British accent butchered

Having praised British actors for their convincing American accents a couple of posts ago, now I’m going to highlight a slideshow that mostly criticises American actors for their terrible ‘British’ accents.

First of all, I’d like to point out that there is no such thing as a ‘British’ accent. What people generally mean by ‘British’ is English. There’s wide variation in English accents, just as there is with American accents, but that’s another post. I think Americans (in particular) tend to think of two different types of English accent – either the type spoken by the Royal Family, or a Cockney, as attempted by Dick Van Dyke. Which, incidentally, is apparently the worst accent of all time.

Take a look at the slideshow – which American actor do you think has the best accent? My vote goes to Renee Zellweger for Bridget Jones. But special mention should go to the lovely James McAvoy – he’s not American but you’d never know that he’s Scottish from his perfect English tones.