One of the mysteries of the new TV series, True Detective: do Americans understand each other’s accents?

Eh?

I remember when we were checking into The Frenchmen Hotel in New Orleans 20 years’ ago being told by the rather languid young man behind the desk that we were being given a discount on our room. I asked him why. “Because y’all got an accent,” he replied. Hearing that comment – spoken in the richest imaginable Louisiana draaaaawwwwwl – tickled us pink.

Up to that point, I’d always considered us to be accentless – especially my wife, who is Received Pronunciation (or Oxford English) personified. I was reminded of this incident last night as we watched the first episode of True Detective, the new Louisiana-set TV crime drama starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey (both in fine form). After ten minutes adjusting the volume, we admitted to each other that we could barely understand a word anyone was saying. We switched on subtitles, but they weren’t available (maybe because we'd downloaded the programme from Sky's Catch Up service instead of watching it live). Consequently, it was a bit like listening to one’s neighbours having a row by pressing a glass against a shared wall (not, of course, that we’d ever do such a thing). My wife's hearing is much more acute than mine, but I’m generally better at deciphering English spoken in a foreign accent than my wife. Last night, though, I was of no help whatsoever. (Matters weren’t helped by both of us having colds.)

Partly, the tinny little speakers squashed into flat-screen TVs are to blame (I wrote about the problem here). But in this instance I suspect it was also because the accents were being laid on with a trowel – Harrelson’s character is supposed to be from Louisiana and McConoughey from Texas (I have no idea whether their accents are authentic or not – an expert opinion would be appreciated). I suspect that American TV and movie-makers' perfectly natural and commendable desire for maximum authenticity is making it harder for Brits to understand dialogue, and I really wouldn’t want all their characters speaking in geographically anomalous Mid-West, white-bread tones. Besides, we’ve had our fun over the years sneering at reports of hopelessly insular Americans being unable to understand various British films and personalities (all the way from Kes to Cheryl Cole): who are we to complain when the shoe’s on the other foot? Perhaps sound recordists could make some allowances: dipping background noise in order to foreground the dialogues, or placing the microphones in a more advantageous position. But I'm not sure either of those things would have made much difference last night.

As we reached the end of True Detective I suddenly found myself wondering whether American viewers in, say, Boston or Brooklyn or Seattle or San Francisco face the same problems as we do with some American accents? After all, if people from the Home Counties find certain British regional accents hard to decipher even though that region's only a few hundred miles away – and they do - why would Americans who live in different time-zones find it any easier? For instance, did the descendants of Norwegian immigrants in Minneapolis breeze through The Wire without an occasional "huh?" And are similar problems encountered within countries like Germany, Italy and Spain – in fact anywhere with national TV stations and a wide variety of regional accents?

I feel a bit guilty bringing this up, because I love hearing genuine American regional accents (for instance, it was one of the many factors which made Fargo such a constant delight). But I also like to understand what the actors are saying, so it's a bit of a conundrum. We'll definitely be watching the rest of True Detective, but I'm really hoping we can figure out how to get the subtitles working from now on or we'll have to end up with our ears pressed against the television set.