[James_mc]

Having watched a few interviews with Lewis Hamilton over the past few weekends, I’ve noticed that his accent seems to have become a touch American!

I presume that is a result of spending lots of time with Nicole Whats-her-face-a-inger, but I find it quite amusing! Anyone else noticed this or is it my ears playing tricks on me?

[Kingshark]

I’ve always considered his accent to be a mixture between British and American.

[safeeuropeanhome]

I presume you mean English and American. Sorry to be pedantic but it is a personal pet peeve of mine, an English person does not sound like a Scottish, Irish or Welsh person.

[Kingshark]

Well, I don’t exactly know or understand the difference between British and English, but sure.

[MuzzleFlash]

@Kingshark
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cd/Venn_of_UK.png/300px-Venn_of_UK.png

Interesting topic, must dig out the 2007 DVD and have a listen.

[Boxcar Racer]

There’s nothing American about his accent and what has his accent got to do with his ability to drive?

[xbx-117]

@mojopixel

There is always one of your kind on every topic.

[James_mc]

I’ve always considered his accent to be a mixture between British and American.

An interesting observation, I’d never noticed it before. Perhaps I’ll re-visit some old interviews.

I presume you mean English and American. Sorry to be pedantic but it is a personal pet peeve of mine, an English person does not sound like a Scottish, Irish or Welsh person.

Yes apologies. I’m as bad as a scriptwriter on a US sitcom. I do mean an “English” accent, but in the interests of clarity and accuracy, I probably mean a “Southern English” accent (if there is such a term!), as opposed to Geordie or Yorkshire…

There’s nothing American about his accent and what has his accent got to do with his ability to drive?

1 – Thanks for your input and your well-reasoned and thoughtful response to my original question. I appreciate that you’re stating a fact that there is “nothing American about his accent“, obviously myself and others have a completely inaccurate and erroneous understanding of things.

2 – At no point did I suggest or ask if his accent (regardless of what kind of accent it is!) as an impact positively or negatively on his driving. Infact as I considered it a fairly tangential topic to his role as an F1 driver, I went as far as to post it in the “Off-topic” section, but if you want to have a go at an innocuous question then by all means go ahead :-)

Thanks all, I’ll be interested to see what others think. I guess I forgot the wide range of people who read/follow F1F and may not appreciate the nuances between different regions in the UK (I certainly couldn’t tell the difference between a Parisian and an Alsatian!)

[Pelican]

When I first read the question, i was inclined to agree with mojopixel, but I listened to an interview with him from korea. I’m not very good about accents, but he did sound a little different from what I expected.

[matt90]

I often notice a touch of American in what he says.

[robk23]

I’ve noticed there’s a hint of American in Lewis’ accent in the Mobil 1 car swap advert with Tony Stewart.

[Prisoner Monkeys]

I presume that is a result of spending lots of time with Nicole Whats-her-face-a-inger, but I find it quite amusing!

That’s one possible explanation – over time, we unconsciously pick up the inflections and speech patterns of people around us. For instance, a lot of students ask me where I’m from. I usually say “here”, but they seem to think I have an accent. I, personally, don’t hear it, but I recently ran into some teachers who taught me and they certainly noticed it. I’ve now got traces of Romanian, Bolivian and Bhutanese accents about me, and that’s after spending as little as a year around friends of mine from those countries.

So if Hamilton is picking up an American inflection, then he’s probably getting it from someone close to him who has one. Maybe it’s Nicole, but I’m guessing it’s Simon Fuller, who has spent a lot of time in America and was probably working with Hamilton very closely during negotiations with McLaren and Mercedes.

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