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Snopes readers reached out to us recently with a request: What are the origins of the mid-Atlantic accent, that snobby, faux-British accent that many American actors and newscasters used in the early 20th Century? A TikTok user claimed in a viral video posted in late February 2021 that the accent originated from the need to enunciate words because during the time it developed, microphones had a tinnier sound. The TikTok user claimed that the enunciation characteristic of the accent made it easier to understand speakers over microphones and broadcasting technology of the time period: The mid-Atlantic accent, which is now obsolete, wasn't region-specific, and it was acquired, not natural. It was distinctive in that it was, as the name implies, a hybrid of American and British accents. Although the idea that it was developed to ensure that speakers could be understood broadcasters through available technology of the early 20th Century is one theory about its origins, more evidence suggests that it was developed and learned as a signifier of class, having been taught at elite boarding schools in the American Northeast before proliferating in Hollywood cinema. A 2016 investigation by Atlas Obscura, an online travel company and magazine, traced the accent's origins to classism and elitism, not technology-driven necessity: After the advent of sound in film, the fake accent came to dominate both theater and Hollywood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH2DKZ-2m74&feature=emb_title Atlas Obscura traces the accent's characteristics to Edith Skinner, an elocutionist and author who drew up its pronunciation rules in the 1942 book Speak With Distinction. Although it dominated in Hollywood, the accent's reign was short-lived, and totally died by in the end of the 1960s, per Atlas Obscura's investigation:
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