Many years ago, one of my highschool teachers informed me that the Brits did not always have their accent; they had no accent whatsoever until it was mandated by one of their monarchs (Victoria?) that everyone speak the way they do now. For the life of me, I cannot find anything to validate this claim. So, did the Brits always have their accents?
Another argument for mandatory testing of teachers.
Foist, there isn’t one “English” accent. In fact, I’d dare say that some UKers have trouble understanding some other English accents.
Prolly your HS teacher got tripped up by “Queen’s English”. It’s possible (someone out there know), that the spellings of English words were standardized by a Royal Academy or some such, and given the royal imprimateur, but I doubt it. In any event, that would only apply to the written word, not spoken.
Queen’s English (and it depends on who’s on the throne - under Charles, it will be called King’s English), as a spoken dialect, is what you used to hear on the BBC, although I believe BBC has switched over to the Thames dialect, which is notable for its frequent ellisions. This is considered the “proper” English amongst the upper classes, but has not formal royal approval.
V.
Your teacher is an idiot.
For one thing, everybody has an accent.
For another thing, which British accent was (s)he talking about? Cockney, Estuary, Geordie, Scouse, Midlands, Glasgow, Manc, etc?? There is no one “British” accent. There are many.
For another thing, your teacher is an idiot. (I know I said that already, but it really can’t be repeated often enough)
Victoria may have mandated everybody talk in a certain way (and I’m sure tom of tomndebb will be around to provide the details of said mandate, if it existed) but without question there were accents beforehand.
Being a big fan of “Britcoms”, I like to “spot the accent”. Take the show "Good Neighbors (AKA “The Good Life” in the UK), Margo and Jerry have that “snooty” sounding accent, while Tom and Barbara have a much “warmer” accent.
Perhaps one of our British posters could give us a lesson in “spotting the accents”?
This sounds like the perfect opening for a Kipling “Just So” story akin to “How the Elephant Got his Nose” etc.
Now kids who like to hear a story tonight?
“We would!. We Would!”
Ok! OK!.. Now listen carefully. This is about how the British got their accents.
Long ago there was a great and powerful wizard with a mischievous assistant…
What your teacher was talking about is Received Pronunciation (RP). This is not the same as the Queen’s English, which is just a way of refering to standard English in England.
RP is a dialect based to some degree on that of Queen Victoria. It’s spoken by only a small fraction of the English, but they are mostly upper class and so are unduly influential.
You mean when I was told that blood is really blue (just look at your veins!) but only turns red upon hitting the oxygen (when you are cut or otherwise injured) my teacher was WRONG???
Wow, the things I learn on this board…
There’s loads of different ones, as has already been pointed out. My husband’s a Geordie, for instance, i.e. from Newcastle. Anyone read the magazine comic Viz? That’s out of Newcastle. Yes, they really talk like that. Divvint kna why, but what’s the marra wivvit, like? It’s alreet. (Can’t understand a word my father-in-law says when he’s had a few. Can hardly understand him sober.) Then you have the equivalent of ‘redneck country hick’ accents, like Cornwall, for instance. Oi be drinkin’ zoider, etc.
Then you have me. I talk normal.
I’ve never understood why they renamed ‘The Good Life’ in the States. Was PBS afraid that the title might be seen as endorsing dropping out of the rat race? I’ve also never understood how Benny Hill could ever, ever have been on PBS. Hey, if it’s British, it’s culture.
General point of weirdness: A German TV company is negotiating with the BBC for the right to remake Fawlty Towers. One does wonder how ‘that’ episode will be handled, as it’s hard to imagine Germans rolling about hysterically on the floor at the sight of Basil goose-stepping.
Stompy
Ever see a play/movie called MY FAIR LADY? Or PYGMALION, for that matter, but I don’t set high standards.
You’ll recall Henry Higgins claim that he could identify people’s origins by their speech, mainly accents? And that within London, he could do that within a matter of blocks?
OK, so enough of this “only one accent” or “tell us all the accents”.
StompyGodzilla (love the name, BTW):
“The Good Life” was renamed because there was an American show with the same name (in 1973 IIRC, starring Larry Hagman) and the PBS programmers didn’t want to confuse anyone !?! The US show only lasted a few weeks and was probably forgotten by the time the UK show came here.
Your teacher WAS wrong, Cecil says so…
I can’t hear the accent but one time I ran a joke thru the jive translator on the net & sent it to my friend. She actually thought I was trying to write something with a brit accent & accused me of making fun of him. Here is what it would translate the above to:
De Baaaad Life" wuz redojiggerd cuz’ dere wuz an Amerikin show wid de same dojigger (in 1973
IIRC, starrin’ Remus Hagdude) and de PBS honky codemers dun didn’t wants’ t’ confuse anyone !?! De US
show only lasted some few weeks and wuz probably forgotsten by de time de UK show came here.
Crikey, that’s spooky. Just like having Margaret Thatcher in the room with you.
Ever hear of a British movie called “Riff Raff”? It was about a band of English punks… and their lower-class accents were so strong, the film was released in the USA with SUBTITLES!!! A movie in English actually needed subtitles!
As has been mentione many times earlier, there’s no such thing as AN English accent, there are dozens of them. A Cockney fishmonger sounds nothing like an Oxford don, who sounds nothing like a Liverpool sailor, who sounds nothing like a Yorkshire farmer. But somehow, when any of those blokes comes to America, people hear only “an English accent.” And usually, when an American hears “an ENglish accent,” he assumes the speaker is classy, educated and sophisticated!
Peter Noone, the old singer of Herman’s Hermits, often laughs that, in Britain, his accent immediately gives him away as a blue-collar nobody from Manchester, whereas Americans usually treat him like an aristocrat. Michael Caine remarks with much amusement that he has the British equivalent of a thick Bronx accent… but American studios regularly give him roles as princes, dukes and intellectuals!
Along the same lines, Louis B. Mayer didn’t want to give Rex Harrison the role of Henry Higgins in the film version of “My Fair Lady.” He offered the role to Cary Grant! Grant scoffed at the offer, saying “Doesn’t that idiot know that I have the very accent Eliza Doolittle is trying to get RID of???”
Good on Surgoshan for checking the archives. But it’s worth noting that this item was not by Cecil Adams, but rather by SDSTAFF Hawk.
Well, it’s not unheard of for British films to be released in the US with some of the dialogue dubbed. Trainspotting comes to mind; one of the co-stars of Kevin and Perry Go Large (I’m not sure if that’s out in America yet) also had to redo her lines for the US release. I think it’s kind of surprising it doesn’t happen more often, actually.
I can travel ten miles and pick out a differant accent from Leeds to Castleford, another ten miles and I’m in the Barnsley accent and it is totally differant, go south fifteen mlies and it’s a Sheffield accent, so in thirty five miles I can easily distinguish four accents.
More than all that I can tell with a reliable degree of certainty if the speaker has been in jail or in the armed forces, I can tell what sort of background they are likely to have or even if they are trying to disguise it to appear as if they are of ‘better stock’.
Many of the words spoken in the Northeast such as around Newcastle and Berwick are Norse in origin and are not easily understood by the rest of the UK, in fact in a recent book by Melvyn Bragg (once said to be Britain’s cleverest man) he points out that a speaker in the northeast would have been able to communicate with an Icelander or Norwegian as recently as 1945 but all accents have become slightly milder since then, probably because of broadcast media.
The role of accents in the UK is well understood by advertisers who will use certain accents in certain products like a mild Scottish accent is often used for financial products, a Yorkshire one will often be used for a commonsense type of portrayal such as in blue collar adverts whereas the Birmingham accent was until recently percieved as being a bit thick and not desirable.
Liverpool is supposed to be lively and streetwise, bit of a jack the lad.London as in the East end is meant to be a bit crooked and a little devious.
All that is total rubbish but that never stopped the advertising industry.
Much as you should respect teachers this one is just plain wrong unless you are slightly mistaking the context of what was said, this is only a get out for said teacher.
I believe a US poster a few months ago said that several accents around your country can be directly traced back to surprisingly small localities in the UK which, when you think about it, is to be expected as immigrants of a type would be very likly to settle in the same areas.You only have to look at ,say, Asian communities to see what I mean.
The closest natural accent in the UK to the Queens 'English is supposed to be around Stirling - in Scotland but as far as I’m concerned I have no accent, it’s all those on the BBC and the Government spokespersons who have!
I live in Baltimore, Maryland (outside the city) and the “Baltimore” accent has been described as part Cockney and part US Southern. Makes for quite an interesting sound. True Baltimoreans say their “o” 's like Eliza Doolittle, like an “aow” sound.
We’ll just call you 'enry 'iggins, shall we?
Just you wait. Just you wait.
Bit of a hijack, but in Ireland one of the mobile phone networks had a great ad in which a girl out on a date spots a better looking guy, slips him her phone number and he rings her up - only to reveal a very thick “culchie” (sheep-country hick) accent. Cue the girl hanging up on him and the guy thinking he should have sent a text message instead.
In America his accent would probably be considered charming!