20

I wish to speak with a British accent?

What is the impact of using in instead of with in the above sentence?

ColleenV
  • 11,971
  • 13
  • 47
  • 85
Gt_R
  • 823
  • 4
  • 19
  • 26

5 Answers5

34

@Maulik is quite right that for OP's exact context, both prepositions are acceptable (though outside of "Indian English", with an [X] accent is far more common. But having said that, consider...

1: John spoke with an American accent.
2: John spoke in an American accent.

In any given context, it will probably be obvious whether either means (a) John [always / normally / inherently] has an American accent, or (b) He adopted that accent in a specific spoken context (both are valid). But if there is no such context, the default interpretation would be 1 = a, 2 = b.

To put that another way, assuming we accept that everyone has some kind of accent, we usually say they speak with that accent. If someone affects (puts on a pretense of) a different accent, we're more likely to say they're speaking in that accent (implicitly, for the duration of that speech act).

EDIT: This is pure speculation, but I suspect the IE tendency to stick with in for both contexts above directly arises from the fact that a very high proportion of non-native Anglophones in India regularly use English (with varying degrees of fluency). In such an environment, there's a lot of pressure to converge on simplified, general-purpose usages which are easier to learn, and far less pressure to fall in line with long-established idiomatic preferences that might apply to, say, AmE or BrE.

With that in mind, it makes sense for Indians to standardise on John speaks in an xxxxx accent, because that way they don't have to learn a different preposition for, say, John writes in Russian (native speakers will all accept #1 and #2 above, but they won't accept John writes with Russian).

FumbleFingers
  • 70,966
  • 4
  • 97
  • 196
  • +1 for those 'either' options. Solely for that, I liked this answer more than my own! :) – Maulik V Apr 08 '16 at 04:51
  • And, for the #2, I'd think John writes with Russian (of course, again, ignoring the article) i.e. There are many people from different countries, FumbleFingers writes with (an) Indian beside him, John writes with Russian! – Maulik V Apr 08 '16 at 04:54
  • 1
    @Maulik V♦: S'ok - I upvoted your answer. Partly because it's true (so far as it goes), but mainly because it got me thinking about the reasons / benefits of the IE preference for *in*. Many of my neighbours are 1st/2nd generation Indians, and mostly they're at pains to replicate "standard" syntax, so I/they are more often on the lookout for "deviations" they can "correct". I/they haven't tended to notice thing like this current case simply, because both versions are valid, so nothing stands out... – FumbleFingers Apr 08 '16 at 12:29
  • 1
    ...I've long been aware that the current "fluidity" of IE promotes the acceptance of useful neologisms in terms of nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc., but I wasn't consciously aware of how it can encourage subtle simplifications in syntax (that don't necessarily scream "non-native speaker!" to mainstream Anglophones). It's a bit like watching a real-life version of Orwell's Newspeak evolving - only this one is "bottom-up" rather than "top-down" driven, and should lead to better/simpler communication, rather than mindless conformity to current cultural norms as defined by "leaders". – FumbleFingers Apr 08 '16 at 13:36
  • wonderful points! Agreed to all extent! :) However, just to include that Indians in the US/UK still have better expose to better English. Unfortunately, here, in India, we lack it. – Maulik V Apr 09 '16 at 04:58
  • @Maulik V♦: That should really be Indians in the US/UK still have more* exposure to traditional English* :) But language always changes, innit? It's taken me years to become comfortable with that usage (innit can substitute for any tag question, or even Yeah?, not just isn't it?), but it's another example of how IE can promote "syntactic simplification" that slowly spreads through to "mainstream" English. – FumbleFingers Apr 09 '16 at 12:29
5

Both mean the same.

Ngram results show that 'with an American accent' is more common.

I also checked on dozens of news websites. I find both the uses.

In InE, you'll hear almost everyone using the preposition 'in' for such usage.

Maulik V
  • 66,059
  • 109
  • 310
  • 456
  • Another great example of where either of two prepositions will work just fine. It's like asking, "Should I use a wrench, or a ratchet & socket?" Either one will remove the hex nut. – J.R. Apr 07 '16 at 09:37
  • @J.R. I'm surprised to read that you are fine with either "I wish to speak with British accent" or "I wish to speak in British accent", and I'm not talking about the prepositions. – Damkerng T. Apr 07 '16 at 09:55
  • @DamkerngT. - Well, I was talking about the prepositions; I never said I was fine with the whole sentence. I'd probably reword it to something like this: I wish I could speak in a British accent (or with a British accent; either preposition would work). – J.R. Apr 07 '16 at 09:58
  • Thank you for the confirmation. Sorry that I misread your intention! My excuse would be it looked very much like that because this answer got an upvote around the same time you posted your first comment. Thanks! – Damkerng T. Apr 07 '16 at 10:01
  • @Damk - It was my upvote. I'm often going on about prepositions – how they aren't confined to just one meaning, and how, in some situations, more than one will work and the meaning won't change. I always appreciate when the learners find new examples for me to marvel at! The main reason for my upvote, though, was I liked the way this answer did two things: (1) it confirmed (correctly) that both prepositions can be used in this context, and (2) it added the interesting tidbit about in being more common in India. (I could have easily done the first, but the second taught me something new.) – J.R. Apr 07 '16 at 10:06
  • 2
    As for that Ngram, though, we might get more accurate results if we add an indefinite article – J.R. Apr 07 '16 at 10:10
  • 1
    I had no problem with the prepositions, but if we upvote this answer, we're telling our learners, IMHO, that you're free to use either I wish to speak in/with British/American accent, especially when the Ngram search this answer uses to support the argument is in American accent,with American accent. -- The search you recommend is much better. – Damkerng T. Apr 07 '16 at 10:12
  • 2
    You also need to include *speak* if you want a more accurate usage chart, otherwise results will be skewed by irrelevancies such as She married a man with an American accent, where I'm sure even Indian English wouldn't allow in**. – FumbleFingers Apr 07 '16 at 12:44
  • very valid point! @FumbleFingers – Maulik V Apr 07 '16 at 12:51
  • @FumbleFingers however, adding 'speak' does not get me the other use! :( – Maulik V Apr 07 '16 at 12:55
  • @Maulik: You'd know better than me, but my gut feel is if *I* were Indian, I wouldn't particularly want to learn specifically Indian English forms in most cases. I'm sure there are certain usages peculiar to IE that really are "totally acceptable, beyond reproach" within the context of the subcontinent. But probably most of the "non-standard" usages you'd be exposed to are actually from people who simply don't speak English very well, and are prone to make specific "errors" because of how things work in their native language (usually Hindi, I guess). – FumbleFingers Apr 07 '16 at 13:00
  • Yes, you are right! And this is the reason, Indians are more confused because they know English but not sure whether the source they learned it from is authentic. Even authentic text books here have errors! @FumbleFingers And in my answers I mention this so as to let people know that even if they read such usage, it might be InE. Stating this, the readers would take a note and be cautious! – Maulik V Apr 07 '16 at 13:06
  • @Maulik: Haha - but we must be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater! I love the vibrancy of how IE can easily adopt and promote useful neologisms like *prepone* (which 20 years ago I thought was "quirky", but I'm glad I have it available now). To quote this BBC page "Hinglish" is the wrong term. People aren't just mixing words. They are creatively, actively, energetically reinventing them. – FumbleFingers Apr 07 '16 at 13:16
  • @DamkerngT. You mean I wish to speak in/with....accent is incorrect? You mean "I wish to [verb]...' is incorrect? I wish to fight like my superhero! is incorrect? – Maulik V Apr 07 '16 at 13:28
  • I think it was clear why I thought your original answer wasn't correct in standard English. I didn't talk about the prepositions. It was about the articles. You seem to often drop articles when I think I wouldn't, and use articles when I think I wouldn't. So it was quite surprising to me when I saw J.R. upvote your original answer. Having said that, I don't really know if your choices of articles are always considered correct in Indian English. Apparently, the OP and you chose the same choice of article in the example sentence. – Damkerng T. Apr 07 '16 at 14:31
  • @Damkerng T.: I may have muddied the waters on that one by editing the missing article into the question + title. I don't know if this specific point has been covered on meta, but I think as a general principle it's a good idea to correct manifest errors like that, if they're not directly involved in the specific point being queried. Partly I take that position specifically because if responders cut&paste elements from the question, it seems unreasonable to hold them to account for peripheral errors that they may simply not have noticed (but which we don't want "promoted" here on ELL). – FumbleFingers Apr 07 '16 at 20:12
  • @FumbleFingers I agree that we should fix peripheral mistakes in questions, especially when a question has already gotten answers. (My opinion is mistakes made by an OP are good clues and they can help us to help our OP more appropriately.) On the other hand, the same mistakes shouldn't be repeated in our answers, especially when the mistakes are used as the basis of an answer (like in the original version of this answer). I pointed out this problem once in a meta post: http://meta.ell.stackexchange.com/questions/2788/a-plea-for-better-answers-from-learners-and-non-native-speakers. – Damkerng T. Apr 07 '16 at 21:00
  • 1
    @Damkerng T.: Good meta post (which I must have missed at the time). But as soon as I'd read just the question, I found myself thinking of Maulik here, who's posted many excellent answers - albeit it with the occasional "lapse". My position, which I'm sure he'd agree with, is that it's pretty much a win-win situation if someone like him posts an answer which is substantially correct, but contains something slightly "misleading" that gets corrected after an appropriate comment. So while I like that you raised the issue, I can't really endorse the implied "solution" to a supposed "problem". – FumbleFingers Apr 07 '16 at 21:30
  • 1
    @FumbleFingers That's not an accurate usage chart. N-grams with less than 40 occurrences have been removed from Google's publicly queriable index, so the numbers for in are missing entirely, and we can't see how big the difference really is. Check COCA or BNC to get a more accurate comparison. –  Apr 07 '16 at 21:47
  • @snailboat: I'm not sure what you're getting at. Firstly, I don't need corpora to tell me that *with* is more common than *in* here, and secondly, Google Books thinks there are about 190 instances of speak in* an american accent* (against a claimed 1,040 results for *with). The substantive point is that with* is much more common overall - but it's also important to note that "learning" to use *in* is potentially advantageous, because it's easier and more applicable to other contexts. – FumbleFingers Apr 07 '16 at 22:02
  • @FumbleFingers I'm just pointing out that you're using a flawed chart. I don't disagree with your point, but you might as well use reliable data to back it up. –  Apr 07 '16 at 22:09
  • @snailboat: There's still an inherent "bias" in selected/vetted corpora like COCA or BNC - they're pracxtically bound to always overpromote traditional or literary usages, for example. That would tend to be at odds with learners in particular, who I'm sure are usually much more interested in how English is used and will be used, rather than how it was used. In short, for most purposes, unfiltered Google Books / NGrams are good enough for me (warts and all! :) – FumbleFingers Apr 07 '16 at 23:16
  • It's strange because the complaints you just listed are generally certain to be more true of the Google Books corpus than a balanced corpus like COCA. Maybe I should write a meta post about corpora . . . –  Apr 08 '16 at 01:20
1

Perhaps consider the combination of language and accent...

e.g. I speak IN English WITH an American accent.

When at school, we were taught to take into account optional information that could be omitted if understood by the speaker or listener/ writer and reader.

So my 2c's worth is correct usage is probably - speak IN {language} - speak WITH a|an {accent}

ajCary
  • 11
  • 1
  • 2
    I don't think the IN belongs here. Speak {language}, speak with {accent}. I've never heard anybody say, "I speak in English". – leftclickben Apr 08 '16 at 18:17
-1

Change your accent to another way of speaking- for example:'lisp'. You would not say, I wish to speak in a lisp.
You would say, I wish to speak with a lisp.
Similarly with "a stutter"

user32604
  • 1
-3

Perhaps picky, but anyone saying "I wish to" is not speaking a brand of English that's been in regular use in Britain or America for over a century. "I want to" is correct. "I'd like to" is equivalent but more polite. Saying "I wish to" is not correct unless you're filming a historical drama set in 1850 or so.

Graham
  • 2,595
  • 11
  • 16
  • 4
    Yes, it's "picky". And this isn't an answer to the specific point being queried. – FumbleFingers Apr 07 '16 at 20:14
  • 2
    It is utter nonsense to claim that "I wish to" is not correct. This phrase is perfectly correct, reasonable, and comprehensible English. – Théophile Apr 07 '16 at 23:22
  • 1
    @Théophile Comprehensible, yes. Grammatically correct, yes. Colloquially correct, categorically not. With a possible exception of the Queen or extreme upper-class "society" families. As a British person, this simply isn't capable of discussion - we just don't talk that way. (Unless you happen to be a toff, OK, but then the rules are different on a lot of things. #taxhaven ;) It's as wrong as suggesting Yosemite Sam is correct for how Americans talk. – Graham Apr 08 '16 at 08:11
  • "I wish to" doesn't strike my American ear as a nobody-talks-that-way phrase, but it does come off as either a bit formal or a bit pretentious. In Google Ngrams for 1980 to 2008, excluding republication of old books or letters, it seems to come up mostly in acknowledgements ("I wish to thank ..."). I also found it in a book that appears to be a vampire romance. For an American English speaker to speak with a British accent seems itself a bit pretentious, so combining this with "I wish to" (at least in that case) would make sense to me. – David K Apr 08 '16 at 13:20
  • It's certainly more formal than "I want to", and I'll grant that I would expect to see it in writing more often than hear it in casual conversation. That said, the OP was writing a question to the forum, not speaking to us. I searched through my personal and work e-mails for this phrase and found quite a variety of instances (not written by me): "I wish to add comments", "I wish to keep studying", "I wish to pursue", "I wish to understand", "I wish to share", "I wish to address", "I wish to amend", etc., etc. – Théophile Apr 11 '16 at 14:12