BS: Victoriaaaaaar

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 04:10 PM

Over and out.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 08:34 AM

Chiz Swiney m8. SOK to spk like dis online? U hv no probs wiv vanakler talk an spelling an such like innit?
Me i prefer to write proper. U hav prbs wiv dat? Tuff shit blud!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 05:47 AM

<>

Many thanks!!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: GUEST,Suibhne (Astray) (cookieless)
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 02:46 AM

The hyphen was to break it down so you could understand it, Sweeney.

Ah, I see - in other words another slip of the finger in the fine Bozo tradition. You guys crack me up.

Funny how a dog can't resist returning to its own turd.

This thread is Bonzo's turd, Gervase - not mine. He has messed in his own yard and I only return to sweeten the stench with a light dusting of Vernacular Linguistic & Folkloric Pragmatism - which I honestly thought would be a concern to everyone on a forum like Mudcat. Ain't it odd how pedantry and folk music make such happy bedfellows?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Pistachio
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 03:59 PM

Thanks for the entertainment.
I do like to hear clearly and correctly spoken language. Phrasing matters too. My Mother told me of her 'hotline' conversation with the BBC when she heard a radio announcer say "The Police are looking for a black cab driver". Mother wanted to be sure whether it was the driver of a 'black cab' or a black 'cab driver'... She was back on the telephone when there was 'a lecture by a teacher on drugs' Needless to say the next news bulletins were delivered to her satisfaction.

Pronunciation is so important. I corrected my nephew's delivery of my son's name from Faowip to Philip. I wonder how my nephew might have written it down?
Spelling matters too. My new insurance form arrived to Mrs Rickthing, adding two new consonants and omitting another one!
Am I bovverred?
Yes, you guessed it, I am!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 01:29 PM

Are there really people called Gervase?
Of course not, you clot! It's an old compositor's convention - whenever the word "Jesus Christ albloodymighty" occurs in a manuscript, the comp simply crosses himself and substitutes the word "Gervase".
Honestly. Didn't Google teach you anything?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 01:23 PM

The hyphen was to break it down so you could understand it, Sweeney.
Time, I think, to exit this particular pedantic hell
Funny how a dog can't resist returning to its own turd.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 10:39 AM

The odd thing is, Bozo, I'm defending people who would tear you limb from limb if they were aware of but half of the savage crap you've written about them from the safety of your computer screen. I suggest you go and confront them with your petty linguistic grievances - you that's so tough.

So Tough - that's one of my favourite albums of all time, out now in a Special Edition I'm hoping to find in my stocking on the morning of the 25th. Altogether now: A cigarette, cup of tea, a bun...

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 07:29 AM

It's always interesting how tough some folks think they sound from behind a computer screen!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 06:20 AM

Which way do you face in your pram, Bozo?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 05:33 AM

"I rather enjoy SO'P's colourful style myself, not that it's always easy to penetrate mind you! I read it rather more the opposite, as expressing a shameless pleasure in expression through language. It describes a kind of theatricality of communication, which is perhaps unsurprising seeing as the man is a Storyteller by trade.
Plus I loathe the meanness of 'plain English' petty tyrants. Not that I'm accusing anyone here of such Scroogery, it's just the ethos of the campaign reminds me of Orwell too much - and I personally appreciate individualism and flamboyance in others."

Jolly good, and do you think babies should face the mother or as they say in Croydon - "muvaaaaaaar" or should they face away in their prams?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 10:36 AM

"your posts reveal a lot of the shame that often afflicts the auto-didact."

I rather enjoy SO'P's colourful style myself, not that it's always easy to penetrate mind you! I read it rather more the opposite, as expressing a shameless pleasure in expression through language. It describes a kind of theatricality of communication, which is perhaps unsurprising seeing as the man is a Storyteller by trade.
Plus I loathe the meanness of 'plain English' petty tyrants. Not that I'm accusing anyone here of such Scroogery, it's just the ethos of the campaign reminds me of Orwell too much - and I personally appreciate individualism and flamboyance in others.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 10:17 AM

your posts reveal a lot of the shame that often afflicts the auto-didact.

I wonder what that unnecessary hyphen reveals about you, Gervase?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Smedley
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 10:09 AM

Are there really people called Gervase ?

How you could look at a tiny baby & inflict that on him, I'll never know. It's like calling a little girl Enid.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 10:05 AM

Although unashamedly an ill-educated working-class lout myself...
I dunno, Sweeney. In their florid pedantry, excessive ornamentation and studied flamboyance, your posts reveal a lot of the shame that often afflicts the auto-didact. Unless, of course, English isn't your mother tongue; in which case, well done!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 08:34 AM

I have the teensiest, sneakiest of feelings, that Bonzo might be telling porky pies about 'slipped fingers' there!

Damn right he is! Bozo the Pedant messed up big time & was hoisted by his own rancid petard, thus endearing him to we pragmatists the world o'er, though I doubt he'll be getting much off Gervase under the mistletoe this year.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 08:00 AM

"I take it you mean 'pronUnciation'? ··· though why it should be so is admittedly one of those mysteries..."

I have the teensiest, sneakiest of feelings, that Bonzo might be telling porky pies about 'slipped fingers' there!
I've heard people speak it that way too - no doubt as an unthinking extension of pronOUnce.
Come clean Bonzo, you say 'pronOUnciation' the common oik way too, doncha? ;->

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 07:23 AM

"I take it you mean 'pronUnciation'?"

I certainly do, finger slipped on keyboard!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 02:53 AM

I do not doubt it, Gervase; I do not doubt it!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 06 Dec 09 - 05:08 PM

I prefer the vernacular dog's cock.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: GUEST,Suibhne (Astray)
Date: 06 Dec 09 - 03:09 PM

Touched a nerve have we SO?

Not all, Bozo - just you nearly made me throw up a very early breakfast yesterday morning with your ill-informed noxious class bigotry.

Pronounciation

Nice one, Bozo. It would seem that even you are prone to moments of genuinely touching pragmatism. I had a tear in my eye when I read that, though no doubt you'll be getting a thorough thrashing off your laugh-a-minute syncophantic sick-kick for that one!*

*Although unashamedly an ill-educated working-class lout myself, I know that the exclamation point derives from shorthand for the Latin Io - a word which is particularly apt in this most festive of seasons. Ordinary frowned upon, I will be making a particular point of using as many of these as seems reasonable in my Mudcat posts between now and Epiphany. But two will suffice for now. Io to you all!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Dec 09 - 09:03 AM

I take it you mean 'pronUnciation'? ··· though why it should be so is admittedly one of those mysteries...

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 Dec 09 - 08:22 AM

It's interesting that most immigrants in Croydon have far better pronounciation of English than many English folks!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 05 Dec 09 - 09:11 AM

Shh! Sweeney has well-chipped shoulders.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 Dec 09 - 07:53 AM

Touched a nerve have we SO?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Dec 09 - 03:57 AM

What does that make you, Bonzo? You fuckwit.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 04 Dec 09 - 01:43 PM

Or worse - track suit bottoms class!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 04 Dec 09 - 11:51 AM

"the upper class twit of the year"

Well we have many working class twits of the year now, do we not??

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Acorn4
Date: 03 Dec 09 - 04:07 AM

Please?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 02:12 PM

How about the other word?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Acorn4
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 01:26 PM

Oh..."and if we think we're going to get promoted playing like this we're looking at the world through rose scented glasses!"

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Acorn4
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 11:28 AM

Football commentators English has a comedy value all of its own:-

"We're one nil up but can we stand this entourage they're throwing at us?"

"The ref's stopped the game so he can see what indiscrepancies have been committed!"

"The referee booked him after he scored - he just got a bit over exuberated!"

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: HuwG
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 10:02 AM

In my book, "dominant" = "fifth chord". However, that is by the by ...

The estuarine accent was common in English football (="soccer") circles about twenty years ago ("That was a beautifuw baw he passed, Michael"). I am convinced it was not an accent, but an affectation; it arrived from nowhere and for some time rivalled even the Bill Shankly growl punctuated by throat-clearings, which previously dominated managers', trainers' and pundits' speech patterns.

I found it to be quite as annoying as other affectations such as the upper class twit of the year's "I say, old chap", the industrial relations use of the word "situation" in every sentence and the emergency services' overuse of "male" and "female" instead of "man" and "woman". The use of this last baffles me. I can accept a stilted, formal style of speech where absolute clarity is required over a squelchy radio channel, but it is quite as easy to confuse "male" with "female" through heavy static as it is to mix up "man" and "woman".

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Smedley
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 08:07 AM

"Worreewi'erorworreewi'issenn ?"

North Nottinghamshire for "Was he with her or was he by himself ?".

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Acorn4
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 07:59 AM

Having lived in Leicester for the past 30 years or so, I've come to realise that the local lingo is probably the most economical anywhere in the English speaking world:-

"Ey up, mi duck, yergorrabirrabobonyershoe":-

trans:- I say, you appear to have acquired some canine excrement on your foot wear!

"Ey up, gerroffwiya, ah int gorroat!"

trans:- Kindly desist from touching my person, I do not possess what you are seeking!

"Aw ya, ah wonarf frit."

trans:- Really, I was extremely terrified!

Whilst doing a Victorian themed Christmas play at a school I worked at, the leading boy had to pick up a broken picture from the floor and say ;_

"It's a picture of a woman and a little girl!" (13 syllables) -

His first attempt at the line went:-

"Spishwumlilgal" (4 syllables)

We spent the next three weeks trying to restore the missing syllables:-

EAT YOUR HEART OUT, ESSEX!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 06:33 AM

That's rich coming from the man who wrote the OP!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 06:18 AM

Dominant culture in the USA - rubbish, stinks of Hitler.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Smedley
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 05:45 PM

Dominant as in more powerful, not dominant as in superior.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 05:41 PM

I knew someone over there would question that.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 05:18 PM

"the dominant culture"

Is that really the right word?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 03:59 PM

Newspapers follow the Associated Press Stylebook.
Not in Europe they don't!
The thread has been concerned with shibboleths in English rather than American English, so Strunk & White, although excellent, isn't relevant.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 03:26 PM

Fowler not much used in the dominant culture, the United States.
Fowler used in UK, Canada, don't know about Australia.

The Chicago Manual of Style is used for most non-journalistic writing in the United States. The most used style guide for the general public is Strunk and White, The Elements of Style.

Newspapers follow the Associated Press Stylebook.

Guides have been developed for specific fields of endeavor; these include grammar and language usage as well, e. g. Grant, Geoscience Reporting Guidelines.

Quoting from Wikipedia on style guides, "Fowler's Modern English Usage" ...report how language is practiced in a given area....

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 03:14 PM

And makes extremely interesting reading too.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 02:49 PM

Fowler pretty much sums up Standard English.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 01:51 PM

What is "Standard English"?
There are no rules.
English does not have a governance body such as the Spanish Real Academia Española or the French equivalent.
We are "taught." The teaching, however varies.

Is The Oxford English Dictionary followed in "Standard English"?

Certainly most people, even university educated, vary in usage. People who trumpet "Standard English" never make clear what they have in mind.

Grammar, perhaps, is the only common denominator, although there are a few variants here as well.

Words are not standardized. Most people in the UK write recognise rather than the OED recognize, vary in the use of napkin, use plural verbs with collectives, etc.
Pants in US and Canada means trousers; to most in the UK this means an undergarment. Vest, knickers and other words for personal attire have different meanings in the English-speaking sphere.

The dominant culture, American, has its own "lingua franca" and Australia, New Zealand, Canada, England, Scotland etc., have their own.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 12:58 PM

Gervase has summed it up very well in his penultimate post, I think.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 12:44 PM

Don't let the door hit your arse on the way out.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 11:26 AM

and these "people" are university students.

Time, I think, to exit this particular pedantic hell.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 11:25 AM

Consensus is all, and language can only ever evolve with respect of the collective, the culture of which is always evolving in and off itself, regardless of whatever absolutes & shibboleths we might set up along the way. These will pass away, as all things must in due course.
Very true, but you're not going to get a consensus when it comes to solecisms like 'should of', 'aks', 'pacifically'. We may be a social animal, but our societies are stratified. The demotic may spread (witness the Queen's English shifting from strict RP to estuarine since her accession) but it is hard to shift the basic building blocks which ar laid down and passed on by the 'ruling classes' for want of a better phrase.
So pronunciation changes are common - apart from Her Maj, there's the adoption of the rising terminal by British youngsters; whether from Aussie soaps or not I don't know - but changes in syntax and grammar are less common/
Writing and, more importantly, printing, have served to set 50,000 years of mutable, orally-transmitted language into a more rigid form. We are taught to write a certain way and, however laissez-faire the education system, that way is Standard English. Thus SE becomes the lingua franca, and those who don't speak and, more importantly, write SE, appear ignorant.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 11:13 AM

You might think it's a pile of crap, but at least you can understand what I'm saying. That's the thing about Standard English - it helps to avoid misunderstanding.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: GUEST,Neovo
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 10:44 AM

Smedley, you're probably right but people write it down in letters they send to me - and these "people" are university students.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Smedley
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 10:34 AM

Sorry if this has already been said, but 'should of' is surely a mistake derived from pronouncing the contraction 'should've' as if it was two separate words.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 10:09 AM

Nid yr ydych chi ddim yn darllen "baw mawr" ?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 10:06 AM

Ceilliau, Bryn?
I'm still a learner, but even I can see there are clear differences between Cymraeg llafar and Cymraeg llenyddol. And yes, in every day use you write as you speak, but even then I'd expect to hear shwmai but read sut mae or even sut rydych chi.
And being a lawyer isn't really relevant as - unfurtunately - the language of the law in Wales is still English. I know that there is a right to use Welsh in proceedings, but I know of no court that doesn't conduct all its affairs in English.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 09:38 AM

Humans are born with a biological capacity for language & culture; without it we don't develop - how can we? Without it, we're not human. We're collective beings & language evolves out of cognitive / cultural necessity - it is the software interface between the two. There exists a theory that over the last 50,000 years our mouths have evolved to favour language above dental health - thus do we suffer dental problems other higher primates don't. Hard-wired is a concept, a model, as most words & phrases are, but it serves to underline the absolute necessity of language a the signifier of our humanity. This is the way language works and gives narrative & metaphorical structure to our general concept of the world around us - even of ourselves. Consensus is all, and language can only ever evolve with respect of the collective, the culture of which is always evolving in and off itself, regardless of whatever absolutes & shibboleths we might set up along the way. These will pass away, as all things must in due course.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 09:18 AM

I'm a bit dubious about the concept of 'biological fact' in this instance, Suibhne: 'hard-wired' strikes me as too metaphorical a phrase to represent any sort of scientific fact - would you not agree?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 09:15 AM

To airily claim that grammar is 'hard wired' into their brains is a facile, middle-class condescension.

No - it's biological fact. And I'm not middle-class.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 08:55 AM

Fedrwch chi'n siarad Cymraeg, Gervase ?

Peth yw y gair Cymraeg o "bollocks" ?

Yr ydych ch'n siarad, ac yn ysgrifennyd, baw mawr.

To quote Brendan Behan : it is the wonder of god that any sane person woud go within the bawl of an ass of you

Yr wyf f'in gyfreithwr, eto.

Your call, I think.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 07:25 AM

We are born understanding the grammar....in the vernacular, language is at its wildest and most dynamic.
In the vernacular, wishful bollocks!
Yes, linguistic diversity exists, but most languages have two forms; the formal and the vernacular. Welsh is a prime example, with written, bardic Welsh being very different from spoken Welsh.
In normal social intercourse the vernacular is fine and is capable of wonderful colour and clarity. There are areas, however, where 'grammatical correctness' is important. If you wish to communicate with someone outside your argot, then Standard English is the best medium. If you wish to convey subtlety, shade and nuance to an unseen audience, then Standard English is the best medium. If you wish to state something without fear of misunderstanding or equivocation (as in a court of law or in business) then Standard English is the best medium.
And, with some people, even outside formal intercourse the vernacular is deficient. I have encountered too many young people for whom inarticulacy has become a curse. They can express themselves to their peers, but they struggle to make themselves understood to anyone else. An inadequate vocabulary and a tenuous grasp of syntax stands in the way of communication and leads to frustration, anger and aggression. To airily claim that grammar is 'hard wired' into their brains is a facile, middle-class condescension.
So I will stick to my prejudice. I have neither the time nor the patience to teach the rudiments of Standard English to someone in my employ, and many younger people would regard any attempt on my part as insulting and patronising. Accordingly, I prefer to offer work to people with whom I can communicate easily and comfortably and who, I feel, can deal any client, from a duke to a dustman, with confidence and clarity. The ability to make good tea, tolerate Radio 3 and 4 and appreciate terrible puns would be nice, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 06:18 AM

My point is that culture is what people do; you can't police that, or moderate it, or yet punish it. At best we might observe it and celebrate it; for language will run wild free as it must. The inner laws of language are not governed by the laws of Grammatical Correctness, rather the innate pragmatism by which language will out as an absolute necessity of our individual & collective humanity. Thus it can never be wrong - only in the eyes of the more reactive elements such as found on this thread.

Oh - and here's The Legendary Muscat Cold Of / Could Have Debate from June 1998. I'm particularly proud of this:

We are born understanding the grammar, the grammar is hard-wired into the human brain ready to deal with the cultural software of language, which we receive in any number of ways, and in any number of vernacular variables any one of which might be said to be grammatically correct as long as people understand one another. Abide by your fairy-tale notions of Absolute Grammatical Correctness all you want, but appreciate that such linguistic diversity a) exists, b) is a very good & desirable thing and c) impossible to govern by a set of rules. Language is a cleansing wildfire, it is where the subjectivity of individual cognition & the objectivity of collective culture intertwine, sparking off the empirical excellence of being alive in the first place. Language a two-way interface that determines the vitality of all cultural change & exchange & the most sweetly eloquent of colloquial intercourse - and in the vernacular, language is at its wildest and most dynamic.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 05:24 AM

Singular or plural verb for collective noun is another option — &, despite what is said above, always has been, at least since before the publication of the original Fowler. Specialist writing like sports pages &c has nothing to do with the matter.

I still urge the anything-goes-so-long-as-you're-happy brigade, led on here by Sweeney, to beware of too much obeisance to relativism, which can be as great a menace as the pedantic over-prescriptiveness it is supposed to conflict with - represented here, so Sweeney alleges, by Gervase; who however seems to me to express himself with tolerable moderation.

Those who know me know that I am not a keep-the-peace-at-all-costs compromiser: but this is one instance where the truth seems to me genuinelty to lie between the extremes. Knowing which mode of discourse is appropriate to which situation is the skill all should endeavour to master.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: GUEST,Pete Doc fan
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 05:20 AM

Well said Suibhne. It is discrimination against my generation. Younger people today speak and text in "Their Lingo". My generation is going to change a lot of this stuffy old stiff upper lip crap. People like Gervase should find one of the "Classics" from three hundred years ago and go read it all alone in some dusty room. What is his point anyway ? is he one of these "Pure British in body,mind and soul ? And by pen and word of course !

It's the 21st century out there guys, not the middle ages. We write,speak,text and think for ourselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 04:54 AM

Most of what I argue for / against on Mudcat is generally against the sanctimonious, priggish, whey-faced and mealy-mouthed attitude[s] one encounters herein - such as Gervase's campaign for proper speech, which is fundamentally discriminatory against the right of any individual to speak the way they do without being measured against some culturally-deadening yardstick thus found wanting by standards completely alien to their own. All I'm saying is to live and let live - and maybe enjoy the differences as culture evolves as culture will. No need to be so insulting, Gervase.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 03:33 AM

hhmmm lazy language

I have to say that during my late teens through late 20's my once carefully attended pronunciations and grammar were supplanted by "mother speak" which was part dumbing down in order to be best understood by my children when they were very little and part attempt at the most efficacious and least energy eating way of getting things done. Maybe it was laziness. Maybe it was exhaustion.

In my early 30's I enjoyed (and I do not use the word lightly) a revival of proper speaking and disdain for the strong central Virginia accent and use of idioms I had attained. This probably due to attending university and wishing to feel I belonged. I was moving and conversing in different circles than I had as a stay at home mom. It was not easy, to say the least. In fact, it wasn't easy when I was younger. I was simply so determined after having been hearing and language impaired the first 8 years of my life to make something better of how I expressed myself.

In any case this mid life renaissance was not to last. Upon moving to the UK at 45 I have experienced a devolution of language and a return (with vengeance) to my Central Virginia accent and ludicrous idioms which have no place in my current society.

Why is this? Why these phases? I think my current state is two fold. I find I miss the sound of American (especially south eastern) accents terribly open living in UK. So perhaps in part it is homesickness which prompted the return to former lingual habits. But I also feel too tired and cannot bring to mind what I want to say as well as how it should be said. Age and illness are taking their toll on my thought processes and capacity for language.

So I think, some people probably all will go through stages of language throughout their lives relative to their society an experiences.

On another note

I still don't understand where the practice to pronounce the letter "H" as "haitch" as well as the practice to pronounce the "h" when it should be silent and not pronounce it when it shouldn't be silent. Where did that come from? I noticed that even school teachers do this including one young fellow who applied for a graduate degree programme at an Essex High school. I believe he was selected.   Is it actually taught in schools or does it come from familial and social learning?

And another one for the US. "Ax" instead of "ask" is one that has grown in prevalence over the last couple of decades. In my experience only heard from a very small number of the African Americans I knew in school in the 1970's. Most I knew did not use this pronunciation. So it was not the norm among the Blacks I met through my young and mid adult hood. However, it has become trendy to pronounce the word inappropriately among an age group rather than ethnic group. I hear more and more (alarmingly) in the UK now. Spread (I believe) by Rap music. That's culture for ya!

Whoa! That is enough thinking for today. Smoke's acomin' outta my ears.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 02:36 AM

The Army are or Chelsea are, rather than IS, grates on American ears, but not objectionable. I think the OED supports this usage.
The use of the plural for collective nouns is an unfortunate journalistic convention that used to be confined solely to the sports pages. There it used to be commonplace, perhaps tolerated because of the absurd sense of superiority that existed among the news and comment writers, who looked down their noses at the ignorant 'sweaties' filling the back pages with unimportant stuff for the lower orders.
Unfortunately standards in journalism have fallen greatly in recent years, and now you'll find the pluralisation of collectives everywhere. It grates on English ears too!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 09:26 PM

Many usages, as implied in Q's post above, are optional & supported as such by good dictionaries - e.g. for 'controversy', both pronunciations rubricated above will be given as options.

For those interested in this aspect of linguistic usage, Longman's Pronunciation Dictionary by J C Wells is recommended - it goes in detail into the percentage [found by survey &c] of language users who use a particular pronunciation: e.g. in the instance under review, it shows that a 1988 British survey showed 58/42 in favour of 'trov' against 'kontr', but this had changed to 60/40 10 years later; adding that 'In US "kontr" the only possibility'.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 06:43 PM

A comment from a 'colonial'.
Brian Sewell- good upper class English, easy on the ears (heard one of his travel muses on BBCAmerica), but after a while, to use a word once used by teens here, BOOOORrring!

ControVer'sy- said by Americans and most western Canadians; conTro'versy usual on BBCAmerica (heard in US and Canada on the cable). This stress shift heard on a number of words. Not objectionable; supported by the OED.

AmericaR, Alabamar, Victoriar; the R after vowel ending used by Irish in Boston and surrounds, immediately distinguishes them from the old upper class (brahmins) "like the Cabots and Lodges." Also heard from sone English here (from Sheffield- a regional variation?).

Most of the newscasters and moderators on BBC America are excellent, their English clear and clean, only the occasional slight accent (Lise Doucet, Julia Dunlop, etc.) which adds a bit of flavor.
The Weathercasters, however, are much lower on the scale- English average? Without the screen images, some would be not understandable.

The Army are or Chelsea are, rather than IS, grates on American ears, but not objectionable. I think the OED supports this usage.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 04:47 PM

Nice one, Gervase!
No problem, Sweeney.
O that we could all be such paragons. I read your postings and somehow feel inadequate; my life has been but a pale shadow of yours when it comes to morality, beneficence and decency. My dear Divis, I just wish I had the generosity of spirit properly to learn from your example here on the Mudcat when it comes to how to treat my fellow human beings. Please let me know when the beatification is due and I'll be sure to light a penny candle to you.

Meanwhile, while I exist in a state of disgrace and you continue to labour on this mortal coil for the benefit of others, I shall continue to exercise my irksome prejudice and suggest that you take your sanctimonious, priggish, whey-faced and mealy-mouthed attitude and shove it arsewards.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 03:46 PM

As Shaw remarked in the Preface to 'Pygmalion', "No Englishman can open his mouth without making some other Englishman despise him" - used as a line in the song "Why can't the English?" in the 'My Fair Lady' musical adaptation.

A pity, of course; but all the agonising on this thread is, alas, nothing new.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Campin
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 02:10 PM

A lot of people (perhaps the majority of the British population) perceive RP accents as aggressively patronizing. Which does not necessarily mean people with the disability of having such an accent shouldn't be employed in customer-facing positions, but they may need remedial training in how not to offend the public.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 11:07 AM

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.

With speech, there is no proper - only an irksome prejudice that elects to somehow superior in order to justify the sort of discrimination as celebrated above. So that's the disabled, the spastics, the hare-lipped, the deaf, the stoke victims, the stammerers (&c.) out the window then. Nice one, Gervase!

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.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 06:33 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Dave Hanson
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 03:01 AM

Good film that South Specific.

Dave H

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: 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: 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: 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: Will Fly
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 01:48 PM

Or even sumfunk, nuffink and anyfink...

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

Somethink, nothink and anythink.

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: 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: Bonzo3legs
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 12:39 PM

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

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 10:56 AM

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

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: 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: 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: 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,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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 07:36 AM

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

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?