Mobituaries with Mo Rocca

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Death of an Accent

Have you ever wondered about that old timey accent so many actors used in black and white movies? Hollywood stars like Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis and Orson Welles, who sounded sort of British … but not quite. Was it all a put on or did people back then talk that way in real life? Mo investigates the emergence and disappearance of the accent commonly known as “Mid-Atlantic” with the help of linguist John McWhorter. Plus Hollywood dialect coach Jessica Drake tries her best to teach Mo how to talk that way. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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  Sitcom Deaths and Disappearances | Reviving a Mobit

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  Literary Frontierswoman: Laura Ingalls Wilder

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  LaWanda Page: Death of a Comedy Queen

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  Revisiting the Orphan Train: An American Odyssey

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  Death of a Sports Team: Satchel Paige and Los Dragones

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  Death of the Very Special Episode

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  Mobits Extra: How Norman Lear Changed Television

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  The Habsburg Jaw: Death of a Dynasty

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  Death of a Nepo Baby

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  JFK Impersonator Vaughn Meader: Death of a Career

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  Charlie McCarthy: Death of a Dummy

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  Things I Wish Would Die

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  Jim Thorpe: Death of an All-American

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  Peggy Lee: Death of Cool

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  Died on the Same Day (with special guest Anderson Cooper)