The British need to get over it...

Tea Break Damian in EH1   Fri Apr 23, 2010 10:33 am GMT
This, at least, is the real me and not the obscene impostor weilding just about the most hideous emblem ever devised by so called "human" beings - they couldn't even get it the right way round.

Nothing our beloved QE2 says or the way she says it distresses me at all - you chose the wrong word there, pal....what does amuse me though is the way she USED to say things, in her much earlier days both as a Princess and a newly installed Queen....if you listen to those very early broadcasts she made she sounded as if she was being slowly garrotted or had a large Victoria plum firmly lodged below her epiglottis, much like the way the much derided Brian Sewell still does today, but he now capitalises on that anyway which is a clear indication of the way so many much younger people here in the UK now regard those super posh, strangulated and strained "cut glass" accents of the Old Order.

St George's - here's to all our friends south of the Anglo-Scottish border and east of the Anglo-Welsh border.....in other words - England...Happy St George's Day! Ignore the detractors and display your red and white flags - just because you do so does NOT mean you have any kind of affliliation to the British National Party...don't forget it's also the birthday of the Bard of Avon, possibly the greatest wordsmith ever to grace the English Language, something which concerns us all in this Forum....our beautifully expressive Language....born in England at some indeterminable exact date but at least it was a nice, sunny day and England had qualified in the World Cup....

My Friend George....which is actually the name of my dog.....aw bless!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Igx_pGxqxgo
Hunter   Fri Apr 23, 2010 9:45 pm GMT
<Nothing our beloved QE2 says or the way she says it distresses me at all - you chose the wrong word there, pal>

You should read your own posts, Damian:

< cut glass vowels which can be heard in some of her old speeches and which were excruciating to listen to, to say the least>

So evidently something in her accent did distress you. In fact, you found it "excruciating".

Why would that be?
Quintus   Sat Apr 24, 2010 12:01 am GMT
"Excruciating" doesn't necessarily connote distress. It can be used semi-humorously, like "agonising".

In this case, I have no doubt Damian was like many listeners, in that he was hearing in the Queen's early speeches the result of daily diction lessons at the Palace, a holdover from the days when German comprised the primary conversation of the Royal Family.

The stiffly formal delivery and much higher pitch of her voice when young, these were doubtless other factors in the excruciation.
Damian in Edinburgh   Sun Apr 25, 2010 2:19 pm GMT
Quintus - precisely so - spot on.

As with Margaret Thatcher - Britain's first and only female Prime minister - so far - the Queen did undergo some kind of "voice training" in order to lower the pitch of her voice and tone down the way she sounded her vowels, so to speak - in other words, to go some way to rid herself of this "excruciation factor" thingy we're on about, which may well have gone down well in the 1930s to the 1950s but certainly not in present day Britain where such a manner of speaking is regarded as being worthy of a place on a shelf in the British Museum in Bloomsbury, London - the stamping ground of the famous literary Bloomsbury Set of the 1920s and 1930s who probably all had similar far-back vowel afflications - such as Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Clive and Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, E M Forster, Roger Fry, Lytton Strachey, Dora Carrington, John Maynard Keynes et al.......

Poor old Virgina drowned herself in a river in Sussex in March 1941 due to her acute manic depression not helped by the distress she suffered trying to cope with the WW2 London blitz and everything that went with it.
Joe Public   Sun Apr 25, 2010 5:43 pm GMT
It's ok. I'm over it now.
Hunter   Mon Apr 26, 2010 9:11 pm GMT
Quintus, Damian: I assume that, semi-humorous or not, you do not use "excruciating" in a positive sense.

So my question is, if I may rephrase it: what is it in that early EII voice that elicits a negative response from you?
Damian in Edinburgh   Mon Apr 26, 2010 10:24 pm GMT
Well, can you not guess what it is about the early Lilibet voice that now grates on our 21st century ears here in Britain? Much as we respect and love our crowned Head of State there is something about her gracious Majesty's manner of speaking and that of those others of her class and even those lower down the social scale in the England of that time which now sounds so very outdated and which is redolent of a "them and us" situation, something right out of the Bellamy household in Eaton Square, SW1, so neatly divided into an Upstairs and a Downstairs, with his Lordship and Her Ladyship graciously ensconed Upstairs, all rounded vowels and sharply clipped tones as they sip their Early Grey tea out of dainty bone choina teacups while Downstairs we have Hudson and Mrs Bridges, Rose and Sarah all scurrying about from the scullery to the pantry and discussing the doings of the lower orders in their common Downstairs patois....but from some of those old TV clips I've seen Hudson did speak in a rather affected Edinburgh accent, and Mrs Bridges did sort of sound quite posh at times, in a weird West London way....as for Rose, well she always looked and sounded as if someone had farted in her immediate presence. Poor Sarah must have come straight out of a backstreet in Bermondsey.

The Early Queen Lilibet* on the occasion of her 21st birthday in April 1947 when she was touring Saywth Africa with Memmy and Deddy:

This is a very heppy day for me
Ay am so grateful for all your kaind wishes
Ay am so much at home heah
This will take the burden owf ah shouldahs

Ah.....bless her little cotton coronets! In spite of her Scottish connections via her mother, the late Queen Mother, and her Germanic connections via her old dad the late King George V1, she sounds so excruciatingly English, to use a familiar word.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIdbbpOj1iw

*Lilibet - this is what her immediate family call her in private...her very first version of her name when she was attempting to pronounce Elizabeth...and it stuck with her in family circles.

Long may she reign.
In plain sight   Tue Apr 27, 2010 1:27 am GMT
yes, the English need to get over "it". same thing with the Americans.
Quintus   Tue Apr 27, 2010 3:41 am GMT
Hunter asks :
>>what is it in that early EII voice that elicits a negative response from you?>>


Nothing at all. I was describing the likely response of some others.
Damian in Edinburgh   Tue Apr 27, 2010 7:55 am GMT
And it duly arrived, full on! ;-)

Let us no longer deride the style of her speech in former times as we really must respect the grand old lady Lilibet II who is now 84 years old even though she has never once used her national bus pass or senior citizen British Rail travelcard or Europass and always gives her state pension and winter fuel allowance to charity as a matter of course, bless her.

She is well known for going around Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle or Sandringham House or Balmoral Castle switching off unnecessary lights or other idle electrical devices though as she in turn respects the environment, so our dear Queen is actually a very green Queen and we love her for it.

And as I say she did, like Margaret Thatcher, undergo a course of voice training in an effort to update her vowels and temper her high pitched stridency a wee bit....bless her. She could now feel quite at home giving her order to the assistants on the deli counter of her local Waitrose or Sainsburys.

She's a wee bit miffed about being denied a vote in the General Election though....if the Constitution did allow her, as Head of State, to vote in UK elections I wonder which party she would support?

I heard this silly woman being interviewed on TV the other day during which she said she would vote for Nick Clegg as he has nice twinkly eyes but could never vote for David Cameron as she doesn't like his lips. Crumbs oh Riley, pass the sick bag over! And women in this country have actually had full suffrage since 1928......they make up 52% of the electorate in the UK and if this woman is typical of many then heaven help this country and its future. Flippin' 'eck as like as they say on Coronation Street....and why oh why has Harriet Harman been hidden away from view or earshot? It's that man Mandelson again I suppose......he's locked her up and won't release her until the 7th of May....
Quintus   Tue Apr 27, 2010 9:12 am GMT
>>Lilibet II ... gives her state pension and winter fuel allowance to charity>>


Yes indeed, Damian ~ and many folk don't know, the present Queen is a military veteran of World War Two, for which she trained as an automotive mechanic and driver, as No. 230873 Second Subaltern Elizabeth Windsor in the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) ; she was Colonel-in-Chief of the Grenadier Guards as well.

Elizabeth the Second is the last surviving head of state to have served in uniform during World War Two.

http://brianakira.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/princess-elizabeth-02.jpg

http://whynow.dumka.us/grfx/PrincLiz.jpg
Quintus   Tue Apr 27, 2010 9:49 am GMT
>>she was Colonel-in-Chief of the Grenadier Guards>>

And I should add, so she is to-day, as Sovereign in relation to a Household regiment.
Damian in Dunblane   Tue Apr 27, 2010 10:44 am GMT
If you ever saw the film simply called "The Queen", with Helen Mirren playing the title role, you will remember her reminding the person she was talking with on her mobile after her vehicle had become stuck in a Highland stream that she was indeed a fully qualified mechanic during WW2 and was frequently called upon to exercise her skill during those turbulent years on the British Home Front.

I think she is a fantastic Head of State, a role she was not really destined for in the normal course of events in the first place, and neither was her dad - it was far more of an ordeal for him as he had a chronic stammer which he managed to overcome for the most part, was of a rather nervous disposition and to cap it all two years into his role as King he had to face the trauma of a full scale war and all that entailed here at home.

Lilibet really does deserve being "saved" but even so I do think that Elgar's strains from his Pomp and Circumstance mastepiece - "Land of Hope and Glory" - would make for a more suitable national anthem for this country, but in the meantime let's just endeavour to "save" our Lilibet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUTeRGigUjU&feature=related
Quintus   Tue Apr 27, 2010 11:45 am GMT
>>a role she was not really destined for in the normal course of events in the first place>>

Following the abdication in 1936 of her uncle, the Nazi sympathiser Edward VIII, and the coronation of her father as King, Elizabeth as a young Princess soon realised the heavy burden which had now been placed upon her shoulders, for she was suddenly next in line of succession for the throne - Heiress Presumptive, in fact - so she fervently begged her parents to go the extra mile and produce a son !
Hunter   Tue Apr 27, 2010 10:02 pm GMT
<Well, can you not guess what it is about the early Lilibet voice that now grates on our 21st century ears here in Britain? ... there is something about her gracious Majesty's manner of speaking and that of those others of her class and even those lower down the social scale in the England of that time which now sounds so very outdated and which is redolent of a "them and us" situation >

So it isn't the quality of the voice in itself, or its timbre, or the sounds she makes, that "grate" for you, but the historic associations?

< something right out of the Bellamy household in Eaton Square, SW1>

But that is a household from a 1970s tv series, no? Where the "upstairs" characters were actors?