounced
the letter R, "again" was "a-gain." "_Sweat-ah_," "_trouse-ah_."  And his
voice rose up and down like a song or a chant.
     "He starts with an R-less dialect," the professor explained.  "Which
sounds like part of a native Southern accent.  (Mr. Talley is, in fact, from
the South.)  The fact that he's R-less but doesn't sound like a Southerner is
what gives the suggestion that he's British.  He also speaks very precisely,
which is, I guess, a professional thing, but has a British association,
whereas we think of SOutherners as being somewhat relaxed.  But fashion
people are always describing, making a point.  You have the necessity to be
clear in order to make your point.  And that might explain why you would make
sure you have all your differences in pitch, and why you keep all your
consonants."
     In the travel-heavy fashion industry, it's easily explained away time
and again.  "After traveling different places, especially when you go to
London and you're in that environment and you're around fashion in that area,
you definitely pick up words and things like that," said April Hughes, an
editor at _Elle_.  "And living in New York, you pick up a little from
everything.  It's an influence from old-school fashionistas like DIana
Vreeland, it's what designers are saying this season--like Michael Kors is
saying 'Palm Bitch,' so suddenly you're into that.  And it's an influence
that's definitely European.  Mostly British."
     Once the accent and rhythms are down, the fashion lexicon becomes very
important.  "At one time, certainly, French words had cachet," said Old Navy
spokesman Carrie Donovan, whose voice warbles up high like a schoolteacher.
Provided that school is Brearley and the year is 1949.  "Like something
having _chien_ meant something."  Ms. Donovan's voice turned wistful.
(F.Y.I.: It means it was chic.)  "But I think that phase is sort of gone."
     Right now, it's pretty much unanimous that--unless you're ordering
coffee or being sort of _ironic_--foreign phrases are out.  But "genius" and
"brilliant" don't seem to be budging in popularity.  The royal "we" is an
important part of the dialect.  "It's, you know, 'We're loving pink this
year.'  I think it's gracious.  You don't come back as a reporter and say, 'I
saw pink.'  It means _Vogue_ says stilettos, not Missy so-and-so says
stilettos, _Vogue_ did, and that's a bible," said Ms. Price.
     Also important is the nearly constant use of the present progressive
tense.  "_It's working_," "_I'm loving it_."  "It's a dance," said Ms. Price,
"and it's not finished until you're finished saying it."
     "It shows that it's more immediate," explained Mr. Jochnowitz.  "Not
simply that it works all the time, but it works at this very minute."
     Elizabeth Saltzman, the fashion director of _Vanity Fair_, favors word
shortening.  "_Gorge_" instead of "gorgeous," "_faboo_" for "fabulous."  She
also likes "_flawless_."  The collection?  "_Flawless_."  Michael Kors?
"_Flawless_."  Tom Ford?  "Looks--and _is_--flawless."  Which leads to
another of Ms. Saltzman's favorites--"_Full Gooch_," which means head-to-toe
Gucci.
     Ms. Mellen worries about precision, about the most efficacious way to
use words in such a visual profession, which is, Mr. Jochnowitz explained,
one likely explanation for a tendence toward a more European accent.  "(In
fashion people) you have more marked variations in pitch.  Americans have a
tendency to skip consonants, jump right over them, hardly pronounce them.
Maybe people in fashion have to speak about their product all the time, and
you have the necessity to be clear in order to make your point.  Which would
explain the difference in pitch."
     "I think that when I was younger I used too many adjectives," said Ms.
Mellen, who is told she's not shy about the word "_divine_."  "I saw Annie
Leibovitz today, for instance, and I wanted to express to her what I felt
about her book (_Women_), and I didn't use flowery language.  I tried to use
words that she would understand and might mean something to her, as she's a
very intelligent and visual person."
     "Maybe that has a lot to do with being creative," offered Ms. Lawrence,
who happens to think Madonna just sounds American.  "That's why we're in the
fashion industry, because we're creative.  And maybe the creative qualities
that one has might mean a tendency toward a more musical ear.  Especially in
somebody like Madonna.  She's so talented creatively and musically.  And
probably her ear is very, very sensitive to sounds and pitches."
     And the fashion industry--with its British editors such as Anna Wintour;
Grace Coddington; the Sykes sisters; Plum and Lucy; Liz Tilberis; Gabe
Doppelt and too many publicists to name--has always had a little accent
fetish.  "I always think it sounds really nice," said Mr. Carter, "but I also
know that a lot of British people are hired because of their accents, and
that's the first thing I think of.  I'm always like, 'I wonder if this person
knows what she's doing or she was just hired because of her accent.'  Because
I've heard that from so many people.  Especially in P.R.  Because it just
sounds better.  Like they can get their way more often."

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