Quote:
Originally Posted by mousepod
I forgive Nat Cole his accent (there's really no such thing as a "Spanish" accent, it's spoken natively in so many different places) and his pronunciation (have you ever heard him sing in English?).
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There's certainly an argument to be made that the only truly "bad" accent is one that is unintelligible...but Cole was in need of an intervention as he was clearly huked en fonicos (but I think the library lost the tape on how to pronounce "r"s). Nowhere, but nowhere, in the native Spanish speaking world is "tres" a homophone for Ms. MacNeille's first name. And as long as we're talking credentials, both of my parents are fluent and have been mistaken for native speakers. I was on the verge of fluency myself by the end of high school (sadly, due to lack of/failure to seek out opportunities to speak it at UCI, I've regressed pitifully in the ensuing decade).
It was indeed a beautiful piece of music, but Cole's brute force Spanish-by-numbers vocals were way too distracting to me and Dinah Shore was a refreshing change.