Worst accents from movies and tv shows

Brad Pitt's Tennessee accent in Inglorious Basterds was HILARIOUS.

Most recently, Iain Glen's American accent on Titans. You have to hear it to believe it.

Jude Law as the Pope. Virtually every American accent on a UK tv series.

Julia Roberts in anything.

Please.

Kevin Spacey in The House of Cards

Tom Hanks in Charlie Wilson's War

Kevin Costner in Robin Hood : Prince of Thieves

Anthony Perkins in On the Beach

Dick Van Dyke has to win for his Bert in Mary Poppins, cor blimey!

[quote]There weren't any young Brits who could have played those roles?

Were Winona and Keanu playing Brits?

James Franco playing British in "Queen of the Desert" with Nicole Kidman.

His accent changed from word to word.

R9, yes

R10, great example! I've liked Franco in other things, but he's so amateurish in Queen of the Desert, like a kid playing dress up. Who thought he could pull off an upper crust Edwardian Englishman?

Sean Connery playing anything other than Scottish.

Julianne Moore’s Boston accent in 30 Rock, seriously.

R13 I'm preddy shaw huh axe-ent was spose ta be ovah thu tawp. Ya knaw, humah!

Scott Porter's Texas accent on Friday Night Lights was awful.

Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle. Accent changed from sentence to sentence, and even when she was in it, it was completely unnatural sounding.

Fleabag’s American accent on SNL.

Cate Blanchett's American accent in "The Talented Mr. Ripley" sounded like a parody of the ping pong monologue by Gloria Upson in Auntie Mame.

I thought Blanchett's character was supposed to be kind of a phony, so it worked for me

Anyone doing a Boston accent except Matt, Ben, or Mark.

British actors critique American actors playing Brits all the time, but a lot of them are pretty awful at playing Americans. Vanessa Redgrave has never been able to do a decent American accent as much as I love her.

R21 I agree with you on Redgrave.

R21 I agree with you on Redgrave.

Gene Hackman as Polish General Stanisław Sosabowski in [italic]a Bridge Too Far[/italic]

Off-topic (sorta), but at the other end of the spectrum, there's Helen Mirren in The Queen. She coached extensively for the role, and if you listen very carefully, when the family travels to Balmoral in Scotland for the summer, her accent very slightly changes through the course of the scenes, ever so slightly picking up the Scottish lilt from the locals. Back at Windsor, the full-on English reasserts itself.

Speaking of Queen of the Desert, Kidman's is quite awful herself. In anything. She's been living in the US for 30+ years now and has been married to American men and STILL can't do a convincing standard US accent. It constantly takes me out of the scene. She can't even play Australian convincingly any more either (those US 'r' sounds always slip in).

Her British accent in The Hours had less 'flaws' but still sounded like an accent rather than a natural speech pattern. Very false and fake.

r21. You are right but I think it is because when it is your own accent being slaughtered you notice it more. London actors always do a generic north of England accent which makes it sound like all the actors are from different counties.

I just remembered a truly awful one. Jennifer Jones playing a gypsy girl from Shropshire in Gone to Earth. She speaks from around 1min40s

R25 Odd, how Catherine the Great spoke exactly like the Queen of England.

"I just remembered a truly awful one. Jennifer Jones playing a gypsy girl from Shropshire in Gone to Earth. She speaks from around 1min40s"

I love this movie but you are right about Jones' accent. She sounds more Irish than English.

She seem's like a cool person in real life, but "Maggie" on The Walking Dead has a majorly annoying fake accent.

Southern accents come in many varieties...most of you guys are in no place to judge.

Keanu Reeves has an English accent. He said he was going for an English from the 18 hundreds. Moat of you do not know what you are talking about. When there is a an accent in film, they hire someone to help the actors.

In Bream StrokerDracular, there were English actors right on set (at least four). As usual many of you throw punches that are not deserved.

Southern accents come in many varieties...most of you guys are in no place to judge.

Keanu Reeves has an English accent. He said he was going for an English from the 18 hundreds. Moat of you do not know what you are talking about. When there is a an accent in film, they hire someone to help the actors.

In Bream StrokerDracular, there were English actors right on set (at least four). As usual many of you throw punches that are not deserved.

Hollywood thinks everyone in the South sounds the same.

They do not.

I remember watching Cold Mountain and wondering why do all these people in Appalachian North Carolina sound like they are from Charleston, South Carolina?

r32, That makes me think of Gwyn.Paltrow in Sliding Doors. It sounded like she had tried soooo hard to sound like Princess Diana that her speech sounded unnatural although not terrible at all.

R20 Martin Sheen did an impressive job of it in The Departed.

I am a huge Laurence Harvey fan. I am British so I wondered what people from Texas ( or those who know), thought about his accent in Walk on the Wild Side ( a film I love).

"I'm watching Bram Stoker's Dracula right now..."

I'm so sorry.

The awful Streep laying the Australian accent on way too thick in the Lindy Chamberlain film. Ugh!

R38 I went to school in Australia. It was not too thick.

Nicole Kidman is a great actress and I like her, but she really isn't great at an American accent, but there are times when she's better than others. What's that about? I've seen her play Americans where she's slipped up maybe once or twice, but is otherwise believable as an American and other times where she butchers it completely. Did she have a dialect coach on some films and not on others? It seems so bizarre to me. If she did it decently before, couldn't she do it again?

Southern accents are tricky, because that awful Scarlett O'Hara accent is rarely used anymore, but people still pretend people in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, etc. still talk like that. They don't. Holly Hunter has a legitimate southern accent. That's like the ones I grew up hearing.

Meryl Streep. Someone had to say it. What the hell was that accent in Out of Africa, because it sure as fuck wasn't Danish.

R41 I think regional accents are fading. My niece and nephew were both born and raised in Atlanta, but don't have a hint of a "southern" accent.

They sound like all the kids on the Disney channel.

r36, I haven't seen that movie. I can name a Brit who [italic]nailed[/italic] a Texas accent: Kelly MacDonald in [italic]No Country for Old Men[/italic].

r44, that makes me happy because I love her in Nanny Mc Phee. I wish her well.

M's accent in Doubt was atrocious.

R35 No

Don Cheadle's East End accent in "Ocean's 11."

Julia Roberts in Mary Reilly. Americans really can't do a convincing Irish accent. Even the great M sounded terrible in Dancing at Lughnasa.

The main actor from Dexter playing a British guy in the miniseries "Safe". Worst one I have ever heard and completely ruined the show.

^ Really? I thought he sounded better than 90% of American actors who try to do English accents

Wasn't there some British actress who once said that all Americans who do some kind of English accent all sound like they're imitating Mary Poppins?

R50 I have to agree. I went to high school with him and have to bite my tongue around mutual friends.

Margot Robbie's posh English accent in Goodbye Christopher Robin was not good

Elijah Wood as Frodo convinced my English friend I saw LotR with; he didn't realize the actor was American.

Laurence Olivier's laughable Mississippi accent in that godawful tv production of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. Also Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner's accents in the same debacle.

You should see Olivier in the movie The Betsy for laughable American accents.

Olivier also did an awful accent in The Jazz Singer. I heff no son!!!

Southern accents vary not only from state to state, but within regions. A Richmond Va accent is different from a Roanoke Va accent. Most actors do a generic old timey accent that I’ve never heard in real life, and it sounds so fake and lazy. I don’t know why they don’t spend some time with locals before they start filming. A good example of a Southern accent is Sissy Spacek doing Eastern Kentucky in “Coal Miners Daughter.”

Julia Roberts's accent in [italic]Steel Magnolias[/italic] was cringy af, and she's from Atlanta, for fuck's sake!

That generic GWTW Olde South accent was mostly characteristic of the mid-Atlantic South—the Virginia Tidewater and the Carolina Lowcountry.

^^^ Yes but that accent they do doesn’t sound at all like my family, who are from tidewater Va. They pronounce the o sound like Canadians, and I’ve never heard an actor get that. Boat is Bowt with ow very drawn out. Artistic is pronounced autistic which leads to some funny misunderstandings.

My partner grew up in northwest Alabama near the Mississippi state line, and that area has some of the strangest quirks I've ever heard. They mix up their Ts and Ks, so [italic]desk[/italic] and [italic]ask[/italic] are [italic]dest[/italic] and [italic]ast[/italic] and [italic]Walmart[/italic] is [italic]Walmark.[/italic] The past tense of [italic]dive[/italic] (as in "into a pool") is [italic]divved,[/italic] and [italic]help[/italic] is [italic]holp[/italic] (which I think is a remnant of Middle English). And H is often added before vowels: "Hit hain't matter nary a bit."

Pretty much every actor attempting a Boston accent sounds hilariously wrong to native Bostonians.

This is because there is no such thing as a Boston accent – you have an East Boston accent, South Boston accent, North Shore accent, etc. but the voice coaches and the actors don’t realize that so they’ll take one vowel from one part of town, another vowel, then some pattern of speech from Southie — and it just sounds like incoherent garbage. The actors sound like they’re from the planet mars or something.

Only actor I can name who speaks with a realistic Boston accent in the movies is Ben Affleck.

Legit regional Southern accents: Holly Hunter, as stated; Matthew McConaughey; Octavia Spencer; Andie MacDowell (wooden as she is). Listen to those and then listen to a non-Southerner try to fake it.

^ Also, Mary Steenburgen and the late Ann Wedgworth.

Regarding Ben Affleck’s Southern accent in Pearl Harbor, I offer you this from the New Yorker review by Anthony Lane:

“He plays Rafe, a dyslexic Tennessee farm boy who has loved flying ever since he was old enough to crash. At least, I think he’s from Tennessee; his accent takes a patriotic tour of several states, as if to indicate that the noble Rafe could have come from just about anywhere.”

R65 And Jim Parsons.

Most of the accents in Steel Magnolias are awful except for Dolly Parton because she's actually from the south. What's even funnier is that the director hated her accent and tried to get her to go to the same dialect coach as everyone else. Julia Roberts should have no excuse given that she's also from the south, but I think the director was terrorizing her.

Actually, I don't remember Shirley MacLaine's accent being terrible, but I was always confused by why she didn't attempt an accent in Terms of Endearment. Didn't that take place in Texas and it seemed like no one really had much of an accent?

And in northeast Alabama (Sand Mountain, Boaz, Arab [Ay-Rab], Fort Payne, and Guntersville), you often hear "Mizriz" instead of "Mrs."

[quote]Julia Roberts should have no excuse given that she's also from the south, but I think the director was terrorizing her.

Julia’s natural accent peeks out from time to time in Pretty Woman. Like the scene where she says “Well color me happy!”

[R62] That accent sounds hilarious! Like how I would imagine Snuffy Smith to speak if he came to life. (Life pronounced laugh)

I remember an old Weather Channel host named Marshall Seese who used to say "Ha-WYE-uh" and "Mi-ZUR-uh." (I think he was originally from Missouri or downstate Illinois.)

Features some that have already been mentioned and others that have not (like Cruise sounding like the Lucky Charms leprechaun in "Far and Away").

Lucas Black’s “Southern” accent on NCIS New Orleans is pathetic.

Isn't Lucas Black actually from the South?

Miss Vivien Leigh

^ Yep—Decatur, Alabama.

I thought Vivien Leigh in GWTW was good.

Except it was too coastal. Tara would have been near Atlanta.

R78 Well, her mother was from Savannah. Maybe she picked up Ellen’s accent.

Lucas Black has always talked like that.

[quote]Wasn't there some British actress who once said that all Americans who do some kind of English accent all sound like they're imitating Mary Poppins?

I vaguely remember reading that comment in article years ago. I can't remember who it was.

I've noticed that most of the time when an American plays an Aussie, Brit, or a non-American for movies or TV shows, some people get pissed. But, the people who get pissed probably don't see anything wrong with Aussies and Brits faking American accents for parts. I saw people bitching online in comments sections or twitter this past summer because Bryce Dallas Howard played Elton John's mother in Rocketman. When Renee Zellweger got the Bridget Jones film part, I remember reading an article saying that it was America's revenge for Vivien Leigh playing Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind.

Charlie Hunnam's attempt at cockney in "Green Street Hooligans" was awful, although I loved him in this movie.

I don't know what accent Tony Curtis was attempting in "Spartacus" (Southern Latin?) but it couldn't have been more Bronxian if he tried.

Has anyone here ever seen Glad Stroker’s Dickula?

Jess and Liam's Irish accents in "Rob Roy" were fabulous... even though they were supposed to be Scottish!

All those Russians in Dr. Zhivago with British accents.

I just watched Dolores Claiborne. The accents were really awful, but that’s how they talk in Maine. I’m from the area, so I know.

Keanu's own mother is English. You'd think that being constantly exposed to an English accent through his formative years would make it come pretty naturally to him. I guess not...

[quote] I can name a Brit who nailed a Texas accent: Kelly MacDonald in No Country for Old Men.

It took me forever to realize the girl from Trainspotting, the girl from Gosford Park and the girl from No Country were all the same person. She’s a chameleon.

[quote]When Renee Zellweger got the Bridget Jones film part, I remember reading an article saying that it was America's revenge for Vivien Leigh playing Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind.

Both of them did a good job.

Although Zellweger had a harder job, as it is more difficult to pull off a contemporary accent, as people immediately know if it rings false. Who knows -- exactly -- what people sounded like before recordings? Leigh's accent was wrong for that part of Georgia, but it was a period piece, so you can get away with even received pronunciation.

Allison Janney in The Help was pretty bad. Emma Stone wasn’t much better.

Reese Witherspoon does a good southern accent, but she should, being from the south herself. Her accent as June Carter Cash was quite convincing.

R91 I thought Joaquin Phoenix did a good job in that movie also, all things considered.

Michael C Hall's Estuary accent in Safe was actually pretty good. Yes he sounded off in places but considering most American actors either go full Princess Margaret or else Dick van Dyke if I hadn't known he was American I'd have been fooled. Estuary English is hard to pull off.

[quote]Nicole Kidman is a great actress and I like her, but she really isn't great at an American accent, but there are times when she's better than others. What's that about? I've seen her play Americans where she's slipped up maybe once or twice, but is otherwise believable as an American and other times where she butchers it completely. Did she have a dialect coach on some films and not on others? It seems so bizarre to me. If she did it decently before, couldn't she do it again?

On season 2 of Big Little Lies, there was an episode or two she slipped up several times. Her dialect coach's IMDB page had credits listed for Big Little Lies and a few other shows and films Kidman has done. The dialect coach's work history is quite long and she has worked as a coach multiple times for Naomi Watts, Andrew Garfield, Sam Rockwell, and Margot Robbie.

Kidman's accent slips in Big Little Lies were atrocious. Was she trying to make a point?

R95 There was drama with BLL season 2 regarding production and director Andrea Arnold. Maybe, Arnold was too scared to order retakes when Kidman's accent slipped up.

Ruby Rose's aussie accent keeps slipping in on Batwoman. Kind of drives me nuts lol

Karl Urban's English accent in The Boys is atrocious.

R91 Oddly enough, her accent in Sweet Home Alabama sounded fake to me.

I agree that Ryder & Reeves' accents were just *terrible* (and terribly inconsistent) during Dracula; not sure if Gary Oldman was drinking then, but if he was, who could blame him having to keep a straight face through that mess. But they were big stars at the time (more s than even Oldman), so I guess he had to suck it up & deal

[quote]I think regional accents are fading. My niece and nephew were both born and raised in Atlanta, but don't have a hint of a "southern" accent.

I know several people like that. They grew up in the south, but don't have any kind of regional accent. I also remember some actor from Texas saying that he learned to speak in non-Texas accent when he became interested in acting as a kid. I can't recall who it was.

I used to have a slight southern twang but got it shamed out of me. It comes back if I drink three martinis.

The two of them are terrible actors regardless of the accent they are attempting.

[quote]Allison Janney in The Help was pretty bad. Emma Stone wasn’t much better.

I love Allison, but I hated her performance in that movie.

[quote]Ruby Rose's aussie accent keeps slipping in on Batwoman. Kind of drives me nuts lol

I watched a few episodes last week and I noticed the slips.

"Maggie" on The Walking Dead. Lauren Cohen seems like a really cool person in real life, but her forced southern accent has always seemed so off when watching the show.

The song of the Western Meadowlark in a movie set in the eastern US.

Bird songs are misused all the time.

I recently rewatched True Grit (2010) and Matt Damon's Texas accent was atrocious.

Uma Thurman in Kill Bill

Pretty much everyone in Kill Bill who wasn't speaking their native language.

All the Chinese chicks in Memoirs Of A Geisha that were supposed to have Japanese accents.

I remember thinking Sadie Frost was going to be a thing.

The cast of Monty Python had atrocious American accents. Lots of over-correction, as if every American-English word has a hidden an “R” in it.

^^ “...has a hidden R in it.” Sorry about my bad Italian accent.

r1, I thought the same thing. The only reason why it works is because the film is partly a black comedy.

r6, Kevin Spacey's southern accent is brilliant. He nails it.

R115 Yeah, but then Spacey nails everything.

[quote] I remember watching Cold Mountain and wondering why do all these people in Appalachian North Carolina sound like they are from Charleston, South Carolina?

Many areas in NC's Western Appalachian region and the Eastern tidewater regions remained relatively isolated for several centuries. What you are hearing are the remnants of Elizabethan speech.

(I'm sure it's more comliplicated than just that and open to correction.)

Ed Norton in Stone nails-on-chalkboard awful.

Tony Curtis in Sparticus. "I am a singeh of soorngs." OMG

Sometimes we are so used to hearing actors speaking in one accent that when they attempt another our ears cannot accept it. An example is Jacqueline Bisset. She is British but when she tried for an American accent in The Sleepy Time Gal I couldn't accept it. However her French and French accent in La Ceremonie, and Here and Now seemed fine.

Awkwafina’s husky blaccent in Crazy Rich Asians. It’s all wrong. She sounds like Miley Cyrus trying to be “down with it.”

madonna english or whatever accent she uses today

I finally watched "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever" and Babula's laughably bad attempt at playing an Englishwoman in the flashback scenes definitely rate her a mention in this thread.

Robert DeNiro's (Max Cady) "southern" accent in "Cape Fear."

Harvey Keitel (Judas) in "Last Temptation of Christ." Not sure what kind of accent Judas was supposed to have, but every time Harvey Keitel spoke his lines, all I could think was: "There's Harvey Keitel with his New York accent." (I'm actually a fan of HK.)

Any one attempting a Minnesotan accent (Kirstie Alley and Kirsten Dunst in Drop Dead Gorgeous). Granted, they were likely supposed ot be over the top, but still very badly executed. Also the actors in Fargo were ghastly in their attempts.

I actually read somewhere, (maybe here) that people noticed Kidman's accent slips so much in Big Little Lies that it was thought that it was deliberate and part of the plot. For example, the character had a secret past and had hidden the fact that she was really an Aussie.

I'm British and from London and I generally cannot tell a bad generic American accent from a British actor (I know), but weirdly I can detect a Brit actor (who I never knew before) doing an American accent. I recently watched that Dirty Rotten Scoundrels remake with Anne Hathaway, and I could tell the actor playing the Glenn Headley role reversal was British within the first scene or so. He speaks in his real accent at the very end of the film when they are all stood by the Thames at Christmas time.

Americans often get to do a generic middle class southern British accent., best example is Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones (her accent is really good by the way). However, American's seldom have to do regional accents like Yorkshire, Liverpool, Geordie and Essex which are ridiculously different from one another and much harder to master. When they can do it, it's really impressive. Case in point. Watch Chris Pratt do an Essex accent on Graham Norton. He absolutely captures it!

Knives Out - Daniel Craig's "southern" accent was horrible.

Ben Afflecks Boston accent in The Town.

Whatever that accent was Madonna used in Who's That Girl. It's like a cross between a baby voiced New Yawk gangster moll and a Laura Petty impression. I actually saw this piece of shit in the theater when it came out. Poor Griffen Dunn.

George Clooney’s greatest prank ever was convincing Don Cheadle that his cockney accent in Ocean’s was good.

Rhett Butler is supposed to be from Charleston but Gable flatly refused even to attempt any kind of Southern accent. I'm sure his performance is the better for it.

Kathy Bates' weird accent on AHS: Freak Show

I saw Jim Broadbent playing Irish in a movie where the other actors were actually Irish. His accent travelled the length and breadth of the country, it was comical. Even people with "mixed" accents don't change accent every single word.

R112 I don't think the Monty Python crew were ever making a serious attempt at an American accent, It was really just a way to lampoon the US.

Most of their films and sketches did the same thing to one group or another.

Whatever the fuck accent Angelina Jolie was attempting in Alexander.

Florence Pugh does a pretty flawless American accent to my ear. Saoirse and Emma Watson do not.

How the hell did no mention Jodie Foster's atrocious over-dubbed accent in Elysium. Seriously see the clip from 0:29. She shakes her head like a damn bobblehead too.

Estelle Getty sounded nothing like a Sicilian immigrant on The Golden Girls, nor even like an Italian-American New Yorker.

R121 That is Awkwafina’s regular speech though. Have you ever taken the train to queens or brooklyn? Tons of asian kids talking exactly like that.

[quote]British actors critique American actors playing Brits all the time, but a lot of them are pretty awful at playing Americans.

The difference between the two is that Americans are generally like, "Eh, Close enough. Here's your Oscar nomination, anyway." Whereas Brits are like, "That's not even close!" and won't give Americans a break.

Kate Winslet kept slipping in and out of her American accent in TITANIC.

Julie Andrews is supposed to be from the American heartland in THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE, but she still sounds like Julie Andrews.

Ditto Hayley Mills in THE PARENT TRAP (twins from California and Boston) and in POLLYANNA (girl from Connecticut). She still sounds like posh-y Mills. Did she even attempt an accent?

Audrey Hepburn in SABRINA is supposed to be a Long Island girl and yet she sounds like she's from 'anotha lahnd' (i.e., herself).

Historical linguists have noted that because childcare in the antebellum South was relegated to black slaves (like Mammy in GWTW), southern children often spoke in a dialect closer to that of Southern black people than their white parents. This was a source of embarrassment and one of the main reasons young men were sent north to school (girls were just left to their own devices). Obviously, this varied from family to family.

Angelina Jolie in "Alexander." What the fuck was that accent supposed to be??

In The Parent Trap, California Brian Keith makes a joke about Boston Sharon saying “Faaatha” which I didn’t even catch because I didn’t realise the twins were supposed to have different accents.

I can’t believe no one has mentioned John Travolta’s accent in Hairspray. I had second hand embarrassment for him.

Kevin Spacey in House of Cards – cringe worthy

[quote] I can’t believe no one has mentioned John Travolta’s accent in Hairspray. I had second hand embarrassment for him.

It’s annoying as fuck, but it’s not entirely inaccurate. The accent he adopted isn’t a million miles from Mare Of Easttown.

Kenneth Branagh doing his best to sound like Woody Allen.

Rami Malek's euro-villain accent in the James Bond trailer. It's intriguingly perfect right up until the last word – when it dips into pure American.

R1 Brad’s accent attempt was even more dire in Irish-American drama THE DEVIL’S OWN. Jaysus. You can understand why Harrison Ford refused to speak to him ever again after that.

Said with much love, as a lifelong devoted fan—Christina Ricci in 200 CIGARETTES, giving us her best Lawn Guyland. Really, that was the best that she could do. Oddly, it didn’t really affect the likeability of her performance, though it probably helps that the film is great fun with a fantastic cast.

“Cawl ya muthah!” “I cayun’t cawl huhr—she thenks I’m slaypin at chore howss!”

Warren Beatty's Italian accent from The Roman Spring Of Mrs. Stone. The British accent of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.

*in...not from^^

[quote]Julia Roberts's accent in Steel Magnolias was cringy af, and she's from Atlanta, for fuck's sake!

Most people in Atlanta don't have a Southern accent. My niece and nephew were born there and grew up there. They have very neutral "Disney" accents.

Annette Benning in "Hope Gap" does the worst English accent since Dick Van Dyke.

It comes and goes and wanders all over the place. Sometimes she sounds cockney, sometimes American, sometimes like Princess Margaret.

And she is playing with English actors, so it must have been excruciating for them.

Drew Barrymores horrible accent in Ever After

R155, Bitch please. Were talking about 30 yrs ago in a role in which she was supposed to be a southern belle.

I understand what you mean R25 regarding Helen Mirren/The Queen, but I kind of took that as a deliberate decision in that the Scottish lilt was what she's like in private/when relaxed, but the posh English sound is when she's "on" as Queen.

I agree with OP about Winona & Keanu; they totally stink up that movie. Gary Oldman's accent is pretty over the top too, but in a campy way, not just "bad acting" way