Pronunciation of the word solder

[tooki]

Then we can mosey on over to the ladies and see how well they fare with the 'L' thang... 

An Aussie accent is an instant home run as far as American lasses are concerned.
Note: I found that an American accent has no such effect on Aussie lasses. It's not fair.

Not just American lasses, but lads as well! Americans (at least the ones living in USA) love foreign accents, especially British, French, Australian, Italian, Iberian Spanish, etc. — in general, Americans perceive anything European as being prestigious. What they don’t realize is that this perception of prestige is in no way mutual!!!

[james_s]

Not just American lasses, but lads as well! Americans (at least the ones living in USA) love foreign accents, especially British, French, Australian, Italian, Iberian Spanish, etc. — in general, Americans perceive anything European as being prestigious. What they don’t realize is that this perception of prestige is in no way mutual!!!

I think most of us realize, we just don't care.

[TerraHertz]

I put most of the pronunciation quirks of American English down to brain damage caused by use of Imperial measurement units. Some kind of suppressed emotional conflict related to supposedly having won independence from the Crown, but still suffering under the cruel yoke of  British measurements. It doesn't make sense. So the speech becomes slurred and words lose syllables. Like the L in solder.

Sure, the rest of us English speakers can understand you Yanks. But we also pity you.

[Electro Detective]

The story goes they were already 'independent', and divided physically by lots of water,
they just didn't want to pay the Crown's new owners a lazy bully's percentage 

Loads of Youtube conspiracy theorists can't all be wrong if they are in agreement, right? 

Not that I go looking for such apparent drivel, it pops up when I'm surfing half asleep for vintage tool restos and movies    

[Zero999]

Something I find interesting is the way American English lost any sign of the British accent at some point quite a long time ago, despite the fact that the USA started out as a British colony. Countries like Australia that started in a vaguely familiar fashion retained an accent that while distinctly different, sounds much more British than American.

It’s because we never had it to begin with. American English is a) based on the English of the English settlers of the 17th and 18th centuries, from all over England, as well as b) massively influenced by the English of the Irish settlers that came later. (Many native Dubliners speak a dialect so similar to American English as to be indistinguishable by most native English speakers.) The most prominent British feature that was kept in some US dialects is the non-rhotic (“silent”) R in both Southern and New England dialects. (And Appalachian mountain dialect has influence from Scottish English.)

The main mistake you, like most people, make is to essentially assume that British English stayed the same, while American English changed a lot. But why would English in Britain remain unchanged for 400 years? It didn’t. In fact, it changed more than American English did!! (French had the same thing with Quebec: the French in their former colony changed less than the French in the homeland!) When Hollywood makes a movie set in the middle ages and everyone is speaking something similar to the Queen’s English, it’s completely wrong — language historians say that it should sound much more like American English. whether the movie takes place in the New World or in medieval England.

The other British colonies were colonized in a much more ongoing fashion: they had settlers coming in from Britain until much later. Their closer ties to the homeland meant more pollination by modern British English. (Canada is a great example of this, having the same roots as American English, but with the continued British influence. So you get much the same foundation as American English, but with some distinctly more-British sounding pronunciations on a few words, e.g. “again”.)

I'm aware that US English is supposed to be similar to 17^th century British and that it's changed less, i.e. more true to the original form, but there are some things which don't add up. Why would American English remain the same for 400 years?

Why did British English change more than American English? Could it be that British English had more influence from Europe?

How about T dropping? It has been common in American English for a long time, yet it has only become widespread in British English fairly recently. 100 years ago it was restricted to a few small parts of country i.e north-east England, East Anglia and east London, but now it's everywhere. It's also different to the US: Brits will tend to use the glottal stop, so computer becomes compu'er, whist the Americans will replace the t with soft d: compu'er, although the Brits occasionally use the soft d too. I find it hard to believe that T dropping was widespread in England in the 17^th century, it dying out in and re-emerging recently. I suspect T dropping was not common in 17^th century English and developed later in America.

[bsfeechannel]

Why would American English remain the same for 400 years?

It didn't. It also evolved. But the two variants didn't share exactly the same innovations. Much of what has changed in British English might have remained the same in American English and vice-versa.

This is how languages evolve everywhere.

[tooki]

Not just American lasses, but lads as well! Americans (at least the ones living in USA) love foreign accents, especially British, French, Australian, Italian, Iberian Spanish, etc. — in general, Americans perceive anything European as being prestigious. What they don’t realize is that this perception of prestige is in no way mutual!!!

I think most of us realize, we just don't care.

I agree that most Americans don’t care what the world thinks, but I vehemently disagree with most Americans realizing that they aren’t loved worldwide. Tons of Americans are shocked to discover that the rest of the world does not believe that USA is #1. They think that the world still looks up to USA. They don’t realize the world’s opinion, and more specifically, they do not realize how much the British actively deride American English.

[tooki]

I'm aware that US English is supposed to be similar to 17^th century British and that it's changed less, i.e. more true to the original form, but there are some things which don't add up. Why would American English remain the same for 400 years?

Nobody said it remained the same. I expressly said it changed less, not that it didn’t change at all.

Why did British English change more than American English? Could it be that British English had more influence from Europe?

That I don’t know. But as already discussed above by several people, it seems to be a common pattern in colonies of varying languages.

How about T dropping? It has been common in American English for a long time, yet it has only become widespread in British English fairly recently. 100 years ago it was restricted to a few small parts of country i.e north-east England, East Anglia and east London, but now it's everywhere. It's also different to the US: Brits will tend to use the glottal stop, so computer becomes compu'er, whist the Americans will replace the t with soft d: compu'er, although the Brits occasionally use the soft d too. I find it hard to believe that T dropping was widespread in England in the 17^th century, it dying out in and re-emerging recently. I suspect T dropping was not common in 17^th century English and developed later in America.

Well it’s not “dropped”, it’s morphed into other sounds, namely the glottal stop as you mentioned, and the alveolar flap (what you’re calling a soft D).

I am not as well versed on the history of this specific change in English (and my reference book doesn’t go into it), but chances are that this modification appeared in some regional dialect of British English centuries ago, and only comparatively recently spread. 400 years ago, the regional dialects in Britain were probably even more pronounced than they are now, and we know that the differences in the regional variants of American English are strongly informed by when the particular English (or later, Irish and Scottish) settlers came, and where they came from specifically, since emigration happened from different areas in England at very different times and with different destinations.

We’d have to know what the various regional dialects in Britain were like 400 years ago, and how they morphed over time.

[Wan Huang Luo]

Then we can mosey on over to the ladies and see how well they fare with the 'L' thang... 

An Aussie accent is an instant home run as far as American lasses are concerned.
Note: I found that an American accent has no such effect on Aussie lasses. It's not fair.

Not just American lasses, but lads as well! Americans (at least the ones living in USA) love foreign accents, especially British, French, Australian, Italian, Iberian Spanish, etc. — in general, Americans perceive anything European as being prestigious. What they don’t realize is that this perception of prestige is in no way mutual!!!

Americans are really picky about the accents they like. Some accents are derided