Bay Area Startup Wants To Make Call Center Workers Sound 'White and American' (sfgate.com) 174
An anonymous reader shares a report: Silicon Valley startup Sanas has a lofty goal: to make call center workers sound white and American, no matter the country they're from. And that's just the beginning of their grand plan. The voice tech company's website features a photo of a smiling man, cropped so you only see a disembodied, toothy grin. Underneath the anonymous mouth, a demo invites you to "Hear the Magic" of Sanas. As you press play, you hear one side of a simulated conversation; a man with an Indian accent reads a familiarly tortured call center script about a missing package. Click the "With Sanas" slider, and the voice transforms instantly into something slightly robotic, a tad uncanny and unmistakably white. Since its August 2021 launch, Sanas has been showered with funding by investors. Amid a trying time for the tech industry, the "accent translation" company -- founded by three former Stanford students, Maxim Serebryakov, Shawn Zhang and Andres Perez Soderi -- snagged a $32 million Series A funding round in June 2022, which they claim is the largest ever for a speech technology service. One press release boasts that investors who tried the service called it "magical."
Eventually, the company wants to expand beyond call centers by changing accents on consumer video and audio calls; Sanas has even mentioned an interest in film and TV. New voices are in the works, too: Someday, workers' accents may be "translated" into a Southern drawl for a caller in Louisville, or a Midwestern lilt for someone in Cleveland, instead of the more generic Standard American English, colloquially known as white person voice. "We don't want to say that accents are a problem because you have one," Sanas president Marty Sarim told SFGATE. "They're only a problem because they cause bias and they cause misunderstandings." The tacit promise of Sanas seems to be that callers will be more polite -- and more amenable to being helped -- if they think the person on the other end is more like them.
Eventually, the company wants to expand beyond call centers by changing accents on consumer video and audio calls; Sanas has even mentioned an interest in film and TV. New voices are in the works, too: Someday, workers' accents may be "translated" into a Southern drawl for a caller in Louisville, or a Midwestern lilt for someone in Cleveland, instead of the more generic Standard American English, colloquially known as white person voice. "We don't want to say that accents are a problem because you have one," Sanas president Marty Sarim told SFGATE. "They're only a problem because they cause bias and they cause misunderstandings." The tacit promise of Sanas seems to be that callers will be more polite -- and more amenable to being helped -- if they think the person on the other end is more like them.
don't need to sound or look white (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll settle for intelligible and helpful; it's about a fifty-fifty crap shoot in my line of work to get such.
Re: don't need to sound or look white (Score:3)
Re: don't need to sound or look white (Score:4, Insightful)
I know lots of people who lack melanin and are completely unintelligible. We can guess which states they are from. I couldn't care less where someone is from or the color of their skin. I just want to be able to understand them AND that they actually understand the product/issue you are calling about instead of reading from a script and not even being well trained on the product they're supporting.
Re: (Score:3)
Or country... Ever listen to a thick geordie accent?
Re: (Score:2)
Ever listen to a thick geordie accent?
Yes.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe you meant "Aye".
Re: (Score:3)
We reserve those for the level three help desk escalation.
Re: (Score:3)
Or country... Ever listen to a thick geordie accent?
Come to Sheffield. We've got an accent for you.
Re: (Score:2)
The title?
Re: (Score:3)
I mean, so often these days, the accent is so thick, it's hard to imagine they are actually speaking English.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed. Most call centers, these days, appear to focus on two things: 1.) reading from a script (for 99% of my problems, this is useless), and 2.) (when 1 fails) trying to get you off the phone (desperately, I might add; 'escalation' of your problem to one of their friends, who isn't there right now, is their new tactic).
Re:don't need to sound or look white (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah it is. There've been times I couldn't understand a single sentence they uttered.
Re: (Score:3)
It's even worse these days when the script is usually just the same procedure you already went through on their website and which didn't work, hence why you are calling them.
Re:don't need to sound or look white (Score:5, Interesting)
The overall problem is that "outsourced" staff tend to be outside the country, and even if the call center is inside the US, Canada or Mexico, the accent creep among those in the call center tends to make certain conversations difficult.
Like I'll always remember the handful of calls from african-american people in Florida that were full of unfamiliar slang.
The problem isn't so much the accent itself, but the combination of the accent and the slang that makes things awkward and confusing. If it was possible to use voice conversion technology (which is NOT NEW) to dynamically adjust calls to sound like "generic white american next door" for people in the same area code, the initial hostility will be less.
However, while voice conversion technology exists, I'd say it's also oversold on the capability. VC software is generally used to transform a voice for language (eg English to Spanish) not from one dialect to another. So there is a good potential for the "ASR" side of the VC to not work well enough without being trained on the CSR's voice for hours before giving them real calls.
If we're going for direct conversion (where it's forcing a style transfer over the existing voice, but not translating the input audio into text and then back into audio with another voice) that does nothing for the vernacular or dialect itself, it just makes someone who isn't "white" sound white, but also makes people who are "white" sound like a specific kind of generic white.
In most cases however, I think people will readily tell if the voice has been style-transferred, because they'll hear an uncanny-valley mismatch of vernacular and slang use coming out of a white voice.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So much of this. I've dealt with them way too long - I can tell if they're in India, or Malaysia, or Phillippines based on which grammatical tics they have.
"May I know the name of the customer" is a CLASSIC pidgin hindi-to-English tell.
Well this will be awkward (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well this will be awkward (Score:5, Interesting)
Title suggest the company is going for "white American" but the article says they want a more neutral "Midwestern" which has almost no accent in it. After all I can imagine some people would have trouble understanding either a white Bostonian Southie or a white Californian surfer dude.
However sometimes the accent can help. I have a friend who went home to Rhode Island for a weekend. When she gets back, she notices a nearly $60 charge for "Dunkin Donuts" which is way more than the donut and coffee she bought there. So she calls her credit card's customer service. Right away, she can tell her agent is a New Englander based on the accent which helped her.
She complained that there's no way she bought $60 worth of donuts at Dunkin' Donuts. "I mean love Dunkin' but I don't love them that much." The rep laughed and agreed. The rep asked her what she did the day of the charge. She hung out with friends, went to a hockey game, but did not get donuts that day. The rep then asked which hockey game.
She answered the Providence Bruins. The rep then explained the problem. "Oh honey, it probably says 'Dunkin' Donuts' on your transaction but on my screen the transaction is listed as 'Dunkin' Donuts Center' where the Bruins play."
"Oh yeah, I probably spent $60 worth of beers there."
"I hear ya."
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Summary says that they are looking to use this to tailor the accent to the specific location of the customer on the other end of the phone.
Hit them with cockney rhyming slang spoken in a thick Scottish accent and watch the AI melt down.
Re: (Score:2)
"Yo, yo, you! I hear you gots a problem wid yo phone?"
Re:Well this will be awkward (Score:4, Informative)
If this was UK it'd be called Received Pronunciation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation). Which possibly at some points in time literally no one had as their native accent. Also known as BBC English until they stopped requiring that at BBC. So yes, a generic, Midwestern accent where the R's are easily heard, you can hear the H and no consonants are dropped, and there's no drawl. Maybe call it DK, for Dorothy's Kansas. Except that it will turn out that a Kansas accent isn't generically Midwestern enough...
Re: (Score:2)
....a more neutral "Midwestern" which has almost no accent in it.
That's called "General American English" and does have an accent, it just doesn't seem that way to you because you're used to it, since it's been prevalent on TV/radio since the 1940's.
Travel to an English speaking country outside of the US or Canada, and people will pick up on your accent right away.
Re:Well this will be awkward (Score:4, Interesting)
a more neutral "Midwestern" which has almost no accent in it.
Oh you sweet Americans who think you don't have an accent :-) Username checks out.
To my ear, the Hollywood "mid Atlantic" (e.g. Frasier Crane) is the most neutral.
Boston sounds weird to you because it is non-rhotic, the same as most native English speakers outside the US.
Only the Southern accent is particularly difficult for foreigners, including blacks in the north who still use a rural southern-derived accent.
Re: (Score:2)
I love this "almost no accent" comment ... that means they have the same accent you do. Nothing else.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Most of the time TODAY you quickly realize they don't know what they're saying or talking about....at least with this, you can understand the words they are saying.
And now I must close and do the needful.
Re: (Score:2)
Those "rural nitwits" are the people in the call centers already. Do a web search on the best call center locations and you'll find they are not in the big cities. Big cities have high costs of living and old infrastructure. High costs of living means the call centers have to pay more to attract employees. Old infrastructure means slow, expensive, and/or unreliable internet and a shortage of phone lines. Those "rural nitwits" are desirable for call centers because they have a "neutral" accent that most
Re: (Score:2)
Then you don't understand the actual problem.
North Midland dialect of US English is about the most "neutral". Found anywhere from New Jersey to Nebraska and from the Illinois/Wisconsin border down to North-Central Texas.
It's easily assimilated by all the other 23 forms of vernacular.
Followed by South Midland, Upper Midwestern and Rocky Mountain.
You get people who've drifted around the US their entire life, and try to get someone with a deeply Greater Mumbai accent, or something out of SE Asia, and there a
Re: (Score:2)
I have a rural Great Lakes dialect and people in California make fun of me.
Re: (Score:2)
Meaning you either have a Chicago drawl or Yooper twang.
There is no "Rural Great Lakes Dialect"
These are just subsets inside Upper Midwestern.
I've still got punchy Chicago diction.
Just, after a few years of living and working around the country, it's more muted. But if you spend enough time on the phone it's easier to pick up the keys.
So what? (Score:2, Insightful)
They've been using fake "white" names for foreign call center workers for probably a few decades now. Never seen any moral panicking about that...
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe people are worried that it's just the start to something more sinister ðY£
https://www.netflix.com/title/... [netflix.com]
Makes no difference to me (Score:5, Funny)
As long as they understand shibboleet.
It is not the voice (Score:5, Insightful)
I am currently trying to deal with a credit card issue. After losing it on the person on the other end of the call, (because he said the issue was fixed when it clearly was not), he asked me if he had "resolved the call to my satisfaction".
Give me a person who can understand english, and can communicate back to me. I won't care about their accent.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Go into you local branch office, make it their problem.
Option 1: Stay home, provide a callback number, go about your day. When callback arrives, pick up the phone, sit in a comfy chair as you describe the issue, continue watching TV or engaging in whatever else when you're placed on hold, then you're done.
Option 2: Endure travel time both ways, an uncomfortable wait in a room that will last just long enough to make you regret your decision to make the drive, and a 30 minute conversation that you or they will feel obligated to fill with small talk because puttin
Re:It is not the voice (Score:4, Interesting)
This. A thousand times this! I have a terrible ear for west-asian accents, but that's not the problem. The problem is when I state the issue I'm having, the person on the other end tries to ram that issue into a list of well-known issues with well-known solutions enabled by a dead-simple script...and my issue isn't any of those.
On a side note, if it was a well-known issue with a well-known solution I would have already tried it and it didn't work. THAT'S WHY I'M CALLING!
I know, for every person like us there's 1000 that didn't check to see if the thing was even plugged in.
Re: It is not the voice (Score:2)
Your call is important to us! (Score:3, Insightful)
If my call was important they'd answer it promptly. If they are experiencing higher than normal call volumes they need to hire more people. And please stop rearranging your options, set them up right and leave them alone.
I don't give a crap about the skin colour of the person on the other end of the line, but I do expect them to be able to help me, with the level of English you would expect from a frontline customer service position.
...laura
Is this distorting the intention? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Is this distorting the intention? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody has a call center full of Cockneys. They have Indians. Their customers complain loudly, frequently, about having to talk to Indians. (And with good reason in many cases.)
The deliberate obtuseness you display by denying there's any racial component is even worse than the people who cry "racism" about everything.
Re: (Score:3)
Their customers complain loudly, frequently, about having to talk to Indians. (And with good reason in many cases.)
But they are not really complaining about having to talk to Indians. They are complaining about having to talk to idiots. I hate when an Indian answers the line because in my personal experience, their success rate in solving my problem is much lower than the success rate of non-indians. This isn't usually a language barrier but rather a knowledge barrier. The call centers that use Indians are either hiring inferior employees or are not training them as well. Occasionally but very rarely I have to hang
An accent translator... (Score:2)
Now this could be neat or fun. Maybe that'll be in the 2.0 version? Once they can bland out anything, then maybe they can accent it up a bit?
Even turn it into a speech coach for actors, or people who are moving and want to change how they sound?
Skin colour doesn't create accent (Score:3)
Seems like a bad summary from weird politics to imagine that talking English well is something that takes a certain skin colour.
Re: (Score:2)
Seems like a bad summary from weird politics to imagine that talking English well is something that takes a certain skin colour.
It's about accent, specifically an accent colloquially called "white American", not race per se. They want to hide the fact that many call center employees are located in countries with very low minimum wage.
Re: (Score:2)
colloquially called "white American"
Only if you live in a trailer park where the average person thinks "Uh'-'meri-cun" is a race.
Re: Skin colour doesn't create accent (Score:2)
This is awful and unjust and demeaning (Score:2)
This is awful and unjust and demeaning. Any business with a heart would would want to train their call centre workers to sound white and British.
Wrong business model (Score:3)
I'd want my customer to use the online resources or even online chat, if they call customer service they are costing me cash money. I'd want an AI that will screw up the agent's accent even more so that callers won't call unless they are super desperate.
Re: (Score:2)
use the online resources or even online chat
That's fine unless online resources, chat or even online access is down altogether. POTS still works.
The point is being totally missed here (Score:5, Insightful)
I've called Sonicwall support on more than one occasion. I've gotten extremely thick accents...and EVERY time I've called, I've gotten the solution I needed. I am grateful for that help.
"How do I get this VPN user to access his computer at work, when the user's home router is the same subnet as the work subnet?"
"Create a VLAN, make an address object within the VLAN, make a NAT policy with the "destination" as the newly created object and the "translated destination" as the real IP of the computer. Then, go into the client settings of the VPN and make sure that the new VLAN is accessible in the client settings, as well as giving the user permissions to the address object or VLAN."
"Can you sit tight as I walk through that and test it?"
"Sure."
"Hey, that works perfectly!"
"Thank you for calling Sonicwall!"
I remember calling Broadview phone for a client who used theiir VoIP service. Only one phone in the building was having an issue, and Broadview *insisted* it was the network...but also that the network settings were to their satisfaction. I was asked by the (most likely white) CSR to try a different port in the switch six times, even after attempt #4 involved unplugging a known working phone and putting the faulty unit in the same port. In 15 years of tech support, that was the only day I screamed at a CSR in front of a client. "IT'S NOT THE PORT!! I **WILL** not say it again. Send a tech out here, with a phone, tomorrow, or the next call that you'll receive will be from our attorneys who will sue Broadview for every dime they have ever been paid from this company." The client stared at me...and when I was off the phone, the client apologized to *me* for things getting to that point. It wasn't my finest hour. I own that. In my defense, however, I was congenial and understanding, for over an hour, performing every task and test asked of me without hesitance. It is this sort of a dynamic that causes issues.
I'm certain that there are people who have issues with accents based on perceived nationality, but the real issue is that people lose their cool with CSRs when they feel unheard and ignored. A CSR with an accent may still receive undue hostility based on the accent, but the root stems from either being told to do something that's already been stated as being done, or when a circular problem is shown with no desire to exit the loop. For example, if a password needs to be reset, but the password reset form is within a user's account, and they can't access it because they need the password...that's a problem where the obvious need is to figure out another way to verify identity...but the CSR will say "I can't help you until you fill out the form" and let the caller sit there until they give up.
Maybe there is some legitimacy to having a more 'familiar' sounding voice on the phone. It's entirely possible that people are more agreeable to local-sounding reps and that this will help with that. However, I submit that it's also possible that this solution is unhelpful for both sides of the calls if it isn't paired with more CSR agency. Can a CSR make an account change without needing three supervisors to sign off on it? Can a CSR give useful steps and procedures if they have the experience of such a solution functioning, even if it's not a part of the scripts or manuals? Can a CSR use their own intuition and intellect to help a caller even if no one else wants to? Will a CSR be able to avoid being penalized for a longer call time if the customer is satisfied? Will the post-call surveys be graded fairly, where "above 3" is considered a good average, rather than "5.0 or fail", as to allow good CSRs to truly shine?
If not, then accents are the least of the problems which need to be solved.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounding "White" is not the issue .... (Score:2)
Approximately 2 hours ago I was talking with Rogers about a serious issue on there "MyAccount" product, where I was sent an email from xxx@rogers.com, and which asked me to reset my password, but wouldn't accept any password I entered, long, short, complex, or simple. I asked to talked with the "Tech Support" customer servi
Re: (Score:2)
"whom never have the training to in the area they represent"
Here's a tip: most native English speakers have a better handle on "he" and "him" then "who" and "whom", so you can often use the former to see if you're using the latter correctly. "Him never has the training"? No, it's obviously "He never has the training". Therefore "who" is correct in this sentence.
Re: (Score:2)
After some more digging, the problem with the passwords not being accepted, is caused due to an ad-sense endpoint not being reachable, because I blocked it. If your change password process needs access t
Re: (Score:2)
Whom is to which as who is to that. If you don't know the difference between which and that then don't even bother trying whom.
Also, to pretty much every UK call centre worker, don't use yourself when you mean you. It makes you sound like an idiot.
Local Callcenters? (Score:4, Interesting)
How about putting your call centers in the fucking region you're serving?
But no. I suppose that's far too expensive. Can't have proper Americans do call center work!
Re: (Score:3)
But that's kind of the problem, isn't it? People have become so spoiled by cheap consumerism, that just the idea of actually paying something for anything has become somehow anathema.
Everything is made to be as cheap as possible, and to break down as quickly as possible, to sell more of it, constantly.
Actual repairs, actual service, actually paying something's worth, it's all been subsumed by "We want it all, we want it now, we want it as cheap as possible."
I can't wait to hear it! (Score:5, Funny)
"Yes, hello sir. I am William Whiteperson and for very inexpensively it is my position to be helping you unvirus your computer sir. Please just to follow my explicit directioning, sir, and very soonest you will be without the virus on your computer"...delivered to my waiting ear with a flawless mid-western American accent.
I won't suspect a thing.
Re: (Score:2)
Perfect!
Re: (Score:2)
They're downvoting you because they've had four beers already before they even start drinking! Of course they don't sound that way until they've had at least a few doizen.
Everybody has an accent (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I want my next support person to speak to me using Cockney rhyming slang!
Re: (Score:2)
Drawl is rural. Nobody wants to call tech support and get a hayseed.
A lot like ... (Score:2)
What I'd really like is English in a German accent, female. With a touch of dominatrix. Acknowledged by a spoken "Yes, mistress."
Re: (Score:2)
What I'd really like is English in a German accent, female. With a touch of dominatrix. Acknowledged by a spoken "Yes, mistress."
Don't let her push you around. [youtube.com]
Troll title (Score:2)
>"Bay Area Startup Wants To Make Call Center Workers Sound 'White and American' "
Skin color doesn't have a "sound" or accent.
What year is this? (Score:2)
In 2022 a company is getting funding to make call center employees sound like they have a "white American" accent? I thought in this day and age diversity was celebrated. This technology will only work with accent, not grammar or word choice. 90% of the time accent doesn't bother me and gives an opportunity to learn something about the employee outside their job. Accent becomes a problem if it's so thick I can't understand the words, so I'm not sure how well software on their end would help out.
The summary
Can it also fix the obvious grammatical errors? (Score:2)
Like "How may I be helping you?" or stumbling for words, or choosing the wrong words?
I have found ESL support agents dont fully grasp the nuances of English speech. So they may sound vanilla and devoid of an accent, but unless it can completely change the entire sentence structure of to be grammatically correct, (e.g. speech to corrected text to speech) you'll still be able to tell easily after a few minutes.
The problem isn't the accent, it's the pay (Score:2)
When I call a company that makes a lot of money from my custom, I expect them to not waste my time. Endless menus and "gatekeeper" staff preventing me speaking to somebody useful are a huge waste of my time.
Nobody cares about accents. I want to speak to somebody who can solve my problem, quickly. Surprisingly, companies who are known to pay their customer service staff $20/hour+ have excellent customer service.
Companies who make me wait 30 minutes to speak to somebody making $2/hour are making it clear that
Translation of headline (Score:2)
Translation of headline: Bay Area Startup Wants to Make It Easier For Call Centers to Lie.
Correction - it's to make scams/robocalls work (Score:5, Insightful)
The real reason they want this technology is robocallers. It's pretty much at the point where if anyone has an Indian accent calling about your taxes, a warrant, your computer or anything else, it's a scam call.
And we know robocalling and scamming is profitable because they keep doing it, thus, the only real use for this technology is to fool more people so they fall for the scams.
After all, I'm sure the first question asked is if the caller sounded Indian And to be honest, that's why other Indians hate the scammers because they've made their lives harder as it's practically stereotypical now.
Not the accent so much as the grammar (Score:2)
The problem with most call-center calls isn't just the Indian or other accent of the call-center worker. It's the grammar and syntax when they need to say anything not completely scripted, because the grammar and syntax of their native language isn't like English's. Fixing that will take more than just adjustment of the "voice", it'll take actually converting their speech to data, parsing it for meaning, converting that into English and synthesizing spoken words from that. That's a much harder problem than
Will the homeless people give it a shot? (Score:2)
Hey, equal opportunities for everyone,
so get out of your tent, polish up that resume, and prep for the interview by reading this line in the whitest most Midwestern accent you can manage:
Have you tried unplugging the machine, and then plugging it back in again?
Sorry to Bother You... (Score:2)
American English Yes, Race Unimportant (Score:2)
accent unimportant (Score:2)
don't care what they sound like, as long as I can understand them
also helps if they have something intelligent to say
BlacKkKlansman (Score:2)
I'm fine with this (Score:2)
This might be controversial but... (Score:2)
When someone calls me and they have an Indian accent, my guard goes up a little bit. I apologize to the people who are legitimate, but I get so many scam attempts. If I call a call center it's fine, I don't care.
Re: (Score:2)
Even if it were real, (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Makes it worse... (Score:2)
Did anyone bother to listen to the actual samples?
The 'real person' spoke very good, very clear English with a pleasant Indian accent. Very easy to understand.
The 'AI Midwestern Translator' sounded like a bot and had a number of weird glitches. If I heard this coming over my phone line, I would assume it was a text-to-speech synthesizer. And my guard would go up there.
Where this would potentially be useful is for someone with a very thick, very difficult accent. But in those circumstances I am going to
Fairly common in cyberpunk (Score:2)
These sorts of cynical technological workarounds for racism are almost a trope in cyberpunk, with avatars and characters in advertisements changing their ethnicity to match a viewer's. A darkly humorous display of a society's technology running circles around its morals.
I suspect artifacts will give them away (Score:2)
"Howdy, this is Billy Bob Joe, how may I do the needful thing for you..."
Divisive shite (Score:2)
I listen to podcasts and I don't know what the hell anybody's race is, with some rare exceptions (usually people that prefer to highlight their ethnic background, usually black). Implying that black people, brown people, and Asians need to sound different is divisive crap we shouldn't put up with.
Totally not waycist (Score:2)
Just freaking hilarious.
Ignorance (Score:2)
As for the article, it seems like what they're trying to do is eliminate other (mostly non US) accents and present a generic American Accent.
Reminds me of (Score:2)
https://youtu.be/b6LKNTJN3Ug [youtu.be]
Re: (Score:3)
Without involving politics in it, even from a basic business standpoint, you should be aiming at making it as understandable as possible for the region being aimed at.
Re: (Score:3)
The accent most heard, regardless of your skin color is the one you'd be best capable of understanding/interpreting. Stop being a racist by spraying racism on everything.
Re: (Score:3)
So many assumptions:
[list of assumptions you assume are being made]
Behavior like this only normalizes the notion that being white is somehow better than everything else.
You believe that three people named Maxim Serebryakov, Shawn Zhang and Andres Perez Soderi want to foster the notion that being white is somehow better than everything else? Or you think that those three believe their potential customers want to foster that notion? At this point I think that the only group you can justify accusing of having those attitudes are the supposed investors who called it "magical". Personally, I would rather deal with a thick accent than something slightly robotic, a tad uncanny an
Re: (Score:2)
If they were born and raised there, why wouldn't they?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Mid-Atlantic or somewhat Midwestern. Fewer people watch it now, but basically the nightly news anchor defined the American voice. I grew up near DC, and I didn't think we had an accent. It wasn't until my teens that the light-bulb went on: We simply happened to live in an area where the dominant accent was the same as the one being broadcast.