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 #17 (permalink) Mon Dec 04, 2006 9:56 am Which English Accent do I have to follow? |
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| Now you're not telling me you haven't got Americans speaking with a pompous accent, are you? |
No, I didn't say that. But I'd be interested in knowing which American accent is perceived by the British as pompous.
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Yankee
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| #18 (permalink) Mon Dec 04, 2006 10:03 am Which English Accent do I have to follow? |
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Hi Amy,
I don't think I've made my point clearly. All I am saying is that an American can adopt a pompous attitude as well as any other nationality and in so doing speaks in a particular way but (and this is my point) the way they do it doesn't constitute an accent.
A
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| #19 (permalink) Mon Dec 04, 2006 10:31 am Which English Accent do I have to follow? |
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Hi Alan
I sense that I can't convince you about this. But it is nonetheless my opinion that there is a certain British accent that has aquired a stereotype (in the minds of Americans) as pompous. But I must say, I think that people who find it imperative to speak with a so-called 'URP' accent would tend to exhibit pompous personality characteristics anyway.
Amy
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| #20 (permalink) Mon Dec 04, 2006 11:33 am Which English Accent do I have to follow? |
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Hi,
So we might meet half way, then. I've always been fascinated by 'accents' as used in the UK. I do tend to get heated when people talk about an Oxford accent and a BBC voice (both of which I have been intimately involved in) and I regard such expressions as wild generalisations. What is interesting is how downright non-rp is extremely close to super affected rp. I spent a period of time in the Tower of London doing National Service and many of the conscripts were drawn from a large section of the East End of London (I think it was a mistake why I went there because I hailed from one of the 'leafy suburbs' of London) where English though 'colourful' was hardly the sort of language you would recommend to an ESL student. But if you compare certain sounds from that neck of the woods with say the sounds made by the current heir to the throne, there are striking similarities. As I'm rubbish at phonetic spelling, I can't really make the sounds that clear but the sound made in 'about' by both speakers is very close but the visual difference, I mean if you see them as they said the word, shows they are worlds apart.
A
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| #21 (permalink) Mon Dec 04, 2006 11:41 am URP |
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Incidentally, as I’ve just learned, apart from ‘Upper Received Pronunciation’ and quite a few other things, URP also stands for Unidentified Road Pizza:
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| a term that means simply that there was a creature on the road but too many vehicles hit this hapless victim and made it hard to identify. |
Besides, a (mostly American) term for the body of an animal killed on a road by a vehicle is a ‘roadkill’. |
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Conchita
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| #23 (permalink) Mon Dec 04, 2006 17:36 pm Which English Accent do I have to follow? |
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Interesting website, Conchita. :mrgreen:
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| #24 (permalink) Tue Dec 05, 2006 15:46 pm Which English Accent do I have to follow? |
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Conchita
"Roadkill" is commonly fed to children in elementary schools throughout the country (kindergarten through 8th grade, roughly).
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| #25 (permalink) Tue Dec 05, 2006 18:08 pm Which English Accent do I have to follow? |
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Hi,
In view of the comments and discussions recently on accents, I attach an article in one of the national dailies in the UK.
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Who cut off the Queen's vowels?
By Andrew O'Hagan
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 05/12/2006
Diana, Princess of Wales was cruelly thwarted in her attempt to half-inch the crown from 'er Indoors, but she certainly left a mark on all areas of monarchic life. For instance, in the good old 1970s, it was impossible, at least in our house, to work out what the Queen was actually saying: "I yem speccing frem ar herm en the grends ev Beckinghem Pals." Cor blimey, how we'd scratch our noggins and roll the old meat pies to the ceiling: what was the Anointed One trying to impart?
In the years since then, the Queen has increasingly shaped her vowels to meet the people's pleasure, and one can't help but imagine that Diana's popularity — to say nothing of Tony Blair's oiliness and the nation's worship of Ant & Dec — must somehow have played its part in persuading Her Majesty that Joyce Grenfell on Xanax was not the sound of the future.
advertisementIn any event, the Queen now sounds a bit like Dot from EastEnders, without so much of the innate haughtiness and the sense of entitlement. It wasn't quite form in the old days to speak of oneself being "happy", but if, in a fit of high spirits on Christmas Day, the Queen made reference to that famous condition, she would tend to say she was "heppi", as in "one wez heppi to note the success ev the referbishmentz et Windsaw Caseel". But now we must contend with the sovereign being constantly "happee", like someone from Girls Aloud.
How far down is the Queen likely to go in her plunge from the Queen's English? Is it a matter of the occasional estuary vowel laying itself like a desperate lover over the tracks of her ancient pronunciation, or will we soon witness our Queen in full gangsta flow, issuing the kind of verbal bulletins on Christmas Day that might make Jamie Oliver sound like Noel Coward?
I got a bit worried about this — worried she mightn't cope — so I marked up a copy of the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang and sent it over to the palace by courier. Since the Russian poisoning thing must surely be on her mind, I circled a few words that might slip nicely into her new lingo.
Like "hunk", adj. "to get hunk with", "to get even". Ex. "Suppose I show you how to get hunk with the cheapskates?" And Mickey Mouse, as in, "That's a right Mickey Mouse operation you're running over there".
Not even a thank you. Which just goes to show that good manners as well as speech are slipping at the palace. But then it occurred to me that maybe the Queen was getting all "happee" because of her grandsons William and Harry.
After all, there's something to be said for keeping up with the youth of today, especially when they spend half their time wearing their baseball caps backwards at China White, as opposed to engaging in more traditional pursuits for royal siblings, such as hanging out down the Embassy Club with Peter Sellers.
In that sense, the Queen is doing rather well. She's keeping up with the new generation — busy as they are, organising a big pop bash next year to remember their mother — and also tuning in to what the times are saying. And what they are saying is, "Show us yer care, Ma'am. You're one of us, intcha?"
This may be the major British social trend of our time, of course: the urge to see the pop-culturing of everything as a form of pure democracy, but watching it happen in relation to the Queen is actually — despite my attempt to help her out — making me rather nostalgic for the old, unyielding royal position.
If I have to have a monarch at all, do I want one who sounds like Denise Van Outen? Or is there not, as with brown sauce and with fresh cockles, something rather charming and eccentric and vinegary in the old style?
I'll tell you summink, though. When it comes to it, I'd much sooner have a Queen whose habits are directed by moribund tradition than by a pack of PR consultants. It seems Tony Blair's "classless" society can go only in one direction — into the gutter of crowd-pleasing uniformity, where everyone must sound the same in order to prove they are "real".
For me, even the ludicrous should be encouraged in British life if it guarantees the survival of difference. We are not one people, but many, and that is the point currently being flattened along with the old vowels and the old notions of class. A rather totalitarian urge lies behind the bullying of people because of how they speak, with tabloid populism as the ducking stool du jour.
We happen to have a writer who saw all this coming: Shakespeare. His monarchs are full of glory and menace, and are in fear of being "unvoiced" by tavern-haunters whose verbal rowdiness might appear to question a king's authenticity.
Watch how the present sovereign appears to be in courtship to the common people, how she seems to dive into their hearts, with humble and familiar courtesy. It was Shakespeare's Richard II who pointed out this sometimes needful tendency, a tendency that we now see shaping the present Queen's speech.
And for Richard II, it all comes down to just that, speech: in time, his tongue is "but a stringless instrument". In a passage that did not please Dr Johnson, Shakespeare nails the matter when he speaks movingly of the "senseless brands" — hot irons — that will "sympathise the heavy accent of thy moving tongue".
So has Elizabeth II fallen foul to the senseless brands of our own time? Perhaps. But the grey advisers behind her are more likely the responsible parties: they feel that no form of management is too much to bring a modern monarch into line with the people's sympathies.
Those who like to clap in church have the upper hand in modern life. Readers, beware. Monarchs, take flight. The great populists are ready to throw you down the apples and pears for the sin of being yourself.
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Comment on this story
And then here are some of the comments made by readers of this article
Comments
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Whatever is wrong with speaking correctly?
The so called 'democratisation' of spoken English is an extremely patronising notion - patronising to those that cannot match the strangulated vowel sounds and glottal stops of Estuary English, whether because of their own received, regional or foreign pronounciation.
To descend to the language of the gutter was never admirable. I'm with Philip Coffey on this - arise ye of the Estuarine English and the Glottal Stop and speak proper!
Posted by Theo Arundel on December 5, 2006 1:40 PM
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Having lived in London the first 23 years of my life, I can categorically state that I never had a problem with understanding the Queen's Christmas speech to the nation. Even my parents, from Italy and who themselves spoke with a definite Italian accent, as I recall, had no problem and also waited eagerly for this yearly event.
I sincerely hope that the Queen does NOT descend to the awful level of speech of today's street. As Philip Coffey states,"why cannot the masses have the grace to move ever so slightly towards the Royal Family"
If Trevor Mcdonald could do it, and on his own, why cannot the schools teach better pronunciation?
God save our Queen!
Posted by C,A,Apicella on December 5, 2006 1:24 PM
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With respect to Mr. Weller, I left Essex and England for the U.S. a mere sixteen years ago and have not picked up a discernible American accent. However my old friends back in Essex, it appears, have; theirs is a wash and tide of Estuary and trans-Atlantic Yanklish and I fear Her Majesty may be being punted up the same river (water metaphors end here). How long I wonder, until a knight of the realm is awarded not with a sword tapped on each shoulder but with a whooping from all attendant and from Her Majesty a roundhouse high five?
Posted by V.S. Naipaul (no relation) on December 5, 2006 1:23 PM
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Triffic, mate, know what I mean?
I am so glad I live in the South France where I do not have to listen to a public school educated Prime Minister slaughtering what should be a noble language!
Ian
Posted by Ian Marsom on December 5, 2006 12:49 PM
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So if members of the Royal family are moving towards the masses in the matter of pronunciation, why cannot the masses have the grace to move, however slightly, towards the Royal family? That way we might just end up with a reasonable English sound, instead of the hideous mixture of regional accents and uneducated styles of speech so prevalent on TV and Radio today.
English is a beautiful language. We should be proud of it and use it properly and purposefully, not mangle it deliberately to show how stupid, or ill-educated or apathetic we are.
Posted by Philip Coffey on December 5, 2006 11:27 AM
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Everyone speaks like Jonathan Ross nowadays so why should the Queen be any different? Our prime minister drops his 't's and says 'werwd' instead of world. The BBC used to give us decent English but now all the announcers say 'saaaf', 'thee' when they mean 'the' and 'ay' when they mean 'a'. It won't be long before they're all prefacing everthing with 'like' and performing the irritating inflexion at the end of each sentence as popularised by all under 30s.
Posted by Richard Haynes on December 5, 2006 10:17 AM
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Wonderful and funny article - like.
Posted by Katie on December 5, 2006 10:02 AM
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The most important thing about the Queen is that she is always herself. What you see is what you get - there is no 'performance mode' just a level of dignity appropriate to every occasion.
There is every possibility, despite enormous public exposure across more than 70 years, that the Queen is still actually a shy person who somehow gets through it all. Because of who she is, there is a great deal of both experience and confidence - but it is still a daunting life that she leads.
There was a delighful sequence in the programmes shown to mark HM's 80th birthday where she was out with her dogs, perhaps at Windsor, and was asked about them. I have never seen the Queen more relaxed, natural and open - it was a lovely moment which showed her at her very best.
If you examine the changing manner of HM's speech - it is essentially of the period in which each recording was made. Watching television and meeting people from a wider number of walks in life has probably opened up the Queen's ears to a world far beyond the rarefied atmosphere and refined speech of many who surround her even to this day in a manner unimagined by previous Monarchs.
Posted by simon coulter on December 5, 2006 9:57 AM
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Andrew O'Hagan marks himself as a prat with his first paragraph. It's all too easy to take the mickey out of someone for the way they speak...would he do it though to someone whose first language is not English? No? Afraid of the PC lobby then? As Her Majesty is English, it's okay to lay into her.
By the way, it's "mince" pies, not "meat".
Posted by Nutstrangler on December 5, 2006 9:30 AM
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There was some "learned discussion" about the Queen's pronunciation a while back that suggested that she spoke in a way that was very similar to the rural Berkshire accent. I was brought up on the Berks/Oxfordshire border and had the accent myself before it was extracted from me after a change of school. In the local greengrocer store you could hear the following speech all the time- "Afe a paind of spraits" (half a pound of sprouts). If you return to the area these days you never hear the accent, and I find it offensive to read that Rick Gervais has a "Reading accent" the truth being that you have to search high and low to hear anyone with the accent today.
Posted by Nick Ratnieks on December 5, 2006 8:46 AM
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The Queen is an easy target for ridicule by the likes of Andrew O'Hagan, who knows she can't answer back. I deplore the slipshod gabble that is the norm for many of today's media presenters, typified by the weather forecast girls who seem to be in a competition to pack in as many largely unintelligable words in the shortest possible time.
Posted by Rodney Vincent on December 5, 2006 8:19 AM
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Am I bovvered?
Posted by Graham King on December 5, 2006 7:20 AM
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My wife and I moved from England to North America thirty eight years ago. We both come from what used to be known as "Working Class" backgrounds. When visiting England now we sometimes receive comments such as "You sound like posh Americans." Posh? If only they knew our roots! Of course we have picked up an American accent but many of our pronunciations are in an old English style. That Elementary School education has served us well.
Posted by Clarence Weller on December 5, 2006 2:16 AM
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Alan
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| #26 (permalink) Tue Dec 05, 2006 19:34 pm Which English Accent do I have to follow? |
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Hi,
What an interesting article you've posted, Alan. In additition to knowing what other people think it would be nice to know what you think of The Queen's accent.
Englishuser |
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| #27 (permalink) Tue Dec 05, 2006 19:48 pm Which English Accent do I have to follow? |
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also, for the sake of learning...
What are the main British accents?
For instance, is there a Northeast accent, a Midlands accent, a Northwest accent, a London accent... etc.?
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Prezbucky
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| #28 (permalink) Wed Dec 06, 2006 19:09 pm Which English Accent do I have to follow? |
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Hi,
There are dozens, which is amazing when you consider the size of the actual land mass.
A
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| #29 (permalink) Thu Dec 07, 2006 0:26 am Which English Accent do I have to follow? |
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it certainly is
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Prezbucky
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| #30 (permalink) Fri Nov 21, 2008 9:32 am Which English Accent do I have to follow? Follow Neutral Accent |
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A neutral accent (in any language) means that the speaker's origin cannot be determined. For example, British, Canadian, US, and Australian English share common grammar, but one can easily distinguish between the four because of the unique accents.
Neutral Accent means the language is considered accent-free. Speaking a language accent free can help ease communication with people who didn't grow up speaking the language. |
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