British Accents

Yesterday in my television class we were talking about PBS and how their programming differs from other American channels. Amidst this talk, we discussed how PBS imports some British shows, like Monty Python's Flying Circus, miniseries, and "low-brow" comedy - and yet all of these shows are seen as very "high-brow." Why? Because people with British accents just sound smarter to us Americans.

I've been thinking about this ever since and it's true. Why this is comes as somewhat as a mystery to me. Maybe it's some sort of residual "we used to be a colony of you and then we went off and did our own thing and got stuck with this weird accent" sort of thing. Maybe, as human accents go, the accents of the UK (because Lord knows there is more than one British accent) just has an intellectual sound to it. Maybe the British are just smarter (they at least, I hope, know that Ash Wednesday falls on a WEDNESDAY unlike several girls in one of my psych classes. And my professor for my Comedy class :P). 

Regardless, members of the United Kingdom, you have an incredible power of the American public. Please don't use it against us.