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Author: AgProv

May 24th 2013 at 2:37:16 AM

Actually, James Doohan was able to do extremely good Scottish accents. It was Gene Roddenberry and the show's producers who made him tone it down to the cod-Scottish accent you hear on Star Trek. In his audition, he first did Glasgow. Bad move. He then tried the different Aberdeen accent. Still unintelligible to non-Scottish ears. Finally, on the Daphne-Moon-out-of-Frasier principle, he had to adopt a compromise accent that was vaguely there somewhere. (just as Daphne Moon's Manchester accent does what it's meant to  - except in Manchester). We who actually live in Manchester accepted that Daphne's Manchester accent isn't meant for us - it's to convey the general impression to Americans, while being intelligible to them.  Same thing with James Doohan's Scotty: conveying the general idea of Scottishness while still comprehensible to Yanks. Not meant for genuine Scottish people to listen to, alas. Just think how americans would take to a real Glasgow accent (it's why BillyConnolly's American sitcom went tits up. (For that, could you imagine Daphne Moon having a REAL Manchester-area accent, let's say the sort of broad Boltonian of Peter Kaye?)