I understand this is a question in good faith that is concerned about comprehensibility. Nonetheless, I downvoted because I think this form of discussion is generally bad. I don’t think it’s okay for us to tell people—even community leaders like Will—how they should sound, no more than we should opine on how they look. The New Yorker profile has examples of how weird this can get, with Will asking his friends if he should get dental surgery to be a more appealing public figure. Discussing how to engineer a person into the perfect PR machine has limits.
I understand that comprehensibility is important. But the overlap with accent is not that large—comprehensibility is also about diction, pace, modulation, command over language, etc.
Agreed. I don’t think these questions should be off limits, but it’s good to be thoughtful and remember there’s a real person at the other end who probably has his own views about his voice, appearance etc—this isn’t a theoretical optimisation problem!
I guess I disagree that personal branding isn’t real and a choice. People make choices about their presentation all the time. I think the question is more whether this is a reasonable question to ask in public. I’m open to the idea that it isn’t.
I just don’t think an accent is identical to other forms of presentation. Accents are deeply personal and cultural. When I debated in high school for a non-indian audience, we were repeatedly told in euphemistic terms that our accents made us less “compelling”. It was deeply demoralizing to know that not being from Eton made us worse to listen to, and I know people who consciously changed their accent because of it.
Now that my accent has become Americanized after years of living in the US, it is genuinely painful and isolating to meet Indian people who think I grew up in the US because of my Americanized accent. I have lost something of my connection to India because of my accent change. I listen to myself and I sometimes wonder who the hell is speaking.
Sidenote: since you’ve essentially removed the original comment, some of the context has been lost. In particular the thing that ticked me off the most was not you saying that some people might not understand Will, but that his accent “might be something to work on”.
I understand this is a question in good faith that is concerned about comprehensibility. Nonetheless, I downvoted because I think this form of discussion is generally bad. I don’t think it’s okay for us to tell people—even community leaders like Will—how they should sound, no more than we should opine on how they look. The New Yorker profile has examples of how weird this can get, with Will asking his friends if he should get dental surgery to be a more appealing public figure. Discussing how to engineer a person into the perfect PR machine has limits.
I understand that comprehensibility is important. But the overlap with accent is not that large—comprehensibility is also about diction, pace, modulation, command over language, etc.
Agreed. I don’t think these questions should be off limits, but it’s good to be thoughtful and remember there’s a real person at the other end who probably has his own views about his voice, appearance etc—this isn’t a theoretical optimisation problem!
Any thoughts on my edited version?
Ha, it’s probably over the top the other way now, but seems fine!
I made some edits. Thank you for the challenge.
I guess I disagree that personal branding isn’t real and a choice. People make choices about their presentation all the time. I think the question is more whether this is a reasonable question to ask in public. I’m open to the idea that it isn’t.
I just don’t think an accent is identical to other forms of presentation. Accents are deeply personal and cultural. When I debated in high school for a non-indian audience, we were repeatedly told in euphemistic terms that our accents made us less “compelling”. It was deeply demoralizing to know that not being from Eton made us worse to listen to, and I know people who consciously changed their accent because of it.
Now that my accent has become Americanized after years of living in the US, it is genuinely painful and isolating to meet Indian people who think I grew up in the US because of my Americanized accent. I have lost something of my connection to India because of my accent change. I listen to myself and I sometimes wonder who the hell is speaking.
Sidenote: since you’ve essentially removed the original comment, some of the context has been lost. In particular the thing that ticked me off the most was not you saying that some people might not understand Will, but that his accent “might be something to work on”.