"Lincoln's Memorial doesn't sound quite right in a British accent" Actually, technically we don't know what his voice sounded like. Do you think the British accent turned into the American accent in only 87 years?,(reply>), @Mark Polo​ Yeah, it might not in actuality sound so similar, but our accents today are closer to 17th or 18th century English accents than modern English accents. If I'd guess, I would say that Shakespeare's Englismen sounded something like Scottish or Welsh.﻿,(reply>), @Dylan Springer<br>For instance, in Shakespeare's time, commenters on the language specifically pointed out that the English pronounced all those r's at the ends of words. Dropping them was a later development. That said, while "standard American" may be closer to what was spoken in England in the 1700s, I doubt very much that we would find it all that similar if one of those ubiquitous time travellers from the 18th century shows up.,(reply>), Actually, the British used to have an accent that sounded more like the way Americans talk today. It was actually the British who developed a new accented sometimes in the 1800s.,(reply>), Actually, none of this matters when addressing the original point.<br>&gt; "Lincoln's Memorial doesn't sound quite right in a British accent" Actually, technically we don't know what his voice sounded like.<br>The fact that we don't know what he sounded like doesn't matter. If something "doesn't sound quite right", that means that it sounds odd to our ears today. Even if his accent at the time was identical to Tom Scott's accent today, that isn't what sounds normal to our modern ears, and hence it doesn't sound quite right.,(reply>), @***** Well, neither of us are language scholars, so all we can do is have interesting speculation. And in this context, hearsay might just offer a hypothesis that wasn't even considered when we can't be conclusive about any of them.<br><br>TLDR: Every seems to assume that the British accent evolved into the American accent, but what if the reverse was true?<br><br>That is actually bringing a lot more to the conversation than "Not necessarily American, as we know it, but certainly not British anymore."<br><br>So instead of shitting on what others have to bring to the table, why not think about it and allow yourself to wonder, since this is one subject where we will never have the definite answer.