"The Patriots and the Redcoats spoke with accents that were much closer to the contemporary American accent than to the Queen's English.
It is the standard British accent that has drastically changed in the past two centuries, while the typical American accent has changed only subtly...
people of low birth rank who had become wealthy during the Industrial Revolution were seeking ways to distinguish themselves from other commoners; they cultivated the prestigious non-rhotic pronunciation in order to demonstrate their new upper-class status...
orthoepists decided upon correct pronunciations, compiled pronouncing dictionaries and, in private and expensive tutoring sessions, drilled enterprising citizens in fashionable articulation"
http://www.livescience.com/33652-americans-brits-accents.html
I wonder about this a lot! Accents feel like something you wouldn't predict. I feel like they speak to the general difficulty in standardizing people.
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