#kittpost

bath time

based on this thing

Accent

We all know and love KITT’s voice. To be more specific, his accent. I’d love to rant about this for a second (here comes just a small chunk of my niche history knowledge that I love to explain all of this).

Most of us know that KITTs accent is a Boston one. That’s what we’ve been told. What’s spread around as the classification for this accent

However, I wish to challenge that classification. Sure there are hints of the Boston accent here and there, but I would argue that KITT’s accent is mainly that of a Transatlantic accent! If you do not know what this is, I highly encourage you to go do some research on this, but I will give you a very crude generalization of what this accent is and why it came to be.

I have a hard time describing accents, specifically right now in one of my writing slumps, so I used the wonderful website known as Wikipedia to give me a brief description to use.

“A deliberately learned blend of American and British pronunciation.” (Doesn’t this remind you of KITT..?)

So why did this, “deliberately learned,” accent come to be? To put it simply, when radio was becoming more widespread and popular around the 20s and 30s, it sometimes had a hard time picking up and transmitting the words people were saying in an understandable way, so those working in the business had to develop an accent that came through the radio the clearest. Thus the transatlantic, or mid-atlantic, accent was born. It also became even more popular when TV became a big thing in the 50s because it was also easiest to understand with the mics and speakers used there.

The accent, however, mostly died off once technology became more advanced, and was basically dead by the 80s… bringing us to Knight Rider.

I bet you guys almost thought I forgot about KITT here. Nope, sorry for the long history lesson lead in.

I like to think that maybe this accent was chosen on purpose. Maybe as an homage for the history of the accent, or the history of the accent was in-and-of-itself an explanation for KITT’s accent.

Just think…

What exactly is KITT speaking through..? It certainly isn’t vocal cords he’s using! Speakers.

I would say that maybe he speaks this way just to be as clear as possible. So he’s well understood unlike the early days of radio where it was hard to under what they said without the transatlantic accent! It’s a way of being precise and refined all at the same time.

So there! Enjoy my random thought of the night that I had while driving home in the dark trying to see around a massive freaking bug stain on my windshield that wouldn’t go away even with washer fluid and wipers.

And for your troubles, have a comparison of KITT and then the transatlantic accent.

Do remember, please, that KITTs accent isn’t what I would consider a full transatlantic. It has its own characteristic pieces and parts borrowed from different places, but it is majority transatlantic (imo).