Hi Jamie,
Then it would be all right for the president of the United States or a manager to speak URP, wouldn’t it? You would sound much more authoritative speaking URP than speaking, say, General American English or Cockney.
Englishuser
Hi,
Jamie (K) wrote:
Could somebody tell me why God is a “he” and tends to have a male voice in films?
Englishuser
Hi Englishuser,
I seem to recall you have this thing about accents. What do you mean by an
Which century are we talking about? The 20/21 century?
A
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Hi Alan,
You asked what I meant by ‘an aristocratic British accent’. I suppose it is quite clear to most of us what accent I am referring to when I use the abbreviation “U-RP”. HLM Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and HLRH Princess Margaret spoke with that accent. I am aware of the fact that U-RP is less commonly heard in the UK today, but that doesn’t mean it is non-existent. Actually, there are quite a few U-RP speakers around, and they do not sound affected at all to most people.
Englishuser
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Hi,
Have you done a survey when you say:
?
A
Hi,
No, I haven’t conducted any survey on this, but I am sure most people approve of and are tolerant of other people’s accents. HM The Queen’s accent has to be widely understood and accepted, as I am sure you know. I have never heard anyone complain about Her Majesty’s voice or accent.
Englishuser
Hi,
The extraordinary thing is that you keep wandering from the point. I am not talking about tolerance, I am not complaining about the way the Queen speaks and I am not talking about any particular accent. What I am saying is that affected speech is affected speech and if you care to relate that to the way the Queen speaks, then that is your choice, it ain’t mine. The fact that you
is totally irrelevant. I don’t know what society you live in or where you live. If, for example, you lived in Estonia, I don’t suppose anyone would either complain about the Queen’s way of speaking or could care less about it.
A
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Hi Alan,
Then why do you say URP should be called “grossly affected received pronunciation”? If affected speech is affected speech and has nothing whatsoever to do with the accent somebody uses, then your statement about URP as “GARP” is totally irrelevant.
Do you really think it is impossible to interact with British people in Estonia? Do you think it is impossible to travel to the United Kingdom or other countries as an Estonian in the 21st century? Many sociolinguistic studies have been conducted on the position of the URP accent in England. What makes you think I am so unfamiliar with these studies? Do I seem like an illiterate person who has no way of knowing things apart from talking to people residing within a one-kilometre-radius from my home?
Englishuser
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Hi,
I really don’t know what you seem like. What I do know is that you have the habit of changing around what I say or adding some new comment as in:
Now where has that come from? Not from me.
The point I made originally was that your label of URP where you add ‘upper’ to RP was to my mind another way of describing ‘affected speech’. I have not mentioned who speaks like this as that has been your idea. Some people do and to me that sounds affected.
I think I’ll stop there but no doubt you’ll gnarl that up into something.
A
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Hi,
I disagree. I do not intentionally “change around what you say”. Perhaps I just cannot understand what you are trying to say?
When you said it was totally irrelevant that I hadn’t heard anyone complain about The Queen’s accent I thought you meant I cannot possibly be experienced enough to be an authority on British people’s attitudes toward different accents. While that might be true, I still find your implication a bit insulting taking into account that you don’t really know me and have no means of knowing how much I know about the topic being discussed. I do have a life outside of what we might call “the forum world”.
“URP” as a term was not invented by me. “URP” is used by professional linguists and phonologists in the UK to describe a specific accent of English. If you want to, you can read Professor John C. Wells’s blog at www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/. Professor Wells knows and uses the term “URP” where applicable, and so do I. I wasn’t trying to describe what you call “affected speech”. I merely wanted to know whether Jamie would be likely to employ someone who speaks URP.
Once again: URP is an accent of English. URP has nothing to do with “affected speech”.
Englishuser
Hi,
And you did!
A
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Hi,
I obviously had to post a reply, Alan! You expected it, and you got what you expected. Are you happy now?
Englishuser
[i][b]I’m over the moon!
A[/b][/i]
Hi,
I am delighted to hear that. It’s very nice to make people happy.
Englishuser
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In all honesty I’m sick and tired of this correspondence.
A
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Hi Alan,
You said:
I thought so. Could you tell me why?
Englishuser
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No, it wouldn’t be all right for the president of the US to speak URP. The president’s voice is not supposed to sound like the voice of God. He’s the President of the United States, not the King of the United States. It’s okay for him to speak General American, some kind of Southern accent or any US accent, as long as it doesn’t sound too affected or snooty.
A manager can have any accent, because the main criterion is whether or not he gets his job done. He may encounter resistance from his subordinates due to his accent, however, just as a German manager who says “must” too much can sometimes get the nickname “Der F?hrer”.
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I don’t think he needs to explain it. He has made it clear for months. You have a tendency to insist, to twist and not to listen. You have an exaggerated view of the stratification and stigmatization of various accents, along with a sycophantic idea that aristocratic forms of British English should somehow be the pinnacle that all should strive for. Beyond this, you do have an irritating habit of twisting his words around, perhaps because you don’t understand what he’s saying. I would offer, though, that the reason you don’t understand what Alan is saying is that you are stubbornly attached to your own linguistic worldview and refuse to comprehend what he explicity states. You also bring up bogus arguments, such as when you appear to think that just one or two exceptions completely refute an otherwise valid generalization. I addition to this, your stubborn refusal to give any indication as to where you are, what your native language is, etc., tends to get on people’s nerves.
Alan gets annoyed with me because he thinks I have a nationalistic chip on my shoulder, and because (I think) he misunderstands some generalizations I make as being across-the-board stereotypes. There are some other things I do that bug him, such as when I refer to socio-economic classes, which I think he interprets from a rigid UK perspective than from a fluid US view of them. This is just my interpretation; I’m not inside the man’s mind.
Anyway, Alan has made it quite clear why you can get on his nerves at times.
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Hi Jamie,
I didn’t say that in this thread, did I?
Such as?
Englishuser
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Perhaps we don’t have the same perception of how these voices sound? There are some good samples here:
freewebs.com/coralworx/voicepage.htm
Although you often have a way of ignoring questions, I’ll put this one to you:
What do you think of the voice imitation of a 1930s New Yorker Girl?
Going back to the accent question, I found the following accent files quite interesting, especially (but probably not only) for learners. Some of them have transcripts and there’s even an Accent Listening Practice.
Enjoy the colourful contrasts!
gazzaro.it/accents/files/accents2.html
gazzaro.it/accents/files/MoreAmSolution.html
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