UK Dopers: Which English accent carries the most prestige? [Archive]

Mangetout

05-20-2007, 08:06 PM

And I suppose there's traditionally been a bias towards BBC-style 'Oxford' accents in professional roles, because there has been in the past an emphasis on 'proper speech' in those educational paths that tended to lead to professional roles.

Nowadays though, accent discrimination is regarded almost as a kind of racism.

Worth noting also is that there is such a thing as a stereotypical 'farmer' accent - comprising lengthening and broadening of the vowel sounds, dropping of H and T and a few other features. To an outsider, I think the accents of rural Somerset, Norfolk, Dorset and Hampshire will probably sound quite similar - and the 'farmer' stereotype is a blend of them

Mangetout

05-20-2007, 08:07 PM

She has her own accent?
I'm not sure if I'd call it an accent - her speech has mannerisms that are peculiar to her. I think it could only be called an accent if it was shared by group of speakers, usually regional.

David Simmons

05-20-2007, 08:50 PM

Are the accents becoming homgenized by TV? Has "Cockney" disappeared?

mswas

05-20-2007, 08:52 PM

I'm not sure if I'd call it an accent - her speech has mannerisms that are peculiar to her. I think it could only be called an accent if it was shared by group of speakers, usually regional.

Unless of course the single person is The Queen. ;)

alphaboi867

05-20-2007, 10:15 PM

Unless of course the single person is The Queen. ;)

How often does she actually use the "royal we"? I've seen footage of Seeches from the Throne (one of the most formal things she does) where she says "My government" instead of "Our government".

Staggerlee

05-21-2007, 05:42 AM

Are the accents becoming homgenized by TV? Has "Cockney" disappeared?
One result of the homogenisation of accents/dialects is 'Estuary English' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estuary_English) - which as well as being a natural convergence of RP and South-East speech is sometimes cynically used, by Tony Blair for instance, to appear to be 'one of the people'. Throw a few glottal stops into your speech and you can attain the trustworthiness of a regional accent, somewhat hiding the Received Pronunciation you learnt at public school, Ironically, Estuary English comes across as more pretentious than RP, at least when coming from members of the elite trying to dumb down for the electorate.

GorillaMan

05-21-2007, 05:51 AM

Are all accents described by geography or are their accents specific to certain professions or social class irrespective of geography?
It's a class thing. 'Ordinary' accents are geographical. The higher up in society you go, the more the accent becomes an indicator of status and upbringing rather than geography (e.g. Tony Blair was born and educated in Scotland and Durham, but his accent has no such geographic traits).

Are the accents becoming homgenized by TV? Has "Cockney" disappeared?
They're changing, and to a certain extent homogenising. Simply blaming TV is not necessarily the correct thing to do - a far greater mobility of the population, and greater internal migration, obviously affect accents. New accents are emerging due to the influence of immigrant populations, with some British-born Asians in particular having a distinct accent which is not simply one acquired from immigrant parents.

(On preview, there's no point going into Estuary English, and I'm not the first person to have mentioned Blair and his flexible accent...)

This (http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/index.shtml) is a great collection of regional accents.

essell

05-21-2007, 06:38 AM

Speaking with the same one the listener is using.
Always worked for me. (Just don't go OTT)

chowder

05-21-2007, 07:58 AM

I would have thought that either a Birmingham, Liverpool,Geordie or broad Yorkshire accent would carry most prestige.

Tha knows :D

Krokodil

05-21-2007, 08:00 AM

Unless of course the single person is The Queen. ;)

For much of England's history, the reigning monarch spoke no English at all. This might not be the yardstick to use.

Personally, I think the most prestigious accent is Patrick Stewart's.

glee

05-21-2007, 08:09 AM

I would have thought that either a Birmingham, Liverpool,Geordie or broad Yorkshire accent would carry most prestige.

Tha knows :D

And what is your evidence for that? :confused:

This is an interesting question, since prestige can be defined in different ways. Education? Wealth? Job?
The Queen and members of the Royal family don't have strong accents.
I would expect a doctor, who must communicate clearly, either to speak BBC English, or the local accent.
Airline pilots must speak clear English - I would expect an strong accent to be a difficulty.
BBC announcers and newsreaders used to have to speak without any accent, though this has been relaxed recently.
Sir Alan Sugar, a wealthy businessman who has a 'Norf Lunnon' tinge to his accent, is proud of his 'umble beginnings.
As others have said, Tony Blair has redefined himself. By contrast John Prescott (Deputy PM) has kept his accent. But since he has no discernable talent :rolleyes: except for 'being a man of the people', he desperately needs to keep that image.

Mangetout

05-21-2007, 08:28 AM

Personally, I think the most prestigious accent is Patrick Stewart's....Which is significantly based upon a Royal Shakespeare Society accent - which, like BBC English, is interestingly a somewhat artificial entity.

elucidator

05-21-2007, 10:18 AM

Is there a parallel phenomenon in England to the Valley Girl teenspeak? (Term used for lack of a better one, if one is offered, I will adopt it...) You know what I mean? Totally? Its where teenaged girls in Arkansas speak very much like teenaged girls in Las Vegas or LA.

Mangetout

05-21-2007, 10:23 AM

That would probably be 'Essex girls', although the parallel is not exact.

Zeldar

05-21-2007, 10:26 AM

How would Ricky Gervais's accent be classified? Michael Caine's? Paul McCartney's?

chowder

05-21-2007, 10:34 AM

glee : Look at the smiley.

Sith thee, eh?....tha knows hin

Ximenean

05-21-2007, 10:49 AM

It's worth noting that "standard" accents like the BBC one are not fixed. Compare continuity announcers and newsreaders of thirty years ago to those of today (not including the ones with regional accents, who of course simply wouldn't have been newsreaders in the '70s). They sounded much posher back then. Nowadays very few people speak with that kind of cut-glass RP accent. In fact "RP" has become such a broad term as to be of questionable utility. Prince Charles speaks RP, and so do I, approximately, but I sound nothing like him (I hope).

GorillaMan

05-21-2007, 10:58 AM

How would Ricky Gervais's accent be classified? Michael Caine's? Paul McCartney's?
Ricky Gervais - Reading (twinges of West Country alongside a dose of London's influence)
Michael Caine - Sarrrf Landon (although 'Cockney' pretty much suffices)
McCartney - diluted Liverpudlian

Is there a parallel phenomenon in England to the Valley Girl teenspeak? (Term used for lack of a better one, if one is offered, I will adopt it...) You know what I mean? Totally? Its where teenaged girls in Arkansas speak very much like teenaged girls in Las Vegas or LA.
This is where Estuary English has spread widely. 'Fack off', 'ain't it', and other south-eastern idioysncracies have spread a long way. (I disagree totally with the 'Essex girl' parallel, this being a social stereotype rather than a manner of speech.)

Ximenean

05-21-2007, 11:04 AM

How would Ricky Gervais's accent be classified? Michael Caine's? Paul McCartney's?
Ricky Gervais has something close to an Estuary accent (a generic south-eastern accent), although he's from Reading and you can hear the slight West Country/Oxfordshire elements in that town's accent.

Michael Caine's is a mild working class London accent. Pretty similar to Estuary, really, except that that is a recent term more asscoiated with younger speakers.

Paul McCartney never had a really strong Liverpool accent, and these days it's even fainter, so I would say Liverpool/RP for him.

On preview, pretty much as above.

GorillaMan

05-21-2007, 11:22 AM

(Further though, I don't know McCartney's biography, but would 'middle-class Liverpool' fit?)

Chronos

05-21-2007, 11:33 AM

(I disagree totally with the 'Essex girl' parallel, this being a social stereotype rather than a manner of speech.)So, for that matter, is Valley Girl.

zhongguorenmin

05-21-2007, 11:34 AM

And what is your evidence for that? :confused:

I think you just got whooshed.

This is an interesting question, since prestige can be defined in different ways. Education? Wealth? Job?

In the UK, wealth has very little to do with prestige. Job and education to some extent - but it's all about class. Define that in a non-circular fashion and you'll be a trailblazer - but to some extent you have prestige if you have prestige.

For example, I've noticed that doctors are regarded as prestigious in the US (osmosis from TV) "oh you're a doctor? wow", whereas that effect is certainly less pronounced here. Medics are respected, yes, and they earn a lot more, but I wouldn't say they have hugely more prestige than other public servants, like teachers.

The Queen and members of the Royal family don't have strong accents.

I would expect a doctor, who must communicate clearly, either to speak BBC English, or the local accent.
Airline pilots must speak clear English - I would expect an strong accent to be a difficulty.
BBC announcers and newsreaders used to have to speak without any accent, though this has been relaxed recently.
Sir Alan Sugar, a wealthy businessman who has a 'Norf Lunnon' tinge to his accent, is proud of his 'umble beginnings.

To most British ears, the Queen's voice is heavily accented. Her speech is reportedly a lot like the RP of the 1950s.

If you seriously believe that anyone speaks "without any accent", you need to open a book. Your accent is just the way you speak - by definition everyone has one. When you say the BBC people had to speak "without any accent", what you are saying is that they spoke with an Oxford/BBC accent, which many British people are culturally conditioned to regard not as an accent like any other, but as "correct" English. The BBC has recently opened up to a wider range of accents, that's true.

Doctors - perhaps because so many of them are South Asian - in my experience speak with a wide variety of accents.

And with airline pilots - yes they speak clear English, and yes they have quite pronounced accents in many cases. Consider the All Nippon Airways pilot touching down at heathrow - he will doubtlessly have a katakana accent to a greater or lesser degree. But there needn't be an contradiction between an accent and clarity.

As for which British accents are the most prestigious? Probably an Oxford accent like mine (eg Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister) or a soft Edinburgh Scottish accent (eg Ducky in NCIS). Virtually anyone in the upper echelons of the British economy and society - city lawyers, senior civil servants, senior bankers - will either be foreign or have developed one of these accents.

zhongguorenmin

glee

05-21-2007, 01:11 PM

glee : Look at the smiley.

Sith thee, eh?....tha knows hin

Am I bothered ? I ain't bothered! :D

Shamozzle

05-21-2007, 01:13 PM

...<SNIP>

This (http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/index.shtml) is a great collection of regional accents.
That's a cool sight! Thanks.

glee

05-21-2007, 01:14 PM

If you seriously believe that anyone speaks "without any accent", you need to open a book.

...

Doctors - perhaps because so many of them are South Asian - in my experience speak with a wide variety of accents.

If you seriously believe your experience means anything in this context, you need to open a dictionary (it's a book where words are defined) and learn the difference between 'anecdote' and data'. :p

GorillaMan

05-21-2007, 01:25 PM

Glee, are you really saying that doctors don't have a wide variety of accents, which is at least as great as that of the population they treat?

chowder

05-21-2007, 01:34 PM

Am I bothered ? I ain't bothered! :D
Yeah but no but yeah but :p

Rayne Man

05-21-2007, 02:03 PM

There was fascinating programme on BBC4 recently about a set of newly discovered sound recordings dating from WW1.They were of British prisoners of war, and were collected by a German professor of linguistics who asked his subjects to speak in their own accents and dialects.

What did emerge was that some accents have changed over the years and are now not as "broad" as they used to be. One example was of a man from Wiltshire. His accent was more like the one from present day Somerset. The modern-day Wiltshire accent is not nearly as broad. Others, especially those from Scotland, had hardly changed at all.

Capt. Ridley's Shooting Party

05-21-2007, 02:12 PM

What did emerge was that some accents have changed over the years and are now not as "broad" as they used to be.

This is true. Go into any workings mens club in Wigan and they're talking a different language.

Spectre of Pithecanthropus

05-21-2007, 03:05 PM

glee : Look at the smiley.

Sith thee, eh?....tha knows hin

Forgive the hijack, but I'm interested in this. What is 'hin'? Is it the same as 'him'? Or is it an accusative 'him'? If you wouldn't mind, perhaps we could take this offline. Send me a private message if you wish.

Sir Doris

05-21-2007, 03:16 PM

hin = hinney, which is a term of endearment (honey, I presume). It's a Geordie (North East) dialect word

Lemur866

05-21-2007, 03:31 PM

hin = hinney, which is a term of endearment (honey, I presume). It's a Geordie (North East) dialect word
Don't listen to them!

Everyone knows that these English people just talk that way to confuse Americans. When they're among themselves they talk just like us. All this "accent" stuff is just a put on.

Liberal

05-21-2007, 03:45 PM

That's a cool sight! Thanks.You think that's something, you should see San Francisco from the bay at night.

Shamozzle

05-21-2007, 04:27 PM

dough!

chowder

05-22-2007, 01:25 AM

Forgive the hijack, but I'm interested in this. What is 'hin'? Is it the same as 'him'? Or is it an accusative 'him'? If you wouldn't mind, perhaps we could take this offline. Send me a private message if you wish.
Hin is Geordie (Newcastle) speak, North East England and does not mean "Honey"

Au contraire, it means "Hen" which for some obscure reason is a term of endearment in that particular neck of the woods.

Its usage is mostly confined to addressing members of the fair sex e.g

"Dis tha fancy a newkie wi' mi' hin?" Newkie being Newcastle brown ale

Rayne Man

05-22-2007, 01:32 AM

chowder

05-22-2007, 02:04 AM

Just has here in the East Midlands you will hear "duck" as a term of endearment.
I know, I have some friends who live in Newark

jjimm

05-22-2007, 02:04 AM

I think that the zeitgeist popular culture Valley Girl equivalent, though there's a class difference as both characters are working (or under-) class would be encapsulated in two popular characters in the comedy shows 'Little Britain' and 'Catherine Tate'.

Vicky Pollard (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcqUn79eGL4) - Bristol working class.
Lauren (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu8xzo-lk84&mode=related&search=) - London working class with elements of African and Afro-Caribbean speech incorporated.

chowder

05-22-2007, 02:07 AM

dough!
...a deer

Lust4Life

05-22-2007, 10:25 AM

I dont know if this applies to other parts of the UK but those at the bottom of the working class who aspire to be petty criminals or who wish to be regarded as tough ,deliberately exaggerate their accents .
Brought up on a crime ridden council estate I noticed that people whos family and neighbours weren't particulary badly spoken ,in their teens suddenly started speaking an exaggerated accent veering between gruff and nasal ,with more glottal stops then you could shake a fist at and a very liberal insertion of swear words.

ie."I was fuckin walkin dahn the fuckin road wannI?and fuck me ,I nearly fuckin ,fucked myself up cos I was fuckin"....................and so on .
Many of them also adopt unnaturally deep or harsh voices which must be bad for their vocal chords.

Is this only a south eastern thing ?

Liberal

05-22-2007, 10:56 AM

My wife and I both love the movie, Billy Elliot. But we had to watch it once through with sub-titles. I don't know what accent that is, but there are times when it sounds like a foreign language. ... Jamie Bell, by the way, does an impressive variety of accents, and does them well. He's nailed more than one American accent.

Barrington

05-22-2007, 10:58 AM

"I was fuckin walkin dahn the fuckin road wannI?and fuck me ,I nearly fuckin ,fucked myself up cos I was fuckin"....................and so on .
Many of them also adopt unnaturally deep or harsh voices which must be bad for their vocal chords.

Is this only a south eastern thing ?No, we get exactly the same sort of thing in Hull, but with different vowel sounds, goat-fronting and so on.

Gradually, we're all merging into a monoculture, and many examples ("I'm like totally no" and so on) are being imported through TV and film.

Rayne Man

05-22-2007, 11:08 AM

One person I have noticed who has changed his accent is the Nigel Kennedy, the violinist. I remember seeing him on TV when he was about ten years old and he spoke with quite a "posh" accent. Now he has adopted an awful fake Cockney accent. What's he trying to achieve, a more popular following?

mrcheese

05-22-2007, 11:23 AM

One other interesting thing is the geographical distance between wildly different accents is very short. It always freaks me out a bit that I can drive for only an hour or so on the motorway, step out of the car and everybody is speaking with a completely different accent.

I also think that Patrick Stewart is a good example of a posh accent.

m1k3g

05-22-2007, 11:31 AM

Hin is Geordie (Newcastle) speak, North East England and does not mean "Honey"

Au contraire, it means "Hen" which for some obscure reason is a term of endearment in that particular neck of the woods.

Its usage is mostly confined to addressing members of the fair sex e.g

"Dis tha fancy a newkie wi' mi' hin?" Newkie being Newcastle brown ale

Funny, but I remember this term as widely used in the books 'Trainspotting' and 'Glue', Irvine Welsh's fascinating accounts of life in Scotland.

As an expat brit living in Texas, married to a chinese woman who grew up in Mexico, you can imagine my chagrin at hearing my daughters accent when she pronounces words like 'theyar' (for 'there') and 'lahk' (for 'like')... We have a few communication issues :-)

Rayne Man

05-22-2007, 11:34 AM

GorillaMan

05-22-2007, 11:34 AM

Nigel Kennedy's a screw-up with such an identity crisis he probably couldn't speak in any single 'natural' accent if he tried.

Patrick Stewart does still have tiny twinges of Yorkshireman underneath the huge RSC resonances.

Re. Lust4Lift and Barrington - I'd be amazed if there's really anything new in people in certain situations adopting a 'tough-sounding' voice. (And I don't like Lust4Life's suggestions of social connotations, either. Perfect example of sterotyping a person through their speech.)

GorillaMan

05-22-2007, 11:37 AM

Rayne Man

05-22-2007, 11:47 AM

I should always preview: I'm with Rayne Man more than mrcheese regarding geographical distribution, unless your hour on the motorway is rush hour on the M25 ;) (Plenty of times I've narrowed down a person's origin to a particular part of Suffolk)

There was that famous case of the false Yorkshire Ripper confession tape. Experts were able to pinpoint the speaker to a very small area of Sunderland. Mind you, it still took years for the police to catch this hoaxer.

Baron Greenback

05-22-2007, 12:44 PM

Funny, but I remember this term as widely used in the books 'Trainspotting' and 'Glue', Irvine Welsh's fascinating accounts of life in Scotland.

"Hen" is common in parts of Scotland.

chowder

05-22-2007, 01:09 PM

Spectre of thingy You have mail

Spectre of Pithecanthropus

05-22-2007, 02:10 PM

.

Paul McCartney never had a really strong Liverpool accent, and these days it's even fainter, so I would say Liverpool/RP for him.

.

As long as you mentioned the Beatles, I always noticed that they had different accents among themselves. George Harrison's and Ringo Starr's accents always seemed noticeably thicker than the others', so much so that Harrison's accent was discernible in his early singing, e.g. "Do you want to know a secrut?". The thickest accent of all belonged to their poor fired ex-drummer Pete Best; I've heard him in interviews and I tell you, that accent would stand up in the middle of a room without any support.

Spectre of Pithecanthropus

05-22-2007, 02:27 PM

hin = hinney, which is a term of endearment (honey, I presume). It's a Geordie (North East) dialect word

Oh...I thought it might be a vestige of accusitive case marking on he/him.

Ximenean

05-22-2007, 03:02 PM

George Harrison's and Ringo Starr's accents always seemed noticeably thicker than the others', so much so that Harrison's accent was discernible in his early singing, e.g. "Do you want to know a secrut?".
Or "Now my advice for those who die/ Declur the pennies on your eyes". Very Liverpool, that.

Ellen Cherry

05-22-2007, 03:31 PM

Giles

05-22-2007, 04:42 PM

It's said that in certain parts of the country, such as the North East of England and the Black Country, you can pinpoint almost to the exact street where a person originates from, just by listening to his accent.
I was born in Australia, but lived in England from age 2 to age 9. My accent really hasn't changed much for most of my life: it's somewhere in between RP and Educated Australian. I once met an Englishman in Australia who, after hearing me speak a few words, said that he couldn't decide whether I was from Leeds or Leicester. I can't detect any Yorkshire or East Midlands in my accent at all -- but I did live 7 years in Leeds, and my mother was from Leicester. So some people can pick these things!

fisha

05-22-2007, 10:17 PM

Anyone see "Snatch?" Hell of some accents there especially on the "pikeys." Almost unintelligible, although that was the main object, I think.

Mangetout

05-23-2007, 06:52 AM

What is a council estate? Is it simiar to our public housing?I got halfway into writing a description of council estates and realised this Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_house) does a much better job than I could.

Evil Captor

05-23-2007, 11:24 AM

"Dis tha fancy a newkie wi' mi' hin?" Newkie being Newcastle brown ale

In the US the proper response to that would be,

"No, I do not wish to have sex with your chicken."

chowder

05-24-2007, 08:31 AM

Ah ha!

Tha's takkin fur thissen laddie. Tha's oot fur thi hin, e'en in Amuricaa

ralph124c

05-24-2007, 08:39 AM

What sort of accent did the late Anthony eden have? he was a calssy speaker. Tony Blair is a mystery -i can't place his accent as British at all-I would have taken him for an Australian.

Ximenean

05-24-2007, 08:51 AM

Tony Blair does have a slight Australian twang. He lived in Australia for a few years as a child.

Anthony Eden had a very posh RP accent, ISTR.

chowder

05-24-2007, 10:34 AM

What sort of accent did the late Anthony eden have? he was a calssy speaker. Tony Blair is a mystery -i can't place his accent as British at all-I would have taken him for an Australian.
Tony Blair is indeed a mystery, I would have taken him for a twat

BMalion

05-24-2007, 03:11 PM

Reading this Thread is akin to hearing Henry Higgins lecture, I love it.

Or is that " 'earing 'enry 'iggins?"

GorillaMan

05-24-2007, 04:41 PM

'oo?

chowder

05-25-2007, 02:21 AM

You aint 'eard of 'enry 'iggins?

Kimstu

05-25-2007, 04:28 AM

Tha's takkin fur thissen laddie. Tha's oot fur thi hin, e'en in Amuricaa

Okay, this is driving me mad. I think the first sentence means "You are speaking for yourself, sonny", but I can't figure out the second for the life of me, except that it ends "even in America".

("You are out for your hen?" "You are hot for you, honey"? :confused: Help!!)

Mangetout

05-25-2007, 04:52 AM

I'd place Tony Blair somewhere in the south east corner of England - south of London, east of Guildford, but it's a bit of a mishmash and some of his mannerisms aren't regional, they're personal.

Kal

05-25-2007, 05:08 AM

Anyone see "Snatch?" Hell of some accents there especially on the "pikeys." Almost unintelligible, although that was the main object, I think.Saw it for the first time a month or so back. Pitt did a very good Irish Traveller accent.

chowder

05-26-2007, 01:09 AM

Okay, this is driving me mad. I think the first sentence means "You are speaking for yourself, sonny", but I can't figure out the second for the life of me, except that it ends "even in America".

("You are out for your hen?" "You are hot for you, honey"? :confused: Help!!)
Translation:

You got the first part right, we'll make an Englishman of you yet. :D

2nd part ..You're really keen for women, even in America.

I actually missed a ? in 2nd

Martha Medea

05-26-2007, 10:06 AM

In some ways RP/BBC/Oxford might be said to be prestigious, but in practice many people treat you like you're "too posh". That's why a lot of Brits who would speak that way adopt what they think is more of a "street" accent, like Tony Blair. I think this inverted snobbery started in the sixties.

I personally like a well-spoken Scottish accent - very easy on the ear.

As an educated colonial, my British accent is "more British than the British" and I have been made fun of for sounding posh. FTR I lived in Oxford for nine years and once-upon-a-time even worked for the BBC...

chowder

05-26-2007, 11:00 AM

>>points finger<<< Laughs at Martha for sounding posh.

*bloody colonials

Capt. Ridley's Shooting Party

05-26-2007, 12:17 PM

In some ways RP/BBC/Oxford might be said to be prestigious, but in practice many people treat you like you're "too posh". That's why a lot of Brits who would speak that way adopt what they think is more of a "street" accent, like Tony Blair. I think this inverted snobbery started in the sixties.

Exactly. Many people wouldn't consider an RP accent "prestigious" - personally, I find it rather grating, a horribly bland accent consuming local dialects and speech patterns.

devilsknew

05-27-2007, 10:50 AM

I nominate Sascha Baron Cohen's Ali G (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_G) character's accent as the zeitgeist and parallel of the Valley Girl accent. The fictional Ali G is from Staines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staines), a london suburb.

What I wanna know is Ali G's accent for real? Have any of the Londoners here come across anything like that in real life, or is it heavily embellished and made for TV like the portrayal of the Valley Girl accent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_girl) in The film Valley Girl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_Girl_%28film%29)?

GorillaMan

05-27-2007, 04:38 PM

Ali G's accent is widely perceived to be a caricature of white & middle class guys affecting an accent as part of a culture they want to belong to. Tim (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Westwood) Westwood (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/westwood/index.shtml) is the oft-cited real-world example. Ali G gets mentioned in the Wikipedia article, and 'born in Lowestoft, Suffolk' is the first hint that Westwood is knowingly walking the tightrope between persona and caricature himself.

Kimstu

05-27-2007, 04:47 PM

You got the first part right, we'll make an Englishman of you yet.

Not without one of those operations, you won't. ;)

2nd part ..You're really keen for women, even in America.

Thanks! Huh. "You" as in "you American blokes"? So "tha" is second person plural as well as singular?

chowder

05-28-2007, 01:22 AM

Not without one of those operations, you won't. ;)

Thanks! Huh. "You" as in "you American blokes"? So "tha" is second person plural as well as singular?
It can be said "Tha" or "Tha's".

E.G.

"Is tha goon doon tay si thi fitba oon Satoorday" (I say are you going to the football on Saturday)

"Tha's nobbut missen " (There is nobody but myself)

All clear now hin? :D

Incidentally I am not from the North East (Geordieland) I'm from the North West where we talk reet proper me 'owd cock

Sir Doris

05-28-2007, 02:04 AM

What I wanna know is Ali G's accent for real? Have any of the Londoners here come across anything like that in real life, or is it heavily embellished and made for TV

I teach many, many students from West London, primarily black (a fair few of these are of Somali origin) or Asian (by which I mean Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi origin). So the accent is very familiar to me. They are for the most part able/willing to moderate it according to the situation, often switching to a very different accent, if needs be.