Published on March 26, 2024, in The New Statesman

Accents are malleable. They shift and change over time. Just look at Gillian Anderson, or Millie Bobby Brown, or Harry Styles and his mumbling interviews as examples. These changes can be confusing, though they are often explained by emigration or bilingualism – or playing Elvis for 159 gruelling minutes in Austin Butler’s case. But no accent shift is more confusing than the popular faux-roadman or aspiring “slangster”, as I like to call them.

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