British and American English pronunciations

choi

Johnson | Voice of a Nation; Power in Britain has never sounded like the country at large. Economist, June 6, 2019.
https://www.economist.com/books- ... ronunciation-reigns

Note:
(a) paragraph 1: "IN 'YEARS AND YEARS,' a new television drama co-produced by the BBC and HBO, Emma Thompson plays a politician whose abrasive ideas, such as barring those with low IQS from voting, rocket her to power. To British viewers, her policies might seem more plausible than another of her character’s distinctive qualities: an unapologetically Mancunian accent."
(i) IQS. More commonly it is IQs, plural form of IQ (intelligence quotient).
(ii) Mancunian is an adjective (of Manchester) or a noun (inhabitant of Manchester) that is derived from Manchester's Latin name. See Manchester
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester
(section 1 Name)
(iii) The paragraph means: Although Emma Thompson the politician gas improbable --ie, not politically correct -- ideas, even more improbable is her Mancunian accent, because English politicians in real life speak with "Received Pronunciation (RP),:

(b) "The United Kingdom has a huge variety of accents. Each of the four constituent nations is diverse, and England (just the size of Alabama) is the most diverse of all."
(i) table: "Area: Land 130,279 km2 (50,301 sq mi); Population  2011 census 53,012,456"  en.wikipedia.org for England.
(ii) table: "Area         Ranked 30th [in US] 52,419 sq mi (135,765 km2); Population  Ranked 24th  4,887,871 (2018)"  en.wikipedia.org for Alabama.(iii)
(iii) table: "Area 35,980 km2 (13,890 sq mi)"  en.wikipedia.org for Taiwan.

Taiwan's area is occasionally compared, in US media, to that of Maryland (12,405 square miles or 32,131 square kilometers). I live in Boston, so I tell people: about the combined area of Massachusetts (10,554 sq mi) and Rhode Island (1,544 sq mi).

choi

(c) Every prime minister of United Kingdom has sounded "like a polished South-Easterner.  True, there has been nuances. James Callaghan [1912 (born in Portsmouth, Hampshire) – 2005; prime minister (Labor) 1976-1979] had traces of the West Country in his vowels, and Harold Wilson [1916 (born in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire) – 1995; prime minister (Labor) 1964 – 1970, 1974-1976] slightly more Yorkshire. John Major [1943- ] was not the poshest of speakers. Tony Blair [born in 1953 in Edinburgh, Scotland; at 5 moved to Durham, England], who broke a string of five state-school-educated prime ministers, thought fit to try on a bit of 'Estuary,' the demotic South-Easterner accent that contrasts somewhat with the cut-glass tones prevalent higher up the class scale."
(i) West Country
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Country

In this map of the Wiki page, Hampshire is right to the est of Salisbury, Wiltshire (which is named after the former county town of Wilton; its present county town is Trowbridge).
(ii) posh "informal
1: elegant or stylishly luxurious
        1.1: British  typical of or belonging to the upper class"
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/posh
(iii) Tony Blair "broke a string of five state-school-educated prime ministers"

list of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom by education
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li ... ingdom_by_education

Tony Blair's give immediate predecessor (Harold Wilson, Edward Heath (Tory), James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major -- in that order) all went to state schools before going to Oxford (but Callaghan and Major did not go to university).
(iv) Estuary English
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estuary_English
(Estuary English may be compared with [differs from] Cockney)
(v)
(A) demotic (adj; first attested in 1822; from Ancient Greek [adjective] dēmotikós common, from [noun] dêmos, the common people)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/demotic
(B) demotic (adj; Did You Know?)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/demotic
(vi)
(A)
cut glass (n)
cut-glass (adj): "used about a way of speaking in which words are pronounced very clearly and carefully, in a way that is typical of someone from a high social class <a cut-glass accent>"
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/cut-glass
(B) cut-glass (adj): "1: made of cut glass  <a cut-glass bowl>  
2: BRITISH  someone with a cut-glass accent speaks in a way that is typical of people from the highest social class"
https://www.macmillandictionary. ... merican/cut-glass_2
(C) cut-glass
https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/57/messages/613.html

contains a quotation from The Cut-Glass Bowl.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cut-Glass_Bowl

choi

(d) "Wilson had nothing like the full Huddersfield (where he was born). Mr Major campaigned as a 'working-class boy from Brixton,' but he hardly talked like a pipe-fitter. That is because, from the 19th century onwards, people who aspire to govern Britain have imitated the upper-class pronunciation of the South-East, often known as Received Pronunciation (RP) and associated with pukka schools. Scottish, Welch and Irish accents remained just about acceptable, but pole-climbers from the English [here means of England, not the language, as Scotland and Northern Island, along with Ireland, speak English] regions have had to 'lose their accent' and 'learn to speak properly.' * * * The fill version of regional English accents is typically heard among the working classes."
(i) Brixton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brixton
("The name Brixton is thought to originate from Brixistane, meaning the stone of Brixi, a Saxon lord")
(ii) pipefitter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipefitter
(in comparison: "A plumber concentrates on lower pressure piping systems for sewage and potable water (tap water)")
(iii)
(A) Received Pronunciation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation
("Formerly colloquially called '(the) King's English' * * * The introduction of the term Received Pronunciation is usually credited to Daniel Jones [in his second edition of the English Pronouncing Dictionary (1926)] * * * According to Fowler's Modern English Usage (1965), the correct term is ' "the Received Pronunciation." The word "received" conveys its original meaning of "accepted" or "approved," as in "received wisdom." ')
(B) The term "(the) King's English" first appeared in the book: Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorique. 1553, referring to Edward VI of England (1537 – 1553; reign 1547 – 1553; predecessor Henry VIII [his father]; younger brother -- by four years -- of future Elizabet I).
(iv) pukka (adj; etymology): "British informal  excellent"
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/pukka

choi

(e) "America is different. Though a 'General American' accent predominates, the past four presidents have all deviated from it. Donald Trump's New York origins are obvious in his voice, Barack Obama (a General American speaker) could turn on African-American where appropriate, George [W] Bush's Texan was key to his identity, as well as Bill Clinton's Arkansan. Southern accent, in particular, are prominent. During the Trump years alone, a secretary of state (Rex Tillerson), attorney general (Jeff Sessions), White House press secretary (Sarah Sanders), secretary of energy (Rick Perry), and Senate majority leader (Mitch McConnell [born Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr, son of Addison Mitchell McConnell]) have all had strong southern accents. Such a concentration of northern tones in British cabinet is, for now, improbable.  Two reasons stand out."  
(i) This is the first time I hear of "General American." And I do not detect accent in Donald Trump. See New York accent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_accent
("The accent is strongest among white members of the middle and lower class in New York City proper, western Long Island, and northeastern New Jersey * * * The New York accent is not spoken in the rest of New York State beyond the metropolitan area")
(A) Some in the Web say Standard American English (SAE) is General American.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American
("Americans with high education, or from the North Midland, Western New England, and Western regions of the country, are the most likely to be perceived as having 'General American' accents")
(B) But see Standard American English. In Do You Speak American?  PBS, undated.
https://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/standardamerican/
("What's Standard English? According to The American Heritage Dictionary it's the speech of educated speakers. * * * Ask a group of experts to define Standard  American English, and you'll find, paradoxically, there's no standard answer. Even the editors of The American Heritage Dictionary are careful to qualify their definition.")
(ii) General American
(A) Although the first two answers were answered by non-academics, I myself find both pretty good.

Where is standard American English derived from? StackExchange, asked Aug 24, 2010.
https://english.stackexchange.co ... nglish-derived-from

(B) For "Northern Cities Vowel Shift" mentioned in answer 1, see Vowel Shifting. In Do You Speak American?  PBS, undated.
https://www.pbs.org/speak/ahead/change/changin/ sectional heading: The Northern Cities Shift)
(ii) Chapter 11 The dialects of North American English. In William Labov, Sharon Ash and Charles Boberg (eds), Atlas of North American English; Phonetics, phonology and sound change. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2005
https://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono ... rs/Ch11_2nd.rev.pdf
(section 11.4 at page 144: "The West, Canada, and the Midland are in the center of this distribution and not so clearly separated. Their overlap in this display corresponds to the lower consistency figures of Appendix A. In Figure 11.7, the yellow circles representing Midland speakers are concentrated in the lower part of the Canada–West–Midland grouping, while Canada occupies a higher position, reflecting the features it shares with the North, and is shifted towards the right. * * * If one were to recognize a type of North American English to be called 'General American,' it would be the configuration formed by these three dialects in the center of Figure 11.7")

In Figure 11.8, WNE and ENE stand for Western and Eastern New England, respectively (both are shown in Figure 11.7).

The atlas was fruit of Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania.

choi

(f) "Two reasons stand out. American politicians must live in the places they represent, and ideally come from there as well. * * * In England in 2015, less than half of MPS were born in the regions they represented; still less in the actual constituency. Some who have the same strong regional accents as their voters say they meet constituents who can hardly believe they are talking to an MP.  The second reason is the dominance of London in Britain's politics, economy and culture. Paris similarly dinubates France, and politicians are nostly expected to minimise regional accents in politcs there, too. Germany is like America, a newer and federal state, with local power bases and an economy spred more evenly across the country."
(i) "American politicians must live in the places they represent"

In Taiwan there is a law requiring that. I long believe the same in US. But the quotation turns out to be wrong.
(A) Constitutional Qualifications. US House of Representatives, undated
https://history.house.gov/Instit ... nal-Qualifications/
("The Constitution placed notably few hurdles between ordinary citizens and becoming a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. The founders wanted the House to be the legislative chamber closest to the people—the least restrictive on age, citizenship, and the only federal office at the time subject to frequent popular election. * * * The constitutional qualifications for office originate in British law. Members of the House of Commons had to live in the shires or boroughs they represented, although that was rarely done in practice. The founders used that example to motivate the requirement that Members of the House live in the state they represent. This would increase the likelihood that they would be familiar with the people’s interests there, but there was no mention during the debates about living in the same district. The district system emerged later as states dealt with how to fairly organize their congressional delegations")
(B) Jack Maskell, Qualifications of Members of Congress. Congressional Research Service, Jan 15, 2015
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41946.pdf
(summary: "There are three, and only three, standing qualifications for US Senator or Representative in Congress which are expressly set out in the US Constitution: age (25 for the House, 30 for the Senate); citizenship (at least seven years for the House, nine years for the Senate); and inhabitancy in the state at the time elected [not when campaigning]. US Constitution, Article I, Section 2, cl. 2 (House); and Article I, Section 3, cl. 3 (Senate). The Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed the historical understanding that the Constitution provides the exclusive qualifications to be a Member of Congress, and that neither a state nor Congress itself may add to or change such
qualifications to federal office, absent a constitutional amendment") (emphasis original)
(ii) Great Britain
(A) Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_Parliament_(United_Kingdom)
(Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 set out a fixed 5-year term)
(B) Who can stand as an MP? UK Parliament, undated
https://www.parliament.uk/about/ ... ing-mps/candidates/
("People wishing to stand as an MP must be over 18 years of age, be a British citizen or citizen of a Commonwealth country or the Republic of Ireland.  Candidates must be nominated by ten parliamentary electors of the constituency they wish to stand in.  Authorisation is required to stand for a specific party, otherwise candidates will be described as independent or have no description.  In order to encourage only serious candidates to stand, a £500 deposit is required when submitting the nomination papers - returned if the candidate receives over five per cent of the total votes cast.  Certain people are disqualified from standing as an MP [presumably convicted felons]")

The "elector" in British English is same as "voter" in Americna English. (In England there is "electoral registration," whereas in US there is "voter registration." In US, an elector is a member of electoral college to elect a president.)
(C) Dock Leonard and Roger Mortimore, Elections in Britain; A voter's guide. 5th ed. Palgrave Macmillan (2005), at page 84
https://books.google.com/books?i ... mp;lpg=PA84&dq="MP"+parliament+"residency+requirement"+britain&source=bl&ots=yxhY5JFCon&sig=ACfU3U0p1J5Fua7bci6PKSblVCEsRMilMw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiU7Ju4hrjjAhVEwlkKHZJXBv04ChDoATAAegQICRAB#v=onepage&q="MP"%20parliament%20"residency%20requirement"%20britain&f=false
("Convicted criminals. Convicted persons serving a sentence of more than one year, or an indefinite sentence, while they are either detained or unlawfully at large; the election or nomination of such a person is void. * * * Residency. Unlike many countries such as the USA, there is no residency requirement for candidates in parliamentary elections: a candidate need not live in the constituency which he or she hopes to represent. However, such a requirement does exist in local elections, including those for the devolved assemblies: a candidate must be a local government elector for the area of the local authority concerned, or have resided there or worked there for twelve months preceding the date of the election. Candidates for Mayor of London or the London Assembly must either live or work in London")

In US a member of House of Representatives is from a Congressional district, whereas in UK an MP, constituency.