Standard of English on BBC


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.....accents sound good in soaps but I would rather have the Kings English for Presenters.

The "King's English" is in fact just a regional accent. But it's the middle-class accent as it was spoken around the Home Counties in the 1920s-30s.

When the BBC first started in the 1920s under the rule of Lord Reith, they weren't going to employ any lower-class, scruffy types to do the announcing and presentation. The jobs went to middle-class Oxbridge types via the old boys network and who mixed in the right clubs and had the right handshake. And coming from a certain area and a certain financial/educational background, they all spoke in a particular way with a certain accent.

So because that was the only style of speech heard on the early BBC, it became the standard which people considered as "proper english", even though it's just as regional as Geordie or Brummie.

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I am not a snob having been born and raised in Radford but on the BBC local weather tonight just before 7pm we were informed, and I quote 'it will be a bit more fresher' I would prefer the BBC to b

I'm sure I'm not alone in my irritation at the use of the word 'like' which so many people use in their conversations these days. For example: "I was like really upset..." or "I was like, what do you

Accents give people character, I have lived among the "Black Country Accent" for most of my life now; and now I understand them, I quite like it. Some of my husbands family originate from Tipton, refe

I never realised there was a Nottingham accent until my speech was regularly questioned by new school friends in Coventry.

My answer to them -"Yow can talk youth, yu should here yr sen."

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Living and working away from Nottingham for many years my accent got diluted,and i picked up bits of Cockney,Brummie and Fenland without meaning to,but since being back its slowly returned...........like ive said before i love to hear regional accents,.....even Welsh......

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I used to work with a welsh nurse,she had such a lovely accent.I do love to hear different accents,it's what makes us interesting.If we all sounded the same it would be boring.

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#26. And just to make sure the pre-war BBC news-readers were setting an example with their etiquette and received pronunciation, they had to wear a dinner jacket and bow tie when seated at the microphone. I bet that impressed those on the dole in Wigan.

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It is considered elitist to correct children's grammar.

Not by me it isn't! Whilst I don't believe that continual over correction is good for confidence, we raise our kids.. (er sorry.. Children.. :) ) largely by setting standards and examples. I don't see why language should be excluded from this.

Col

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I detest Cockney, Brummie, Liverpudlian and Geordie accents.

They speak very highly of you Fly. :laugh: Can't speak for Brum, or Geordie, but there are definitely a whole range of Liverpool accents, quite audibly different from each other.

Col

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Benjamin # 16.

You can be damned sure that I wasn't referring to you in reference to the use of 'dam, damn, damned'. :) Someone very different. but as I said.. no names.. etc. And anyway, it was just one of many slip ups seen on here and I'm sure I'm as guilty as anyone.

For all: We do seem to be conflating two or three different, but related ideas here.

1. Grammar. There is broad agreement about correct grammar. There will always be some areas of contention, but broadly speaking it is fixed, or only slowly evolving. It therefore follows that if you are wrong, you are wrong.

2. Accents. I love regional accents in general, but I find that certain individuals deliver theirs in ways which 'grate'. That's just a personal thing though. The only real issue around accents on the BBC or elsewhere, is whether people can be understood. So, for example, even if I could still do a 'proper' Nottm. accent, which, after 40+ years away I can't, I would definitely try to reign it in if I was speaking to a non native English speaker. This to me is just good manners, because whatever English a foreigner has is likely to have been learned in 'Standard' form and unfamiliar accents, vocabulary and so on just make it harder.

I don't recall any attempte to erase the Nottm accent from our speech at school, but we were encouraged to use well constructed sentences and correct grammar when speaking. Written English was much more formal and I recall one teacher 'red lining' a few 'colloquiallisms' in one of my essays, even though I had put the in inverted commas to indicate that I was in effect 'quoting'.

Thizzanutherthinganall. Yo not find it eezeh ter alluz type in yer aksent. Soyullefter try untype summat in proper Inglish ennyrowd. :biggrin:

3. Spelling. Apart from some confusion with our American cousins. ( What do they know? ;) ), spelling is either correct or isn't. I must say I'm finding it harder these days and I keep typing across, as accross, but usually find it before it goes out. Just an age thing I think. There is no excuse for poor spelling in TV captions etc.

Col

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There's also the question of the point where something wrong, through usage, becomes acceptable. You used one of my 'pet hates' there DJ, 'reign it in'. The correct usages are 'rein it in' and 'free rein', both coming, quite obviously from horsemanship. Over time, the incorrect 'reign' has become so common that it may eventually just be considered an alternative.

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/03/rein-or-reign/

Similarly, a 'wake' was originally only the night spent with the body before burial but now is acceptably used to include the 'party' afterwards.

Often we grow up using a word incorrectly but because the meaning is clear, no-one ever points out the error so it can come as quite a surprise to find a meaning or spelling is not what we always thought it was. I would give you examples of words I use incorrectly but of course I'm unaware of them, even the gredacious ones.

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I'm sure you know i was only joking Col............and i agree it is only good manners when in foriegn parts like Merseyside and London to round up your words,as i did...........and i used to copy their accents for humour,which i got back in abundance,causing long lasting happy memories of people and places.

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DJB. I stand corrected. Thank you. Rein is indeed the correct word. My mistake, but I'll leave it in for illustrative purposes.

Col

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I'm with DJB on the spelling issue. In my own case I tend to blame my Ipad. I sometimes miss letters. I don't tend to use the predictive text much. The annoying thing I find is that even though I read over what I have written before I post I still tend to miss errors. I hate having to edit for spelling, but I don't like leaving bad spelling uncorrected.

It seems that debates about spelling and pronunciation on the BBC have always gone on. I remember my dad buying a magazine called Practical Wireless, back in the fifties. As well as the techie stuff there were often heated debates in letters to the editor about the correct usage of words.

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Another thing....

For me, it is as much about the delivery as anything else. Very personal and subjective this, but I can't stand Jeremy Vine. WHY DOES HE FEEL THE NEED TO SHOUT ALL THE TIME???

As for Dan Cruickshank. He seems to know his stuff, but I find him excruciating to watch and listen to. For a start, he can't keep those enormous hands off things and goes about groping everything in sight, with his eyes rolling in ecstasy like some sort of pervert with an architecture fetish. Then there's that hushed, conspiratorial whisper.. Just speak Dan. And keep your hands to yourself!!

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LL #37. There was a long running debate about the correct pronunciation of 'controversy'. :)

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I'm going to pull you up on Number 3 Col, are you aware this side of the pond, American's still use the original spellings of a lot of English words, that in the UK have "evolved" into modern spellings?? So Mr Webster wasn't the only one to simplify spellings.

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A word that always aggravates me is the word Schedule. TV seem to pronounce it the American way but I don't like it. I suppose it depends on which 'Shool' you went to! You work it out.

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This is another odd one in that the American pronunciation is technically the correct one as it comes from the Greek. Our pronunciation comes from French and is newer, the hard k being the pronunciation here until the 19th century. As alluded to earlier, many words, their spellings and pronunciations travelled to America and stayed the same. The same words have changed here over time so in a sense it's our spelling or pronunciation that could be said to be incorrect. It's also regional in that skedule is a more common pronunciation further north anyway, the newer pronunciation having come from 'received English' from London and the Home Counties.

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My late father was a crossword addict, as is my sister but neither could spell which made the doing of them slightly difficult. My father, who always had an answer for everything, argued that John Milton couldn't spell either. Of course, he was correct. Many of the spellings we today regard as American can be found routinely in Milton's work. English spelling had not, in his time, been standardised.

If you really want me to get on my soapbox, someone mention the use...or abuse...of the apostrophe!

On the subject of tv presenters, the only one I'm really interested in is the extremely personable Michael Wood. He even got my mother interested in history! Going off to have a quiet swoon now!

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I find I tend to use the spelling of the place I live. Thus since moving to North America. Colour, becomes color, centre becomes center. When one thinks about it the U in colour is somewhat redundant. I suppose that is why so many claim English is a hard language to learn if you grew up elsewhere. Problems begin when you use American spellings and English folks read them as in this forum.

I used the word center, re the Victoria Centre in a Youtube video I posted and got roundly chastised for it. Too bad! That seems nitpicky to me. Judge the video on its own merit not the spelling of the poster.

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Yes, Jill, I wince at the misuse of the apostrophe. But my special hobbyhorse is the hyphen. People might not know where to put an apostrophe, but they know even less where to put a hyphen. Here are examples of three correct hyphenations that just about everyone ignores:

Swimming-pool

Laughing-gas

Washing-line

Fort those that cannot see why - without the hyphen Swimming, Laughing and Washing become verbs not adjectives. In other words a pool that is swimming, etc.

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