Dialects and lazy speech - there is a difference

Grantanow

People do speak in different registers depending on where they are or who they are with. At grammar school I learnt to speak in one register and spoke in another at home. Richard Hoggart mentions this in 'The Uses of Literacy' which I read as a working class pupil.

i think this is called code switching in modern parlance.
well known among urban youth/yoof who drop their jafaikan when trying to get a job.
you get me bro ?

It is Lazy speech. You have to use your tongue to pronounce T and other letters. Now we are losing L - hospiaw, medaw etc How can children learn to spell correctly when words are not pronounced properly? BBC announcers and presenters should use RP so that standardised pronunciation is available to be heard.
Dialect is a different matter and can be delightful. It has been around for a long time and is part of the variety of the country "Estuary english" is recent. I never heard it when I was young.

I think this thread proves how boring it would be.

We are all different , It would be boring if We were all the same ..Innit ?

I don't have a problem with pronunciation. It would be dull if we all spoke the same way. Having lived in Scotland, Wales and England I'm familiar with many different pronunciations, accents and dialect words. DD and grandchildren live in Dundee and have strong local accents and dialect speech. They greet me "How are youse?" It's what makes them who they are.
I do however get very upset at falling standards in written English and spelling, to the point where the meaning is ambiguous and sometimes lost altogether. Don't get me started...

I used to have a strong Liverpool accent which gradually wore away when I went to work in a profession. When I was teaching groups of students at uni the international ones simply would not have understood me if I had a strong regional accent. I learned to slow down and speak recieved English for that reason.

I can still slip back into broad scouse if I need to and invariablly do when I visit family. I still miss the people and the humour.

I think there is a difference between accents and what the op calls lazy speech. Dropping letters and mispronouncing words as in haitch instead of aitch and the strange made up accent which some young people use is irritating. I quite like most local accents and don't mind hearing them on TV.

It’s also about the presenter’s accent being so overwhelming or grating that even though you understand what’s being said it ruins your enjoyment of the programme.

kevincharley

Franbern, you are a woman after my own heart. I miss the good old letter T in the middle of words.
Those that claim it's not lazy speech, please explain why my stepdaughter and her peers use it when it's never been used ny her parents or their peers?
I also mutter darkly at the tv when I hear would of/could of/should of.
And don't get me started on the mispronunciation of the word 'sixth'.

Your stepdaughter and her peers are lazy? Stupid?

I can't understand how anyone can literally not understand what someone is saying.
It's totally beyond me that it should be so difficult.

It's got nothing to do with being"snobish".
It's about being able to UNDERSTAND what's being said easily I'm rapidly giving up on listening to the BBC.

Franbern, you are a woman after my own heart. I miss the good old letter T in the middle of words.
Those that claim it's not lazy speech, please explain why my stepdaughter and her peers use it when it's never been used ny her parents or their peers?
I also mutter darkly at the tv when I hear would of/could of/should of.
And don't get me started on the mispronunciation of the word 'sixth'.

I do think some of the new presenters on the Beeb ( and elsewhere ) are slovenly in their speech - - the ends of words are missing - letters are blurred into each other and grammar is often bad too. If you are in a position whereby people can imitate you and you are in the public eye or a role model for youngsters speaking in your own dialect is lovely - but bad pronunciation and english grammar isn't.!

I moved from N.Ireland as I married an English man and lived there for nearly 10 years. We moved around a bit and I loved all the different accents and words used, although some found mine a bit hard to understand at times and I had to slow my speech down quite a lot. I don't think it's lazy speech at all and I much prefer it to 'la de da' any day. When my mum used to visit us she took great delight in being called 'me duck'.

Grantanow

People do speak in different registers depending on where they are or who they are with. At grammar school I learnt to speak in one register and spoke in another at home. Richard Hoggart mentions this in 'The Uses of Literacy' which I read as a working class pupil.

This exactly! I speak with a Norfolk accent. But because I have taught/teach so many foreign students, I have to completely flatten my accent/dialect/idioms etc because otherwise they don't understand me.

When I started doing this, I really felt very Hyacinth Bucket and fake, but I've heard myself on recordings (oral exams) and I just sound English. Not posh. But not me either.

Yes, but it's far more satisfying to pick on estuary English.

The glottal stop also exists in some Scottish accents, eg the Dundee one.

I have no problems with the way people speak. I do have problems with the written word when all sorts of abbreviations are used. For example, hasn't, wasn't, can't, which can be confusing for people who do not have English as a first language.

That's how I would sound if I tried to speak "properly".
So, I just speak how I always have; in my first visit to Scotland, the young woman in the cafe at the airport screamed with joy when she heard me talk.
She called her friend from out the back so she could listen to my dulcet tones, too.

I has the misfortune to catch Eastenders last night....the way the female child spoke using scripted colloquialisms didn't sit quite right at all. In my experience, children of this age (I guess she was about 7 or 8) don't speak like this at all. It was irritating. I think Eastenders is trying too hard@ ?

People do speak in different registers depending on where they are or who they are with. At grammar school I learnt to speak in one register and spoke in another at home. Richard Hoggart mentions this in 'The Uses of Literacy' which I read as a working class pupil.

Germanshepherdsmum

Perhaps you could post a quote or link to save us getting our Bibles out?

I would have thought you could guess

"Judge not less that ye be judged"

My little grandson, his mum comes from further north than Watford, corrects me when I say bath, “there’s no ‘r’ in bath Nanny, or path or laugh” ?. There wasn’t where my parents came from either but they worked hard to lose their accent. It’s all a bit silly in my opinion. I like the ‘different’ dialects we hear on the BBC these days. My parents were snobs and I am not.

Perhaps you could post a quote or link to save us getting our Bibles out?

Matthew:7 vv1-3