The soft "R" in sound

[deanglen]

I've noticed something about the characteristics of radio and films in the Golden Era and it has to do with the soft "r" sound that so many announcers and media figures used at the time. Not the Elmer Fudd "wabbit" sound but more of an eastern seaboard, perhaps slightly Bostonian sound. Why was this? When did it change?

dean

 

[LizzieMaine]

For the first generation of radio announcers, those who entered the profession in the twenties and early thirties, the emphasis was always on a formal, upper-class, highly cultivated accent -- and since home base for the networks was, at that time, on the east coast, it was primarily an upper-class Eastern accent that was heard. Some of the early announcers genuinely came from such a background, and those who didn't had to learn to fake it -- for example, the unctuous-voiced Milton Cross, longtime voice of the Metropolitan Opera, was actually born and raised in Hell's Kitchen!

Most of the exceptions to this rule were announcers who became popular in the midwest before the rise of the networks. One of them, Bill Hay -- later best known as "Amos 'n' Andy's" announcer -- was actually a native of Scotland and far from softening his "r's" he *trilled* them. But such eccentricities were definitely the exception well into the forties.

 

[Fletch]

One of my favorite pieces of (possibly fake) OTR was a 12" Gennett promo record of "The Perfect Circle Piston Rings Program" with Charlie Davis' orchestra, made at WKBF, Indianapolis, in 1929. The station announcer, one Robert Brown, spoke in a full-fledged Irish brogue!

 

[Sunny]

I've noticed this more with radio actors than with announcers. It took me a while to realize how much I'd grown accustomed to it: I listened to the first Journey Into Space serial, "Operation Luna," sometime last year. It wasn't until I was listening to the second, "The Red Planet," that I realized it was a BBC serial - not American at all! I was so used to those soft r's that I hardly questioned it. To be entirely frank, I was so caught up in the story that I paid little attention to either announcer or actors. lol

 

[Paisley]

The soft R is so different from the way we speak out West that I always thought it was an affectation, that nobody really spoke that way.

 

[deanglen]

the unctuous-voiced Milton Cross, longtime voice of the Metropolitan Opera, was actually born and raised in Hell's Kitchen!

Found this picture of Milton. Looks very mild mannered (he must have gotten beaten-up regularly in the old neighborhood). Love the microphones in the shot.

dean

 

[scotrace]

That soft eastern R seemed to carry over into many of the early talkies as well.
I think the studios were scrambling to find actors who could provide big beautiful round vowels for quite awhile...

 

[dhermann1]

When I caught "Libeled Lady" again the other night I was struck by Jean Harlow's R's. Very broad and open, sounding very much taught by a speech coach. I think this is also a southern broad R.
Among announcers of the time I particularly like Ben Grauer's diction. He had that broad New York R. I remember him as being the original voice of the Times Square New Year's Eve celebrations. Between Ben Grauer and Dick Clark, you have about eighty years of New Year's Eves in Time Square!
I have a vague recollection that the broad R started in England among the lower classes and worked its way up, as almost all trends in speech tend to do. In 1800 you would not have heard a broad R in England outside of the worst slums. I believe a few areas in Britain still have the other R. What would you call it? Narrow R? Is it East Anglia that has it? Yorkshire? UK members, can you help us out on this? I think the pronunciation of R would have crossed that Atlantic in the late 18th century, and remained the same here, while it evolved in the mother country.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Still the case in the UK

Received pronunciation it's called. And every National newscaster in Britain that i know of bears this accent. Some of the presenters have a little brogue, but it's mostly covered by received pronunciation. Local TV news is a very different story, and the accents of these presenters inform a very active subjenre in British comedy.

It's also a feature of various of the accents in (mainly) southern England. From the total inability to say the letter R (comes out like an 'aahh' or a softened w) to a very weak hard R. Go north and the Rs become harder.

I must say that this was very obvious in the midwestern inability to pronounce the Rs in 'mirror'. came out as 'meeer' (yes, with three Es).

bk

 

[dhermann1]

That mirror thing may have as much to do with the letter I as R. Central Midlands accent makes hardly any distinction between I and E. Thus PEN sounds almost like PIN. They can hear a difference, the rest of us can't.
What I find fascinating in British English is the extinction of the letter L. The Cockney EW is almost universal.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

You mean the word-ending L, right? The ones in the middle of words are still pronounced well by the majority. The dropping of the word-ending L is another facet of the 'glottal stop' most famous for it's dropping of Ts into mere attempted noises as the tongue jams up against the roof of the mouth. (just imagine your normal Scotsman saying glottal. The first L will be distinct. The two Ts and the second L will be muffled and distorted. both due to the same phenomenon, but the tongue jamming against the jaw in different places.

It takes quite a bit to train oneself out of the glottal stops, but i've almost done it.

bk

 

[Tony in Tarzana]

How in the world could anyone pronounce Nomar Garciaparra's name in Boston?

 

[scotrace]

It takes quite a bit to train oneself out of the glottal stops, but i've almost done it.

bk

I gotta call you sometime.

 

[Fletch]

Out of all the accents in the Anglophone diaspora, I associate the hard unrolled r with the Irish brogue - I always assumed it came to America with the Scots-Irish - and with that north(?) of England speech Graham Chapman used in the Python sketch about flying sheep. "Art'noon...Arrrr, 'tis that." Just what sort of regional rustic was he portraying?

 

[plain old dave]

"Hard unrolled 'r' and broad 'i' " is spelled "SE Kentucky/East TN/ SW Virginia Hillbilly" and even our local radio announcers talked that way. Wasn't til @WW2 or so that they started using speech coaches.

 

[deanglen]

Out of all the accents in the Anglophone diaspora, I associate the hard unrolled r with the Irish brogue - I always assumed it came to America with the Scots-Irish - and with that north(?) of England speech Graham Chapman used in the Python sketch about flying sheep. "Art'noon...Arrrr, 'tis that." Just what sort of regional rustic was he portraying?

This is a fantastic site that might shed some light on that, Fletch.

http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/index.html

dean

 

[Fletch]

For the first generation of radio announcers, those who entered the profession in the twenties and early thirties, the emphasis was always on a formal, upper-class, highly cultivated accent -- and since home base for the networks was, at that time, on the east coast, it was primarily an upper-class Eastern accent that was heard. Some of the early announcers genuinely came from such a background, and those who didn't had to learn to fake it -- for example, the unctuous-voiced Milton Cross, longtime voice of the Metropolitan Opera, was actually born and raised in Hell's Kitchen!

It might be that Southerners had it a little easier than Westerners in the announcing game - Bert Parks from Georgia, Mel Allen and Douglas Edwards from Alabama, and my all-time favorite mikeman, North Carolinian Bob Trout - because lowland/coastal Southern speech used that aristocratic soft or dropped r.

An early clip of Parks I have, giving a spot for CBS' Artists Bureau in 1934, sounds quite uppah-uppah and breathy compared to friendly ole Bert we all remember from Miss America days. He mainstreamed his delivery pretty completely.

 

[dhermann1]

It might be that Southerners had it a little easier than Westerners in the announcing game - Bert Parks from Georgia, Mel Allen and Douglas Edwards from Alabama, and my all-time favorite mikeman, North Carolinian Bob Trout - because lowland/coastal Southern speech used that aristocratic soft or dropped r.

An early clip of Parks I have, giving a spot for CBS' Artists Bureau in 1934, sounds quite uppah-uppah and breathy compared to friendly ole Bert we all remember from Miss America days. He mainstreamed his delivery pretty completely.

And don't forget Red Barber! Oh, Doctor!
Speaking of the great CBS voices, I also loved Winston Burdett.

 

[RadioWave]

Digging this one up again. The hybridization of the American and British accents produced the characteristic sound of Mid-Atlantic English, a.k.a. the Trans-Atlantic Accent. In addition to the accent's use (and wide-spread imitation) in film, stage, and radio, it could also be acquired within American boarding schools prior to 1960.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_English