[Archived] Podcast 17

[Brfcrule1]

Wen will there be a a podcast tommorrow about the current problems after the sunderland game with regards to the bank and various issues.

[Paul]

No there isnt a recording scheduled for today, Sunday, partly because most people involved are unavailable and partly because the game isn't till this afternoon.

Last I heard the plan was to wait till next weekend.

[RoyRover]

Wait until after the WBA game or before it?

[Ste B]

Wait until after the WBA game or before it?

They tend to be recorded on a Sunday morning.

[FourLaneBlue]

The other thing is having been educated in the sixties, in southern England, I was taught Received Pronunciation, in other words I don't have an accent

What a stupid statement.

So, let me get this right. Everybody in the world has an accent? Except you. Right. Don't tell me I have an accent and you don't because your RP is the way English should be spoken.

I expected a bit better from you than this kind of recanting of discredited elitist claptrap Paul.

If you don't want people to "jump on" you then don't talk crap and pretend RP is anything other yet another accent but which has been deemed superior to others SOLELY due to socioeconomic power reasons.

Can't believe I've had to lower myself to even discuss this.

[Paul]

What a stupid statement.

So, let me get this right. Everybody in the world has an accent? Except you. Right. Don't tell me I have an accent and you don't because your RP is the way English should be spoken.

I expected a bit better from you than this kind of recanting of discredited elitist claptrap Paul.

If you don't want people to "jump on" you then don't talk crap and pretend RP is anything other yet another accent but which has been deemed superior to others SOLELY due to socioeconomic power reasons.

Can't believe I've had to lower myself to even discuss this.

You are to an extent correct, though your post would be of more value if it didn't resort to the language you chose to direct at me. Still you have had "to lower myself" which implies some sort of superiority, much as you accuse me. RP is widely recognised as the Standard English accent or pronunciation form against which others are measured, presumably for their variation. RP is the pronunciation form used by the Oxford English Dictionary. You are correct to say It is associated with a class of people and it is that association which largely leads to it being discredited in the manner you have and I agree with you. The suggestion those who use the pronunciation are in some way superior is utterly outmoded but that cannot distract from RP being Standard English for comparitive purposes.

As I said before RP is the standard for comparison, it doesn't make it right or wrong. You'll find the same in many other languages - in my experience French being example, though I don't speak it myself I have several French friends who tell me the differences can be so marked it can be difficult for one to understand another. RP exists because it was supposed to disguise the users origins, hardly a positive idea At school I was taught RP, if I hadn't been I'd have the Hampshire burr native to the very rural area where I was raised.

[FourLaneBlue]

Thanks for the answer, Paul. Sorry for jumping on you, but as you can tell this is one of my bugbears! I think it comes from having left Blackburn to go to Uni in London when I was still a teenager...got ribbed mercilessly by all the public schoolboy types! I always gave as good as I got but resented any kind of idea that there is a "proper" way of speaking and other varities are incorrect.

PS - Many authorities now consider the Northern use of vowels (for example, the pronunciation of bath etc) to be standard English at least as much as the more southeasterly way of pronouncing it.

[Steve Moss]

"RP is defined in the Concise Oxford Dictionary as "the standard accent of English as spoken in the south of England", but some have argued that it can be heard from native speakers throughout England and Wales. Although there is nothing intrinsic about RP that marks it as superior to any other variety, sociolinguistic factors have given Received Pronunciation particular prestige in parts of Britain. It has thus been the accent of those with power, money and influence since the early to mid 20th century, though it has more recently been criticised as a symbol of undeserved privilege"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation

So you do have an accent. A upper class south English accent, as opposed to the far more proper Arizonan accent.

[roversmum]

I'm not sure about that.

However, I do know Paul speaks very clearly on the podcasts which is a great help to those who like me do not hear as well as they used to!

[aletheia]

Paul RP exists because it was supposed to disguise the users origins

This is incorrect. RP is simply one accent among many that gained prestige over the centuries for a variety of reasons.

It is not the norm -it is spoken by around 3% of the population. Notions of 'deficit' and 'correctness' are meaningless.