That's OK - and I apologize if you found that Kudos condescending. I never intended it to be that - I was actually astonished that your respelling not only recognized actual differences in speech in Boston, but came pretty close to how the Brahmins actually speak. So although your post had no reference to OTL speech, I was surprised at how close it came to OTL. So I meant it as positive reinforcement as a thank you for recognizing that people in New England in general and Boston in particular don't sound like the stereotype. I'm very sorry that you took it the other way and I apologize.
Makes sense. I know the base for the OTL Canadian dialect was similar to the base for how the Western US supra-dialect emerged, which was why it had some US elements under the Britishness of the speech. Otherwise, I get what you're saying - and, for that, I would assume that
Midland speech, which originally encompassed a wider area than now, would provide a base for a more British-sounding accent for that same reason, and hence expand.
In her book on American stage speech for actors,
Classically Speaking, the speech coach Patricia Fletcher actually divides General American into two sub-types -
>Neutral American, which is basically a formalized version of what we're familiar with as standard American broadcast speech,
>and Classical American, which blends in some British rhythmic elements to some archaic elements of General American give it a more old-fashioned, formal flair intermediate between Neutral American and RP/Conspicuous General British (which she calls Standard British; Conspicuous General British comes from the latest edition of
Gimson's Pronunciation of English, which defines contemporary RP as General British, old-fashioned/trad RP as Conspicuous General British, and light regional approximations of RP as Regional General British).
>Starting from the 2nd edition of that book onwards, IIRC, she began mentioning Mid-Atlantic English as old-fashioned semi-British speech that - despite it being taught in acting schools in the US - Americans recoil act because it sounds too foreign, but is appropriate for settings pertaining to Britain.
I would assume something similar alongside Transatlantic/Mid-Atlantic speech to level out some of the distinctions, although regional variation could still exist within General American (which could be a
Broad versus *General distinction) and there would be peripheral dialects that would escape that informal, haphazard standardization. Mid-Atlantic English and Classical American (in Fletcher's terminology) could function as Cultivated (near-RP) and *General American English.