Dialects and lazy speech - there is a difference

Well, I wouldn't start reeling out a load of rhyming slang, but then who would?
It would be completely Pete Tong!

Nearly but the cuddy is a donkey.

Nae far I'm fae.

This is regional English, in a place I used to work in.

A divvnt knar.

Haway wi wa

Ironically, I also taught a boy in Spain who spoke that dialect.

We had a doctor once who spoke like JRM. He came to the house once when my son aged about 12 was ill.
When he saw him he said in JRM accent "Oh bad show!"

I never worked out whether it was sympathy or insult.

I noticed that some people on tv (anywhere, actually) say TWENNY TWENNY two. It's lazy and sounds stupid.

Sigh.

There is such a thing as standard English, Received Pronunciation if you like. It’s no good pretending there isn’t. If you have half an ear, you know it when you hear it. It isn’t snobbish to prefer it to regional accents. There’s a lot of inverted snobbery on this thread.

The attitude to regional accents changed in the sixties, when there was a minor revolution in social attitudes in general. It coincided with the Beatles, though whether they were the cause of it or the result is debatable. Before that, in the 1950s, as I remember it people tried to speak ‘properly’, at least in the middle classes. I remember a girl at school being devastated when somebody implied she had a northern accent. By the sixties, some people put on a non-standard accent if they didn’t already have one.

Sigh indeed Aveline, I concur. I prefer Esspee's thread

But the phrase, speak 'properly' implies that anything isn't proper. Which is a load of bo**ocks. It's all just language. If we are communicating well, the language is working fine.

* anything else

I thought standard English was a way of writing that acknowledges the standard form, and ensuring that people are able to apply the principles when reading or writing.

I didn't write "Ere, me old mucker, ave you eard about the quali'y ov mercy not bein strained? Yeah! It droppev as the gen'le rain..."

Miss A I understood that perfectly. Really can't abide snobs. Is Hyacinth Bucket (Bouquet) on this thread?

The merchant of Essex.

Much ado about nuthin

Nuffink, I believe is standard in these parts.

GagaJo

But the phrase, speak 'properly' implies that anything isn't proper. Which is a load of bo**ocks. It's all just language. If we are communicating well, the language is working fine.

That’s why I put ‘properly’ in inverted commas.

Hyacinth Bucket is the prime example of someone trying to do everything right, and not quite managing it. That includes speech, especially when she answers the telephone.

She is great, though, isn't she?
Her pained facial expressions; she is a wonderful actress.
I used to work for the woman I would imagine she was based on.

MissAdventure

She is great, though, isn't she?
Her pained facial expressions; she is a wonderful actress.
I used to work for the woman I would imagine she was based on.

I think everyone knows someone like her. That’s is why the series is so successful, and not just in this country.

That is, not that’s is. I really am the most terrible proof reader.

It doesn't worry me to hear people talk in local accents but I do think that announcements on TV or radio should be understandable by all. When watching American dramas on TV I quite often have to use subtitles.

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, the announcer I have trouble understanding sometimes is the one with cerebral palsy.

Listening to how people talk in some of the southern states of America, Carolinas, Georgia, sometimes I detect very occasional English vowel sounds, so fleeting but definitely there. Interesting! my thoughts are those somewhat English sounding vowels, vestiges from early English settlers possibly! It's always interesting how accents evolve given we live in such a small country with umpteen different and varied accents influenced by centuries of immigration and then exporting many of those accents overseas by waves of emigration.

The morning traffic presenter on Radio 2 pronounces all the shires as 'sheer',
Bedfordsheer, Lincolnsheer...
In our area, Lanarkshire, this would rhyme with fire.

It wouldn’t in the south though.