“Look at her, a prisoner of the gutters; condemned by every syllable she utters”
Classic song illustrating accent and career-success prejudice
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I suspect any investor or investor group with enough data points to offer such a judgement would have said something similar 30 years ago (1983), or 50 years ago (1963), or 100 years ago (1913). Long-distance communication and migration is becoming more common: native English speakers (especially in North America) are getting more chances to hear and become familiar with the speech of people who do not have English as their first language. (Without familiarity, it's easy to assume that flawed grammar and pronunciation means either flawed thinking or risky cultural differences.) So I'd surmise that the heavily-accented currently have their best opportunities ever to thrive in North American capital/recruiting/selling markets – and earlier generations of investors would have offered even harsher assessments about the impact of strong accents. One of the points I was making with the My Fair Lady -themed joke in another thread (the SayAfter.me accent training offer) was that this is an eternal issue. Look at her, a prisoner of the gutters; condemned by every syllable she utters… this video That film came out in 1964 (winning Best Picture), based on a 1956 stage musical, based on a 1913 play ( Pygmalion ). The same ideas about accent and career-success go back further, and easily translate to many other languages and cultures. Of course, an uneducated native (or disadvantaged local group dialect ) accent is a different thing than a non-native accent. A non-native accent is more likel
