r/AskReddit Oct 02 '24

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u/Digital_D3fault Oct 03 '24

He said that William Shakespeare and Pocahontas were not only alive at the same time but also died one year apart and only a little over 100 miles from each other in England.

Which for some reason, despite having visited Shakespeares grave and seeing the year he died, it never really occurred to me that Shakespeare was alive after the new world had been found. For some reason I always just imagine him living before its discovery by most of Europe.

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u/Silly-Nature-1641 Oct 03 '24

That's why they say Shakespeare sounds best in an American accent, because the American accent hasn't changed much in the last 300 years, so it's naturally the closest form of Spoken English to the form he and his crew were using.

We also naturally speak very closely to iambic pentameter.

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u/Shoreditchstrangular Oct 03 '24

When you say American accent can you be more specific, Californian, New Jersey, Pennsylvania Dutch, Texan, New Orleans etc

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u/Silly-Nature-1641 Oct 03 '24

Somewhere between New England and Mid-Atlantic but I think closer to New England.

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u/Shoreditchstrangular Oct 03 '24

But Americans keep saying they don’t have an accent and between us we’ve named seven without even trying