Originally posted by kernelbogey
View Post
One received it from John Snagge, because that was what one did. 
-
Well, this "one" certainly didn't! - and what little he ever heard of his strangulated vowels suggested that they'd all been "snagged" on something - but then why in any case would anyone choose to receive such a thing from someone who, when commentating the 1949 University Boat Race, said "I can't see who's in the lead but it's either Oxford or Cambridge"?... -
...especially since the latter could as well have come from Seth Efrica than from anywhere in UK or Germany...Originally posted by vinteuil View PostComment
-
-
We've been here before and I'm sure that someone here (not you Gurnemanz?) wrote that this pronunciation still persists because it is still taught. 'Man' pron. 'men' seems to be standard German pronuciation of English.Originally posted by gurnemanz View PostComment
-
Might have been me. Not sure. I was once speaking to someone in my English class about hobbies (standard bland fare for language teachers) and the person said "I like chess". He became ever more perplexed as I pursued the board game topic. It eventually transpired that what he had actually said was: "I like jazz".Originally posted by kernelbogey View PostComment
-
Originally posted by gurnemanz View Post
As a jazz afficionado, I've never come across that one before!Comment
-
It's being taught because teachers of English who aren't native speakers (and not just in Germany!) don't realise how RP has changed over the last fifty years and more.Originally posted by kernelbogey View Post
My Polish students, all short skirts, spiky hair and piercings, were surprised to be told they sounded like upper-class English ladies of a generation ago.Comment
-
I suppose it's progress. It means RP speakers are opening their mouths every so slightly more, though I think they're sounding yuckier than before.Originally posted by jean View PostComment
-
... one might almost think that our Alpie had a prejudice or three - and I see from the wiki page on RP :Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie View Post
"Although admired in some circles, RP is disliked in others. It is common in parts of Britain to regard it as a south-eastern English accent rather than a non-regional one and as a symbol of the south-east's political power in Britain. A 2007 survey found that residents of Scotland and Northern Ireland tend to dislike RP. It is shunned by some with left-wing political views, who may be proud of having an accent more typical of the working classes.
/ . . . /
Some research has concluded that many people in the North of England have a dislike of the /ɑː/ vowel in BATH words. A. F. Gupta wrote, "Many of the northerners were noticeably hostile to /ɡrɑːs/, describing it as 'comical', 'snobbish', 'pompous' or even 'for morons'." On the subject, K. M. Petyt wrote that several respondents "positively said that they did not prefer the long-vowel form or that they really detested it or even that it was incorrect". Mark Newbrook has assigned this phenomenon the name "conscious rejection", and has cited the bath vowel as "the main instance of conscious rejection of RP" in his research in West Wirral."Comment
-
-
OTOH - from about 18 or so years ago, a couple of seemingly respectable ladies in an English class mainly for Swedish speakers in Sweden - "oh f**** off" or variants. When they were informed that this wasn't very polite their response was that they thought it was OK because they often heard it on TV (much of it American ...). They clearly hadn't thought it was rude!Originally posted by jean View Post
I wonder if the ladies pronounced the word in a "refined" way.Comment
-
The refined version would presumably be: F... off, please.Originally posted by Dave2002 View PostComment
-
Even then I did wonder what TV programmes they were watching, but .... maybe "awff"Originally posted by gurnemanz View PostComment
-
This is surprising. In Germany, I believe British politicians et al on television will have their English voices retained, unlike here where a voice-over translation is substituted (a practice which I have long regretted: subtitles would be more beneficial*). If I'm correct in thinking that, they would be exposed to current English pronunciation. Also from films.Originally posted by jean View Post
*i.e British schoolchildren would learn experientially that there are people nearer London than (say) Edinburgh who speak different languages. I believe it's helped undermine Modern Languages take-up in schools
.
Comment
-
I have just bought a pair of shoes, very expertly fitted by a young man who really knew his podiatry.
However, I found him difficult to understand because he had the common habit of speaking rapidly in a manner which elided whole syllables from words.
Do others have the same problem understanding some young people's speech?Comment
Comment