History Main / AccentDepundent

* Most [[UranusIsShowing "Uranus" jokes]] don't make much sense if you pronounce the word "YOU-ran-us" or "OOH-ran-oos".

* In another Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice musical, ''Theatre/JosephAndTheAmazingTechnicolorDreamcoat'', Joseph tells the Pharaoh "All these things you saw in your '''pyjamas'''"/Are a long-range forecast for your '''farmers'''" -– a dead giveaway that the show is British in origin, which becomes a very PainfulRhyme in a rhotic accent.

** Another curious example occurs in the song "The Street Where You Live", when Freddy sings the line, "People stop and stare, they don't bother me / For there's nowhere else on earth that I would rather be". The rhyme would completely fail in American English, where "rather" rhymes with "gather". Fortunately, Freddy is singing the Queen's English, in which "rather" rhymes with "father". They rhyme ''still'' fails in British English, because of the distinction that Brits (and, indeed, most English speakers outside North America) make between the short "o" of "bother" and the long "a" of "father". However, most Americans make no such distinction (except for the traditional Boston accent): for them, "father" and "bother" are a perfect rhyming pair![[note]]This conflation, known as the "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_open_back_vowels#Father%E2%80%93bother_merger father-bother merger]]", is one of the distinguishing features of North American English.[[/note]] So the rhyme works -- but only if it's ''said'' by a Brit and ''heard'' by an American.

And then from whore to whore, we rut, and rot,\\

* In the musical of ''Theatre/{{Matilda}}'', "School Song" features words which sound like letters of the alphabet in order (e.g. "'''I''' have suffered in this '''ja'''il I've been trapped inside this '''ca'''ge for ages, This living ''''ell'''") and ends with the warning about how Miss Trunchball teaches "Phy'''s-ed'''", which works in most English-speaking countries but not in the United States, where the letter Z is called "zee" instead of "zed". Also, the word used for R is "asked", which doesn't work in any rhotic accent or, for that matter, in the north of England.

* In ''WesternAnimation/Cars1'': Mater's declaration that his name is 'Mater, like Tow-Mater, but without the 'tow'' only works if the audience is used to pronouncing 'tomato' as 'tuh-mater' or 'tow-mater'.

** Porygon-2's evolution is not Porygon-''3'', but rather Porygon-''Z'' in reference to its glitched state. Notably it explicitly uses the latin alphabet symbol "Z" as opposed to "ゼット", as that would be pronounced "zetto".

* ''Literature/CharlieAndTheGreatGlassElevator'': The President of the United States is unusually fond of knock-knock jokes and name puns, but one of them--saying "Courteney one yet?" to a chief of police--does not work in most American accent (it is meant to sound like "caught anyone yet").

* ''Film/JurassicPark'': Tim's joke "What do you call a blind dinosaur? Do-you-think-he-saurus". "Saurus" and "saw us" sound the same in a non-rhotic accent with linking r. However, the pun isn't supposed to work perfectly anyway since Tim doesn't speak with such an accent.

* CountryMusic takes full advantage of the fact a southern drawl softens the ends of words, meaning approximate rhymes don't sound as jarring as long as the vowel sounds in the words are the same. For example, Music/{{Shenandoah}}'s "Two Dozen Roses," which rhymes "wine," "mind," and "night" in its chorus. The end constonant sound is swallowed, allowing these rhymes to work based on their long-I vowel sound. In an even more egregious example, Music/{{Lonestar}}'s "Everything's Changed," which uses this same technique to rhyme "park" with [[ItMakesSenseInContext "Walmart."]]

* The name "Herbal Essences" is probably meant to sound alliterative, but it only works when said with an accent that drops the H in "herb"; in other accents, "herbal" has a voiced "H" in it.

* In ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'', Vanellope's "duty"/"doody" pun only works in an accent that exhibits both flapping and yod-dropping; in non-flapping and/or non-yod-dropping accents, the two words aren't homophonous.

* ''Film/HotShotsPartDeux'': Some merchandise was advertised in a home video version of the film, with the narrator mispronouncing "Deux" with an American Accent to sound like "dew" (or "do"). One of the merchandise had the writing "Just Deux it!", while it was pronounced "Just do it!".

* The background music for one of the official trailers of ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'', is Music/{{NSYNC}}'s "It's Gonna Be Me", which can be [[MondegreenGag misheard as "It's gonna be Mei"]] (i.e. the main character). Pretty much invoked with a line edited from "You might been hurt, babe" to "You might been hurt, Mei".

[[folder: Puppet Shows]]

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]

[[folder:Film]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/Cars1'': Mater's declaration that his name is 'Mater, like Tow-Mater, but without the 'tow'' only works if the audience is used to pronouncing 'tomato' as 'tuh-mater' or 'tow-mater'.

* In ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'', Vanellope's "duty"/"doody" pun only works in an accent that exhibits both flapping and yod-dropping; in non-flapping and/or non-yod-dropping accents, the two words aren't homophonous.

[[folder:Film]]

[[folder:Film -- Animated]]
* Most Americans didn't get that ''WesternAnimation/ArthurChristmas'' was supposed to be a pun on "Father Christmas", partly because the words don't rhyme in most dialects of American English, and partly because most Americans are used to saying "Santa Claus".
* ''WesternAnimation/{{The Lion King|1994}}'': In the song "Be Prepared", Scar's line "A shining new era / is tiptoeing nearer" is dependent on Jeremy Irons' non-rhotic English accent; additionally, "era" is pronounced with a short "e" in many North American accents.
* This exchange from the ''WesternAnimation/WallaceAndGromit'' film ''WesternAnimation/TheCurseOfTheWereRabbit'', which depends on Lady Tottington's very posh RP accent.
-->'''Wallace:''' (as he's on the phone)'' Just stay right where you are, Your Ladyship, and ''(accidentally presses a button which yanks him upstairs)'' we'll be with you in an- AAAAHHH!!\\
'''Lady Tottington:''' In an hour?[[note]]Pronounced as "awr"[[/note]] I can't wait an hour, I have a major infestation!
* ''WesternAnimation/YellowSubmarine'': The following pun only worked thanks to Music/RingoStarr's Liverpool accent:
-->'''Ringo:''' Hey, I wonder what would happen if I pulled this lever.\\
'''Old Fred:''' You mustn't do that.\\
'''Ringo:''' Can't help it. I'm a born lever-puller.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/DoctorDolittle'': The song "Talk to the Animals" includes the line "If people asked me, 'Can you speak rhinoceros?' / I'd say, 'Of courseros!'" This is obviously a less PainfulRhyme in Rex Harrison's non-rhotic British accent than it would have been in a rhotic accent.
[[/folder]]

-->'''Interviewer:''' I see you have a five-year gap in your résumé here. Why is that?

* Similarly to the example given above, the titular pun in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "The Crepes of Wrath" makes little sense to anyone who pronounces "crepe" as "crep" (as the original French word ''crêpe'' is pronounced).
* A gag in ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' has Peter told that "mom" is on the phone, and eagerly mutters to himself "Please be [[Creator/WSomersetMaugham Somerset Maugham]]!" The words only sound the same in some dialects of American English (those with the cot/caught merger); in the UK the joke is further obscured by the fact that "mom" is spelled/pronounced "mum" (as it is pronounced [but not written] in the traditional Boston accent of U.S. English), though EaglelandOsmosis makes up for that.
** Another one, where Lois suggests that Brian join up with PETA, which sounds exactly the same as the way she pronounces Peter's name in her thick New England accent.
* An unintentional example: ''{{WesternAnimation/Dinosaucers}}'' has the word "dinosaur" in the title if pronounced with a non-rhotic accent (Dinosaur-cers), but the narration is done in a rhotic accent, where the pun doesn't appear.

* Series/ErinAndAaron: The names Aaron and Erin sound exactly the same when the show characters say them due to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_/r/#Mary%E2%80%93marry%E2%80%93merry_merger Mary-marry-merry merger]] which affects most, but not all American accents.[[note]]People who lack the Mary-marry-merry merger pronounce "Aaron" with the vowel of "marry" and "Erin" with the vowel of "merry"[[/note]]

* Series: The names Aaron and Erin sound exactly the same when the show characters say them due to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_/r/#Mary%E2%80%93marry%E2%80%93merry_merger Mary-marry-merry merger]] which affects most, but not all American accents.[[note]]People who lack the Mary-marry-merry merger pronounce "Aaron" with the vowel of "marry" and "Erin" with the vowel of "merry"[[/note]]

* ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'': The final joke of the episode "[[Recap/SeinfeldS4E20TheJuniorMint The Junior Mint]]" depends upon rhyming "Dolores" with "clitoris". This only works in certain regions of the US where the emphasis is on the second syllable ("cli-TOR-is") rather than the first.

* In ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'', there are often categories like "Rhymes with BOT", and several of the correct responses in the category only work if you have the ''caught''-''cot'' merger.
* In one episode of ''Series/LambChopsPlayAlong'', Shari teaches Lamb Chop about silent letters, and she use "poem" as the first example of a word with a silent letter, the "e." While this works in Shari and Lamb Chop's New York accent, it doesn't work in other accents that clearly pronounce the "e" in that word. Shari does acknowledge that the word can also be pronounced with an audible "e," though.
* ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'': The whole joke about Bob Loblaw's name is that it sounds like "bah blah blah", which only works in accents where "o" and "aw" sound similar.

** A few English monster names are like this. The Ghost-type Gastly, for example, loses the pun on "gas" in regions that pronounce it "Garse-tly".

* A few English ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' names are like this. The Ghost-type Gastly, for example, loses the pun on "gas" in regions that pronounce it "Garse-tly".

* Platform/TikTok content creator [[https://www.tiktok.com/@jessiez87968?lang=en jessiez87968]] is Chinese and speaks English with a thick accent. She has a series of videos where she makes SelfDeprecating jokes about how speaking English as a second language makes her prone to [[LiteralMinded misunder]][[ThatCameOutWrong standings]], and many of them are [[MondegreenGag Mondegreen Gags]] involving her accent. For example, in one video, she asks her boyfriend to come look at her “shit[[note]]sheet[[/note]]”, and [[TooMuchInformation he’s grossed out]]. He comes into her room with his nose plugged, and finds that she’s talking about a spreadsheet.

* In the English translation of "Silent Night", the lyrics go "Glories stream from heaven afar / heavenly hosts sing Alleluia", which worked in the non-rhotic New York accent spoken by translator John Freeman Young but not in most other American accents. (However, it's worth noting that many people trained to sing in a classical style, such as in a choir or in {{Opera}}, are taught to not sing the final rhotic sound in words that end with "R", because it sounds "smoother" and makes it easier to [[IncrediblyLongNote hold notes]]. Since "Silent Night" is a religious song popularized during the Victorian era, it's commonly sung in a classical style reminiscent of church choirs.)