Don't you just hate it when this happens......

[Aruntraveller]

I mean by this, my agreeing with the twat that is Digby Jones:


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-58040793

I've been bangin on for ages about Beth Rigby's missin "g"'s.

[SusanDoris]

I mean by this, my agreeing with the twat that is Digby Jones:


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-58040793

I've been bangin on for ages about Beth Rigby's missin "g"'s.

I too have heard this discussed a couple of times on FiveLive! However, I would like to tell the professor of accents that to drop the T sound or use a glottal stop instead is actually laziness. To make the t sound, a slight movement of the tongue is required and is easily taught, but no-one can tell a lovely, caring mother who is happily teaching her little girl to say 'bu'on' - which I actually saw once - that she is missing something.

For those in regular broadcasting, to be able to speak with t and'ing' sounds should be a requirement. It is not an affectation to do that, it makes for clarity for all.

[SteveH]

Droppin' the final g used to be a deliberate affectation of the upper class (the huntin', shootin' and fishin' set). Laurence Olivier as the Duke of Wellington did it in the film 'Lady Caroline Lamb'.

[Anchorman]

naethin ava tae see here; save a birkie wae nae manners.

[Roses]

I was brought up to speak received English, which has stood me in good stead. 

[Anchorman]

I was brought up to speak received English, which has stood me in good stead. 

   


Received by whom?

[ProfessorDavey]

I mean by this, my agreeing with the twat that is Digby Jones:


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-58040793

I've been bangin on for ages about Beth Rigby's missin "g"'s.

He's an idiot.

Scott is an excellent presenter and commenter. She's also a great role model. There is nothing about her accent which makes her hard to understand and frankly we should be focusing more on what she has to say than her accent.

I think it is good that we have a broader range of accents on the BBC than we once did as it means that people from all parts of the country are likely to hear people who sound a bit like them rather than people who all sound like products of public schools and Oxbridge as once was the case. As long as someone is not so accented that they become impossible to understand, why should be require presenters to speak in a particular manner.

[Aruntraveller]

He's an idiot.

Scott is an excellent presenter and commenter. She's also a great role model. There is nothing about her accent which makes her hard to understand and frankly we should be focusing more on what she has to say than her accent.

I think it is good that we have a broader range of accents on the BBC than we once did as it means that people from all parts of the country are likely to hear people who sound a bit like them rather than people who all sound like products of public schools and Oxbridge as once was the case. As long as someone is not so accented that they become impossible to understand, why should be require presenters to speak in a particular manner.

I understand all that on a rational basis.

However, as soon as I hear that "g" dropped (and as pointed out this does not apply solely to Scott - I first noticed it with Beth Rigby on Sky News) a red mist descends (maybe not a mist, more a bit of sea fret) and I can't concentrate on what they are sayin because I am waitin for the next missin "g".

To me it doesn't sound like an accent issue but more one that is born out of laziness in speech. Accents seldom bother me, except for the dreaded Black Country one.

I obviously have some kind of problem but I do find it incredibly distracting.

[Nearly Sane]

He's an idiot.

Scott is an excellent presenter and commenter. She's also a great role model. There is nothing about her accent which makes her hard to understand and frankly we should be focusing more on what she has to say than her accent.

I think it is good that we have a broader range of accents on the BBC than we once did as it means that people from all parts of the country are likely to hear people who sound a bit like them rather than people who all sound like products of public schools and Oxbridge as once was the case. As long as someone is not so accented that they become impossible to understand, why should be require presenters to speak in a particular manner.

Agree, she's perfectly easily understood unlike the PM

[Roses]

I don't mind the lilt of the Welsh, Irish and Scottish accents as long as their speech is clear. Other accents are tolerable if they aren't too board and one can understand what they are saying. The accent of my home island of Guernsey is very rarely heard these days. I used to put it on as a kid to wind my English mother up.

[ProfessorDavey]

I don't mind the lilt of the Welsh, Irish and Scottish accents as long as their speech is clear. Other accents are tolerable if they aren't too board and one can understand what they are saying. The accent of my home island of Guernsey is very rarely heard these days. I used to put it on as a kid to wind my English mother up.

I think intelligibility is in the ear of the beholder. The idea that 1950s RP is universally understandable is non-sense. I think many of us today would find that type of pronunciation weird, affected, distracting and actually quite hard to understand.

I like hearing a range of accents on the TV and radio - some I like, some I don't, and I suspect others have a similar view, but differ on the ones they like and don't. Point is that as these accents exist up and down the country we should be hearing them on our screens and radios, with the proviso that the delivery should be understandable, which is largely more about presentation skills than accent per se.

[Udayana]

I mean by this, my agreeing with the twat that is Digby Jones:


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-58040793

I've been bangin on for ages about Beth Rigby's missin "g"'s.

There was an interesting discussion of this on "You and Yours":
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000ycw3

One caller related two cases where seriously ill people had not been treated appropriately as doctors had not paid sufficient attention - because of their accents.

Really, even though it should not, accents and other speech quirks or habits do affect how others respond and the attention paid. On hearing about differening health outcomes in various ethnic and class groups, I wonder how much is due to unconscious judgement based on accents.

   

[Anchorman]

I don't mind the lilt of the Welsh, Irish and Scottish accents as long as their speech is clear. Other accents are tolerable if they aren't too board and one can understand what they are saying. The accent of my home island of Guernsey is very rarely heard these days. I used to put it on as a kid to wind my English mother up.

   



We hae the lippin o the Inglis as weel.
I's nae sae bad.

[SusanDoris]

To me it doesn't sound like an accent issue but more one that is born out of laziness in speech.

As I said in my post up thread, yes, I too think it is laziness.

One of my sons found it difficult to prnounce the th so I created a fun sentence with nearly every word beginning with th and made him practise it. I could have just shrugged and mot bothered but that would have held him back in what has been a successful career.

[Dicky Underpants]

As I said in my post up thread, yes, I too think it is laziness.

One of my sons found it difficult to prnounce the th so I created a fun sentence with nearly every word beginning with th and made him practise it. I could have just shrugged and mot bothered but that would have held him back in what has been a successful career.

That's one of my bugbears, though the f and v substitution for th seems to be given preferential treatment by the BBC now, so that they can seem to be 'down with the street kids'. I once heard a bloke from such a background speaking with otherwise unforced RP, but strenuously making sure all his th sounds were Fs. Making sure we knew he'd fought a lot as well as fought a lot. See that? When you can't tell the difference between two past tenses is the time to review your pronunciation.
Don't mind dropped Gs though.

[ProfessorDavey]

As I said in my post up thread, yes, I too think it is laziness.

I'm not sure it is really laziness rather than learned convention. And I think we all have things in our pronunciation which aren't quite accurate, but are convention in our accents.

One of my bug-bears (which comes from my Scottish mother) is the inability to indicate through pronunciation the difference between 'where' and 'wear' and that 'law' has no 'r' in it unlike 'lore' etc.

All of these are in one regard sloppiness or laziness, yet they are, in reality, merely conventions within certain accents.

[Anchorman]

I'm not sure it is really laziness rather than learned convention. And I think we all have things in our pronunciation which aren't quite accurate, but are convention in our accents.

One of my bug-bears (which comes from my Scottish mother) is the inability to indicate through pronunciation the difference between 'where' and 'wear' and that 'law' has no 'r' in it unlike 'lore' etc.

All of these are in one regard sloppiness or laziness, yet they are, in reality, merely conventions within certain accents.

   


The 'where and wear' thing may be a hangover from the Scots.
Every effort in my younger days was made to expunge Scots language from the schools, and sometimes, children were actually belted by the injudicious use of the 'tawse', for using words such as 'Aye', 'richt', 'enou', and, instead of the English 'where', 'whaur'.
These, and many similar words, were dismissed as colloqualisms or slang, when their provenance can be traced back eight centuries and more as Scots split from what was to become English.

[ekim]

In artfor, ereford, and ampshire, uriicanes ardly appen.  I think I've got it!

[ProfessorDavey]

The 'where and wear' thing may be a hangover from the Scots.
Every effort in my younger days was made to expunge Scots language from the schools, and sometimes, children were actually belted by the injudicious use of the 'tawse', for using words such as 'Aye', 'richt', 'enou', and, instead of the English 'where', 'whaur'.
These, and many similar words, were dismissed as colloqualisms or slang, when their provenance can be traced back eight centuries and more as Scots split from what was to become English.

Hi AM - not sure I'm understanding you fully

My mother (born on the Clyde) had very precise pronunciation - 'where' was clearly different from 'wear' and heaven help anyone who said loreanorder rather than "law andorder"

She could never quite get why people from the Sauff couldn't get this right.

[SteveH]

I think intelligibility is in the ear of the beholder. The idea that 1950s RP is universally understandable is non-sense. I think many of us today would find that type of pronunciation weird, affected, distracting and actually quite hard to understand.

I saw an extract from an early 60s programme about Jacqueline Du Pre a year or so ago, and was surprised at how "posh" the accents of those interviewed, all educated, upper-middle class types, including Du Pre and Sir John Barbirolli, sounded, compared to the accents of their modern equivalents. One of the last people to speak like that - and in her case it was entirely fake, and deliberately cultivated, because she was lower-middle class by upbringing - was Thatcher. It appears, then, that even RP has changed considerably, and in a relatively short time. I've just remembered Brian Sewell, more recently, but was a throwback, with his irritable vowel syndrome.

[Harrowby Hall]

I saw an extract from an early 60s programme about Jacqueline Du Pre a year or so ago, and was surprised at how "posh" the accents of those interviewed, all educated, upper-middle class types, including Du Pre and Sir John Barbirolli, sounded, compared to the accents of their modern equivalents. One of the last people to speak like that - and in her case it was entirely fake, and deliberately cultivated, because she was lower-middle class by upbringing - was Thatcher. It appears, then, that even RP has changed considerably, and in a relatively short time. I've just remembered Brian Sewell, more recently, but was a throwback, with his irritable vowel syndrome.

When I was much younger than I am now (in 1965 actually) I was present at a Prom at which Jacqueline du Pre played the Elgar concerto with Sir Malcolm Sargent. Sargent, like Margaret Thatcher, came from a lower middle class Lincolnshire family. Not only did he speak in a clear "posh ... educated, upper-middle class" accent, he could project it into a crowded Albert Hall at the Last Night of the Proms without any electronic assistance.

[Dicky Underpants]

When I was much younger than I am now (in 1965 actually) I was present at a Prom at which Jacqueline du Pre played the Elgar concerto with Sir Malcolm Sargent. Sargent, like Margaret Thatcher, came from a lower middle class Lincolnshire family. Not only did he speak in a clear "posh ... educated, upper-middle class" accent, he could project it into a crowded Albert Hall at the Last Night of the Proms without any electronic assistance.

His voice wasn't the only personal attribute that he regularly projected.

[Anchorman]

Scots actors Alistair Sim and James-Robertson-Justice were told  to undergo lessons to lose their Scots accents if they were ever to make it in the film industry. It almost succeeded in the case of Sim, who sounds like a cross between a Morningsider and Etonian, but less so in the case of Robertson-Justice's films.

[ProfessorDavey]

Scots actors Alistair Sim and James-Robertson-Justice were told  to undergo lessons to lose their Scots accents if they were ever to make it in the film industry. It almost succeeded in the case of Sim, who sounds like a cross between a Morningsider and Etonian, but less so in the case of Robertson-Justice's films.

While I don't think actors should be forced to lose their natural accents to make it, it is, of course, a valuable asset for actors to be able to credibly portray characters with a range of accents.

Some do it more successfully than others - Dick Van Dyke, take a bow

[Harrowby Hall]

His voice wasn't the only personal attribute that he regularly projected.

They were all at it - Sargent, Beecham, Stokowski, Toscanini ....   It was a perk of the job. Not Boult, though.