Nobody believed Monét X Change when she told the other drag queens in the Werkroom that British accents used to be closer to today’s American accents than to the ones we now hear in the other side of the Atlantic.1
I had learned ages ago that it was the British accent, not the American one, that diverged from the ur-accent of the 18th Century. Whenever I mentioned it, I was greeted with skepticism—or told, flat-out, that I was wrong. The fact that I couldn’t remember where or when I heard this, and couldn’t point to any corroborating sources, may have weakened my argument a tad.
Since pouncing on drag queens for any flaw or mistake whatsoever is our gay national pastime, people set out to prove Monét wrong. But they couldn’t.
It wasn’t just fans backing up Monét.
- Billboard weighed in right after the episode.
- The BBC, presciently, explored the issue two months before the episode ran.
- Linguist John McWhorter wrote about it a few months ago.
And, today, Monét and I have been vindicated once again. USA Today published an article titled “What Did the Founding Fathers Sound Like? The Surprising Answer.”2
Bring proven right over and over again sounds so good. In any accent.
Right, Monét?
Foót X Notes
- If only the category that week were “Linguist Realness.” Monét would have won. Instead it was “The Last Ball on Earth,” and she had to lip sync for her life. She defeated Dusty Ray Bottoms with a death drop deke for the ages. ↩︎
- The Founding Fathers were, according to documentarian Philomena Cunk, “a straight, white supergroup” that wrote “the most famous breakup text” in history. ↩︎