BS: Victoriaaaaaar

Subject: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 07:32 AM

At Victoria underground station last night we heard a young lady - sporting the most mini of mini skirts ever seen, say into her treasured mobile phone - "we're at Victoriaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar" which is my representation of Victoria in what has become the hideous Croydon accent.

So brother has become bruvaaaaaaaaaaar and on it goes. How on earth have they crucified English pronounciation like this I wonder?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 07:36 AM

I thought you meant Victoooooooriaaaaah at first, but obviously not.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 08:31 AM

Unfortunately, not many are "bovered" which is a shame. The Essex accent has been at risk from south east London (Estuary, I think it is called) since Victorian times.

Essex Record Office produced a CD and booklet which preserves some of the old Essex accent.

CD to preserve Essex Dialect

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Will Fly
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 08:45 AM

Well, yes, that's what happens with a spoken language. Its pronunciation, accent and usage all constantly change over time in different ways, depending on the location, education and environment of the speaker(s) at the time. I'm not particularly enamoured of the example you give either, but then I'm quite amused by this as well: Brian Sewell.

It'll be interesting to see how future generations view the way we speak now - just as it's fascinating to hear people like Neville Chamberlain enunciating on his return from Munich (for example - no overt political comment intended, just an example of 1930s speech).

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Leadfingers
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 09:01 AM

How many times has anyone heard JEWELLRY pronounced correctly on the radio ? It seems to be accepted everywhere as JOOLEREY ! If Auntie Beeb lets standards slide there is NO Hope !

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Will Fly
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 09:11 AM

Examples of pronunciation changing over time include words like "controversy" - once pronounced as "conTROVersy", now pronounced as "CONtroVERSy".

The opening credits of the BBC2 "Eggheads" programme describe the resident team as "forMIDable", whereas, as any properly brought up chap knows, it should be "FORMidable".

As for usage, let's enjoy "to critique" - an ugly back-formation if ever there was one - long used in university committees! And if I ever hear "decimate" used to describe the destruction of more than 1/10th of anything ever again...

C'est la vie.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: TheSnail
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 09:44 AM

If you left something out in the rain for ten years, it might well be decayed but it would have been there for a decade which, even among the educated middle classes, seems to be prounounced the same rather than dec-ade.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: GUEST,beachcomber
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 09:52 AM

Why do so many English people , young and old , add that   "r" after a vowel ending ,if it is followed by certain first vowels or consonants ?and sometimes even if it is not ?
What is the "rule" ? anybody ? just curious.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Will Fly
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 09:57 AM

All part of the "REEsearch" that's carried out these days - as opposed to the "reSEARCH" of yesteryear.

I recall my 6th form English master reading out the Prologue to Chaucer's "Nun's Priest's Tale" to us (working from the original rather than the well-known "translation" by Nevill Coghill). He used a northern-style accent - Yorkshire, Lancashire, take your pick - in which to read it, and it all suddenly seemed understandable and very modern. The theory at that time (early 1960s) was that Middle English period pronunciation was similar to a north-Britain accent than anything else. Our "received" pronunciation is, after all, a construct rather than a given.

With apologies to US 'Catters, to whom all this must seem very arcane!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 10:00 AM

One of my pet hates is to hear people say,"pacifically" instead of "specifically".I also shout at the television or radio when the word, "literally" is misused yet again.Must be getting old!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bainbo
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 10:05 AM

Mmm. I've just heard a radio reporter say that a football (soccer) player only managed to score becuase the ball landed "literally in his lap".

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 10:54 AM

And as for the hideous raising of the voice at the end of every sentence - I totally despair.

Then there are the W people who change the L on the end of a word to W - a great proportion of the mob do this

CHEWLSEA, ARSENAW or more likely ARSNAW, FOOTBAW

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 10:56 AM

I pressed the wrong key, this is not an evolving language, it's lazyness.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Will Fly
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 11:01 AM

Ah - there's the rub: it might start out as laziness, but it ends up as part of the culture...

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 11:01 AM

To continue.....the market traders in Surrey Street Market in Croydon -


"PAN A BOAW" - what the hell does that mean????? You walk along and hear from all angles "PAN A BOAW" "PAN A BOAW". Then I noticed that fruit was set out in bowls, and someone was handed 4 £1 coins as change for a £5 note.


Ah..........."POUND A BOWL"........now I get it!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 11:17 AM

And then there is the extra Y appearing from nowhere as in NOya, D becoming T etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Rog Peek
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 11:25 AM

Of course, if it were a Bristolian speaking, it would have been Victorial station, and to be using Victorial station to catch a train would have been a very good ideal.

I don't really have a problem with regional pronunciation, what really gets my goat is the miss use of words like 'of'. For example, I heard a minister of the crown say on the radio the other day that she "was fed up of carrying her passport", when speaking in support of identity cards. Similarly, Gabby Logan used the same expression yesterday on the TV while presenting the Rugby.

While being more understandable perhaps, the expression "he should of ........." I find equally irritating.

Rog

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 11:49 AM

Rog Peek, you write of the 'miss use of words'.

Who she?

I assume you mean 'misuse'.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: mandotim
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 11:52 AM

My favourite hate; using 'diffuse' when meaning 'de-fuse'. Ugh.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 12:39 PM

And we have The Bill to thank for "BURGUWRY"!!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 12:53 PM

...once pronounced as "conTROVersy", now pronounced as "CONtroVERSy".

Not by me.   But, to use the current idiom, I'm not bovvered. Language changes, always has. So long as I can understand what they are saying.

Mind, that's quite a proviso. I sit on a train and hear people chattering away in what I take to be a foreign language, and then it dawns on me, they are speaking English.

I don't mean they are foreigners speaking English, or even people from an immigrant background with a significantly different way of using the language. And it's not a matter of new words or strange words, it's the intonation and the rhythm, the kind of things that allow you to recognise a language even when you can't make out the words. Except in these cases, I couldn't do that.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Edthefolkie
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 01:06 PM

Tortured pronunciation has been going on for years....

An old friend had a vinyl disc called I think "This Is York", recorded by a genius called Peter Handford. This was done at the railway station in the 1950's and really captured the days of steam.

However....Peter included a station announcement from a lady who appeared to want a job as a lady in waiting to our own dear Queen. I can't do justice to it heah, but she sounded something like

This is YORK. Cheange to pletform seven for the Wun-Twenty Fyffe for Malton and Scarbr-OH.

Never failed to reduce us to hysterics. OK, Paul Simon might recognize the last word but nobody in Yorkshire would!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Terry McDonald
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 01:07 PM

Somethink, nothink and anythink.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Will Fly
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 01:48 PM

Or even sumfunk, nuffink and anyfink...

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gurney
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 07:20 PM

Cheer up, Bonzo, it is sometimes Burgulry. I heard a policeman say that, once.
I know a couple of guys who simply can't say 'Anglia.' Comes out 'angular.' Good job Ford stopped making them.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 09:49 PM

Will Fly, no apologies necessary, I LOVE this kind of thread!

...decayed but it would have been there for a decade which, even among the educated middle classes, seems to be prounounced the same rather than dec-ade.

Over here it is dee-KAYD and DEK-ayd

RogPeek, I could hear my old Latin & English teacher, Mrs. Worcester, in my ear when I read ...of words like 'of'. She cringed whenever we used "like" that way and tell us to use "such as" but I know NO ONE over here abides by that any more, which I guess is lucky for those of us who like to write stories and books.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 02:01 AM

Surely, Kat, you mean 'those of us who SUCH AS to write stories and books'!? ;~)§

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 02:06 AM

on both sides of the pond

pacific when you mean specific

shudder

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 03:01 AM

Good film that South Specific.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 04:35 AM

While I usually find threads like these a bit tedious, because language naturally changes and evolves and those who fight it fail to acknowledge they are attempting to preserve a single moment in time, a snapshot (rather like certain trad folkies), there was one example I saw earlier today that I feel compelled to share: it was text speak for the word "thought", written 4t. Which means that the pronunciation being represented was "I fort." There was no reason to suspect this was being used ironically.

That was when I realised we are all going to hell in a handbasket. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Will Fly
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 04:52 AM

Interesting, RT, that you use the phrase "hell in a handbasket". We always used "hell in a handcart" in our house.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 04:58 AM

I notice we open up with another unjustified attack on the working-classes. Heigh-ho. You folkies should be out there celebrating the mutabilities of language, not moaning about it. Be glad to live in a world of change; and be especially glad that there is NO CORRECTNESS, only the pragmatic excellence of that which IS. You should be out there collecting it as examples of real and living FOLKLORE not bitching about it because it doesn't comply to some non-existent rule.

More Chomsky and less Truss!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 05:09 AM

"I notice we open up with another unjustified attack on the working-classes"

Sorry, it's quite justified.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 05:42 AM

For my money, that pompous old snob Brian Sewell has to have one of the most grotesque accents ever to molest the English language. Can't we ban him for 'gross lingual deviance'? Or perhaps get some modern artist to 'preserve' him in formaldehyde something..

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 06:14 AM

Sorry, it's quite justified.

I wonder if this thread shouldn't be closed on the grounds of gross cultural & individual intolerance & hatefulness? Next you'll be attacking the way immigrants & ethnic-minorities are crucifying English pronunciation. And what about the special needs? The disabled, the spastics, the hare-lipped, the deaf, the stoke victims, the stammerers &c.? Individual human beings speak the way individual humans speak and the suggestion that anyone might be considered deviant is hateful bullshit for which you should be ashamed.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 06:33 AM

I agree up to a point, Suibhne. But, tho anyone can, and should, be free to speak as they will, and in the tradition or dialect in which they feel most comfortable, over-much relativism, in this as in other contexts, can become counter-productive. A very fine English teacher I had at school all those years ago used to say that every pupil was bilingual — Classroom & Playground. There are standards to maintain and correct usages to encourage, which need not, however, be inhibiting to healthy, creative and interesting variations. An intelligent & well-adjusted person surely learns when to use which.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 06:34 AM

Sorry SO'P, no shame here!
Though I think it's Sewell's pomposity and somewhat louche manner that inform my distaste of the way he speaks more than anything. He thoroughly makes me shiver with distaste!
Did you see him talking to Prescott? He told him that he tended to assume that someone with a Northern accent would be thick. But having him preserved in formaldehyde was possibly a bit strong!
Maybe lightly poached in a Verve Cliquote and french tarragon instead...?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 06:40 AM

Re Sewell — I agree with CS that his diction can be infuriating in its resolute affectedness; but that doesn't IMO detract from the esxcellent good sense of his art criticism, which is [perhaps undexpectedly for one who comes over as so 'precious' in the French sense of précieux] resolutely hostile to modish pretentiousness.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: GUEST,Falco
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 06:42 AM

"a young lady - sporting the most mini of mini skirts ever seen"
Bonzo, you didn't happen to get a phone number for her ?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 06:45 AM

Make that Veuve Cliquot. Wouldn't want to pickle poor old Sewell in some fraudulent imitation bubbly.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 06:49 AM

MtheGM frankly I can't abide Sewell's art criticism either. What you take for 'good sense' I consider thoroughly constipated.
Deary me, I am scratching up black marks for hateful bullshit today :)

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Campin
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 07:28 AM

Rog Peek was like:
what really gets my goat is the miss use of words like 'of'. For example, I heard a minister of the crown say on the radio the other day that she "was fed up of carrying her passport"

Like, "tired" takes "of" before its object. This is simply regularizing the syntax of a phrasal verb that means the same thing, like.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 07:57 AM

I wasn't meaning your comments about Sewell's affected & privileged pomposity, CS - whom I regard with similar disdain with respect of the problem regarding class, language usage, RP, and cultural / linguistic correctness, usage & propriety. No, it was the OP's shitty put downs of working-class humanity that got my goat and for which he really ought to be ashamed. Funny the things people get upset about here on Mudcat, or rather the things they don't...

OP - So it's fine to ridicule an entire culture as being deviant in their dress sense & use of language, but if one of that culture turns round and calls you the c*** that you are for doing so you'll likely think them obscene!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 08:15 AM

I recall being on a Morris tour (when I still danced with a certain North West side).

One comment from a member of another side :

"Ow Gawd, mite - you down arf toke fannay".

To which I had the unholy delight of replying :

"Nay, lad, it's not me, it's thee".

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 08:31 AM

I misunderstood, as the 'deviance' comment was in my post right before yourn.

'Eastenders' has been one of the most influential modern factors in homogenising the Essex accent into what they term 'Estuary' - I remember quite vividly how my peers at school, all suddenly began overtly imitating the East End speech - especially a deliberately affected "BAYbz" (combined with melodramatic hugz!!!), it was quite comical really!

Original Essex accent was more 'countryfied' rather like the Suffolk accent (my Mr.'s family speak like it, as did old boy mates of my Grandad) - though 60's London overspill brought many real Eastenders into South Essex in particular ...where the squint-eyed locals would watch these brash new incomers suspiciously through twitching curtains!

My Mother maintained London overspill was the best thing to ever happen to Essex, as previously it was a horribly regressive, grey little place. Most of it still is, so I dread to think what it was like then!

It's surprising though, how much dialect lingers in what we might presume to be simply 'lazy' or 'incorrect'. "Yourn" for example, is actually a really old form of 'yours'. And "Youze" is standard Irish shorthand for 'all you people' (plural of you).

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: GUEST,Neovo
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 08:31 AM

Oh, don't get me started! Where has the use of "of" instead of "have" appeared from - as in "I should of done my homework". And where have all the extra "is"s come from as in "the trouble is, is that I should of done my homework"?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 08:33 AM

I can't say I like glottal stops and estuarine English either, to the extent where I would certainly offer a job to someone who spoke properly rather than to someone who didn't, all else being equal.
So, in the eyes of the saintly Sweeney Pibroch, I'm probably a terrible snob. And doubly-damned, no doubt, because I use RP.
Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 09:05 AM

Where has the use of "of" instead of "have" appeared from

We had a rare owld spat about that a couple of years back between The Snail, Don Firth and myself. Now where was that again?? If it comes to me I'll post a link!

Maybe I shouldn't be arguing for an open appreciation of cultural & linguistic dynamics on a old-fogey folk forum - though our senior critic MtheGM does a fine line in text-speak! But hell, even I remember a time when all round here was fields. Actually it's the opposite now; where now we have open fields & country parks we once had open-cast mining and power stations.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 09:09 AM

That is a wee bit rotten Gervase.. Considering that the less privileged kind of background someone speaking 'common loik', may have had compared to someone with RP (I'm pretty RP myself, but I got out of the slummy local estates & into posher parts young enough for it to not have made to much of an impact).

I was listening to an R4 thing (I think it was R4, can't quite recall) about a girl who spoke with the classic Estuary accent - though she was bright and articulate with it.
She was the only girl in her year from some shitty school to go to University (as well as the first in her family). She'd worked her arse off for that University place too, as one might imagine. She spoke of how hard it had been studying to attain the grades she needed - and how odd (after gaining her place) it felt being totally surrounded by people that all spoke properly.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 09:13 AM

Rotten? Perhaps, but if I have to share my working day with someone else I would prefer that person to be easy on the ear and to be able to deal with clients without inspiring a similar dose of prejudice in them. I couldn't give a toss about their ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, hair colour or whatever, but I would like them to be able to speak properly.