Thank you for mentioning it now. I think I should mention that I refer to other heads of state the same way, e.g. HM King Harald V of Norway or His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. (I’m neither a Norwegian subject nor Catholic.) Besides, I do not think that most Brits refer to their Queen as Her Majesty the Queen, either. Shouldn’t we show foreign heads of state our respect? I mean, I personally would be much more likely to criticise my president than I would be to criticise a foreign head of state.
Yes, I suppose you could say that Her Majesty’s hats and accent are comical. But I also find the way she dresses and talks both charming and impressive.
That’s true. Now you’re about to start a discussion about monarchy on a more general level. Like you said, I’m not a British subject, and as I see it, it’s up to the Brits to decide about their monarchy.
I don’t really accept Gimson to 100 per cent even though it may sound like that. I only gave you an example of an English-born phonetician who thought you shouldn’t switch between accents when learning a foreign language. There are surely others that share Gimson’s opinion in Britain and in the US, too, so I wouldn’t say that it’s an issue only for foreign scholars (even though I have to admit that teaching a ‘prestige’ or ‘correct’ accent often is more important to non-native teachers of English than to their native colleagues).
I think you’ve mentioned a Swiss student of yours with an accent that sounded completely British to you. Once again, I think that this has to do with how far you want to go in definining a ‘foreign accent’. If a person has an accent that no one can place as German (or French or Italian or Rhaeto-Romance), wouldn’t you rather refer to it as a ‘neutral’ foreign accent than a ‘German’ accent? Either way, I don’t think that a foreign accent matters at all if native speakers place you for a native speaker. And even a stronger foreign accent is acceptable, of course, but some people simply don’t like to sound so foreign (it has its drawbacks) and therefore I understand people who work on their accents so as to sound more native-like.
This kind of situation is relatively common. I know a woman from China who knows English grammar backwards and forwards, but her pronunciation is so horrible that when she talks on the phone I have to tell her to hand the phone to her husband and have him translate her English into English. (For some reason, I can understand her when I talk to her in person.)
I think I’m seeing a situation like this in the making. A man I know has a fianc?e from Vietnam who is hard to understand. His mother asked me if it was possible to arrange accent reduction lessons for her. The man told his mother, it doesn’t matter as long as I can understand her. I couldn’t decide if this was the response of a lover or an oppressor.
As a Catholic, I would find it quite bizarre if a Jehovah’s Witness, a Buddhist or a Hindu referred to the pope as “His Holiness”. It might even make me a little nervous, because I’d think he was using the title for my benefit and not because he believed it.
One of the reasons it’s strange for people to use the title “His Majesty” to refer to other people’s kings is that most kings are not very important in the world. In the world as a whole, King Harald V of Norway is less important than the mayors of Chicago and Toronto. Being the prince of Monaco has no importance at all.
In the US, we used to call judges “Your Honor”, but when I go to court to interpret for people, or for jury duty, I find that they are now more often addressed as “Judge”, even by the lawyers. (I did hear one uneducated lady keep addressing the judge as “You Guys” once, but that is unusual.) On Catholic TV here, there is a show hosted by the archbishop of New Orleans, along with some lady. Fifty years ago, people on the show would have addressed the archbishop as “Your Excellency”, but on this show they just address him as “Archbishop”.
Do you call Kim Jong Il “Dear Leader”? Would you have addressed Adolph Hitler as “Herr F?hrer”? It’s possible to show people respect without addressing them by worshipful titles, and frankly, some powerful people don’t deserve respect at all.
She was Czech. When I left her, she sounded something like The Good Witch of the North in the movie The Wizard of Oz. After seven years in England, she had this near-native British accent.
By neutral accent, most people understand the standard broadcasting accent of some country. We sometimes say that the person’s accent has “a foreign tinge”.
I think that it’s up to you how you address or refer to people. As a rule I think it’s best to refer to a person the way he or she prefers to be referred to, so if Jamie (K) wants me to address him as Jamie (K) I’ll do so. The very same applies to HM the Queen of England: on the official website of the British monarchy they refer to her as Her Majesty, and thus I would assume that it’s in accordance with the official policy of the Buckingham Palace. It’s really just about respect. But if I write a letter to HM Queen Elizabeth II, I do not end it ‘I have the honour to be, Madam, Your Majesty’s humble and obedient servant’ (as a British subject might do but which would be out of place for me). Instead, I would end the letter ‘Yours Sincerely’.
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