When I moved to California from DC in the early 90s at age 8 the other kids in school made fun of me for having, as they called it a “fancy accent”. I think it was mid Atlantic, although I have heard that Mid Atlantic actually means something like the way the children in The Sound of Music spoke - not fully “posh” British but in between that and American.

Anonymous wrote:Isn’t it considered a transatlantic accent which basically nobody has anymore? I think maybe regionally rather than nationally there are more posh accents. For example when I went to New Orleans some southern accents sounded more “posh”, proper and gentile than others but wouldn’t be considered posh nationally.

Ant accent that people actively practice for public speaking sounds impressive in some way. Beyond that, racism determines whether the accent is high class or low class. The key features are enunciating words, varying pauses and emphasis, and speaking with slow enough pacing to be understood clearly.
Fast talking where outsiders can't get a handle on the rhythm and pick out syllables and word boundaries, or boring monotone talking, is what sounds bad.

Isn’t it considered a transatlantic accent which basically nobody has anymore? I think maybe regionally rather than nationally there are more posh accents. For example when I went to New Orleans some southern accents sounded more “posh”, proper and gentile than others but wouldn’t be considered posh nationally.

Vivian Leigh had a pretty good one.

Yes. It’s called a Mid-Atlantic accent, and is also the American definition of having no accent. However these things are much less meaningful than they were 50 years ago.

Doesn’t exist

Anonymous wrote:Unlike the British, we aren't as rigidly defined by our accents.

knew a yalie who had a hardcore brooklyn accent

A good movie for the Mid-Atlantic accent is Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest.” It features at least 3 English actors who toned down their accents just enough enough to be able to play classy Americans in many films: Cary Grant, James Mason, & Leo G. Carroll.

In the 1970s my family moved from the Midwest to the Boston area. We were expecting everybody to talk like JFK or RFK, but none did. We asked locals about it & were told the Kennedys somehow had their own accent, & nobody else sounded exactly like them. And sure enough, I lived there for years and never met anybody with a Kennedy accent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep, like the Kennedys and FDR spoke. It's a WASPy northeastern boarding school accent.

You do know that the Kennedys are not WASPs? And have Boston accents (described as "hooligan" by another pp.)

It's basically regional. Yes, the Kennedys' accent is not "posh," it's just the Kennedys. FDR is correct, though for NY. William F. Buckley for Connecticut. There is a Boston Brahmin accent, as well. Think of Charles Winchester in MASH. There is an upper class southern accent in most parts of the south, as well, but I'm pretty sure most northerners can't tell the difference. Southerners can.

This is ptretty much the only right answer so far.

Whoever said Thurston Howell from Gilligan’s Island . . . Spot on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about deep south? A refined drawl can be so genteel

The Southern accent sounds like the very definition of uneducated and ignorant.

Oh, the irony.

Anonymous wrote:Yep, like the Kennedys and FDR spoke. It's a WASPy northeastern boarding school accent.

FDR, yes. He had a “Locust Valley Lockjaw.” The Kennedy’s had a completely different accent. In fact, almost no one but them had that specific accent.

To me, NPR hosts Steve Inskeep and Kai Ryssdal have posh accents.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do American English speakers have a "posh" accent of sorts? If so what does it sound like? John Kerry?

John Kerry sounds like an arrogant ass. And not just because he's John Kerry! He'd somehow manage to sound like a conceited prick even if he was panhandling for change.

Alrighty then.