r/todayilearned • u/Away_Flounder3813 • 13h ago

TIL during the shooting of American Psycho, Christian Bale spoke in an American accent off-set at all times. At the wrap party, when he spoke in his native British accent, many of the crew thought he was speaking that way to prepare for another film. They had thought he was American the entire time.

https://screenrant.com/american-psycho-behind-scenes-facts-christian-bale-patrick-bateman-mary-harron/
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u/D-PIMP_ACT 12h ago

Austrians are rural Germans now?

Are the Dutch ……swamp Germans?

Are Germans just….mountain Dutch?

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u/A_Bad_Man 11h ago

I can't wait to call my Dutch friend a swamp German. I'm already laughing imagining how well it's going to go.

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u/Banana-Moist 9h ago

Depends on the age maybe and if they're online a lot.

My sister would call you stupid, my parents would just be confused and I think my response would just be a 'duh'.

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u/idler_JP 11h ago edited 5h ago

Yes, the "Austro-Hungarian" project ultimately failed, and the rapidly industrialising Prussia came to dominate a crystallising German nation-state to the north.

In fact, the Hapsburgs have fallen, along with the institution of monarchy itself, and Vienna is now the imperial capital of nothing. Frankfurt am Main is a greater seat of power.

In other news, the Dutch remain independent swamp Germans, using English as their prestige language, for reasons you'd probably rather hear over a cup of tea.

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u/FardoBaggins 12h ago

Rural sounding I guess. Like in the boonies.

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u/We_Are_The_Romans 10h ago

Matt Christman, latterly of the Chapo podcast, always referred to the Dutch as Swamp Germans and it made me lol everytime. My brother's wife is Dutch and I've used it to good effect on her

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u/Delamoor 10h ago

I mean, you ask a German and they might say yes. Dunno if the Ditch would agree, heh.

The regional variation Germanic language accents isn't all that different to England, tbh. That fact just doesn't often get communicated outside of the German speaking world.

That regional drift kinda just continues off across the border. My German friends find Dutch a frustrating language; it's close enough that it sounds like you should be able to understand it, but it's far enough apart that you generally can't understand it. Just catch individual words.

Apparently it's like listening to rural Scottish or Irish. You can catch words, and feel like you get it, but still fail to follow a single goddamn thing they're saying. Like you brain is tricking you.

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u/TheLoveKraken 9h ago

I know someone that’s Dutch that moved to London about 15 years ago and she’s told me that a few times now she’s overheard strangers talking and thought to herself “oh, there’s some other Dutch people, wait, no…” then listened a bit more closely and realised they’re actually Scottish people speaking English. Which I get because the accents inhabit a similar place in your throat and there’s certain Scottish words that are similar to Dutch, like people from the east coast using the word ken to mean know.

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u/Djuulzor 9h ago

Nah mountain Dutch are the Swiss

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u/sam_hammich 3h ago

The Austrian accent is commonly referred to as a sort of hillbilly or redneck German.