Can you speak Queen's English?

Uriel   Wed Nov 16, 2005 8:11 pm GMT
But at least he loves me, Trav.
Guest57   Wed Nov 16, 2005 8:14 pm GMT
Dear Uriel,

With regard to your remark: "Well, some Americans, as Cyndi Lauper pointed out, can speak QUEENS English."

I found it extremely funny and clever. I happen to love puns myself and I found myself laughing out loud when I read your comment. I found its succintness and irony especially funny after all those deep and serious (albeit good) questions posed by Pete. Thank you for cheering me up a bit.

Warmest regards,

Guest57
Candy   Wed Nov 16, 2005 8:18 pm GMT
Wow, Uriel! You're really popular tonight!! :-)
Guest   Wed Nov 16, 2005 10:16 pm GMT
<But at least he loves me, Trav. >

Yes Travis she loves me. Don't attempt to butt in my friend. My cat quite interested in you. Want to date me cat?
Pete   Thu Nov 17, 2005 8:32 pm GMT
Plz stop posting bullshit, this is about Queen's English, not about people's affairs...
Guest   Thu Nov 17, 2005 8:52 pm GMT
The queen of England is the best thing in the world, please respect England or shut up!
Pete   Thu Nov 17, 2005 8:57 pm GMT
So far, and after about two entire years. I haven't heard a Cockney accent. I mean a real, true, strong Cockney accent. All I've heard is some kind of RP-English with slight, just slight traces of regional English accents. And most of the people who didn't speak RP, spoke Estuary.

How can you explain this, you all-knowing people out ther? If you say (and as I used to believe) that almost nobody speaks RP, how come I hear it all time. And even Brits are not sure of the real amount of people who speaks it, they sometimes say "Oh I guess that 5% the people speaks RP" others say 10% or 25 or 30% etc. and another guy said everybody speaks their regional accent or Estuary.

Do English change their normal regional accent, to RP when they are abroad? If they do, why do they do this? To sound clearer? to cheat people on thinking about the "British accent" stuff as a real thing? because some of them feel ashame because of their real accent? or what? Why if Cockney is so loved by people, nobody I've met speaks Cockney English?

Maybe strog Cockney is something that is only in people's imagination and no longer exists. (Like Latin, hahahaha)
Pete   Thu Nov 17, 2005 9:01 pm GMT
Guest (whomever you are), I have nothing against England. So on the contrary, I have a deep respect for English culture. It's just that it fucks me up when I want to talk about English (the language) and others start to argue about who loves whom, or who wants to fuck them, or who they will give head to first.

I don't care about so unimportant stuff, I want to know about The English Language. I mean no offence to the Queen.

If you English people felt offended, I'm sorry I had no such intention.
Travis   Thu Nov 17, 2005 9:04 pm GMT
>>Guest (whomever you are), I have nothing against England. So on the contrary, I have a deep respect for English culture. It's just that it fucks me up when I want to talk about English (the language) and others start to argue about who loves whom, or who wants to fuck them, or who they will give head to first.<<

Just ignore the trolls, who unfortunately are here because a certain person (ahem) won't do what is necessary to deal with them.

>>I don't care about so unimportant stuff, I want to know about The English Language. I mean no offence to the Queen.

If you English people felt offended, I'm sorry I had no such intention.<<

Nah, most people here are quite used to the idiots like "Guest" who infest here, and in particular the "Languages" board, by this point.
Guest   Thu Nov 17, 2005 9:06 pm GMT
Ok Pete, but do not forget, respect to the queen, she gave a lot the world. You can insult the frogs or the spaniards, it does not matter.
Pete   Thu Nov 17, 2005 9:17 pm GMT
<<So far, and after about two entire years. I haven't heard a Cockney accent. I mean a real, true, strong Cockney accent. All I've heard is some kind of RP-English with slight, just slight traces of regional English accents. And most of the people who didn't speak RP, spoke Estuary.

How can you explain this, you all-knowing people out ther? If you say (and as I used to believe) that almost nobody speaks RP, how come I hear it all time. And even Brits are not sure of the real amount of people who speaks it, they sometimes say "Oh I guess that 5% the people speaks RP" others say 10% or 25 or 30% etc. and another guy said everybody speaks their regional accent or Estuary.

Do English change their normal regional accent, to RP when they are abroad? If they do, why do they do this? To sound clearer? to cheat people on thinking about the "British accent" stuff as a real thing? because some of them feel ashame because of their real accent? or what? Why if Cockney is so loved by people, nobody I've met speaks Cockney English?

Maybe strog Cockney is something that is only in people's imagination and no longer exists. (Like Latin, hahahaha)>>

Will I find an answer for this?? come on what are your thoughts?
Guest   Thu Nov 17, 2005 10:37 pm GMT
<<So far, and after about two entire years. I haven't heard a Cockney accent. I mean a real, true, strong Cockney accent. All I've heard is some kind of RP-English with slight, just slight traces of regional English accents. And most of the people who didn't speak RP, spoke Estuary.>>

You can't have ever been outside of the South East of England then. You will hear RP often in London and the Home counties, venture to Birmingham, Manchester or Newcastle and it is unlikely you will hear it at all.
Damian in Scotland   Thu Nov 17, 2005 11:10 pm GMT
RP is difficuly to define for people from outside this country (the UK) to fully understand. They probably associate RP as "posh" English...the kind heard on the old BBC recordings. Not true any more! Those funny old BBC broadcasts and old recordings of the past are now in the dusty old archives of linguistic history.

The UK has changed in many ways, even in the last few years, and this includes the way people speak.....this is especially so in England, and as a Scot I speak as an outsider in the English context.

RP can also be called "Standard English" with no recognisable or identifiable regional accent, although people from the North of England would most probably link it to the South. That is not really true, as this "Standard English" is also found in the North of England and the Midlands, and also in North Wales, where I went for the first time in September. Many people there spoke this "SE", although some did have detectable Welsh lilting in their speech which I thought was really nice. There are so many factors involved in this issue.....including social background, level of education and population movement.

It's true that this SE-RP type accent is dominant in the South East of England, but it is widespread in other Southern areas of England and in East Anglia. The inclusion of Estuary, of varying degrees, is also present in a lot of people, but as I say it depends on those factors I mentioned.

Cockney is, of course, essentially a London accent, but even that has changed and even varies from one part of the Greater London area to another....as in Norf and Sarf Landun. Don't ask me how they differ, I haven't got a clue, but I have it on good authority that there are differences.

Anyway...top'n'bottom of all this - RP is more or less "Standard English".....no identifible regional connection.....not solely confined to the South East.
Uriel   Fri Nov 18, 2005 8:23 am GMT
<<I happen to love puns myself and I found myself laughing out loud when I read your comment. I found its succintness and irony especially funny after all those deep and serious (albeit good) questions posed by Pete. Thank you for cheering me up a bit. >>

Sometimes I have a hard time being properly serious. And that quote from Cyndi just popped into my head as I was reading the posts...couldn't help it!

<<Wow, Uriel! You're really popular tonight!! :-) >>

Well, to know me IS to love me, Candy.

<<Do English change their normal regional accent, to RP when they are abroad? If they do, why do they do this? To sound clearer? to cheat people on thinking about the "British accent" stuff as a real thing? because some of them feel ashame because of their real accent? or what? Why if Cockney is so loved by people, nobody I've met speaks Cockney English? >>

Can't speak for English people, but I know I've been in situations where I was talking to a non-native speaker, and I made an effort to "clean up" my speech patterns -- enunciate each word clearly and evenly instead of running them together, pronounce my T's as T's and not D's, speak slowly, etc. I didn't think of it as changing my accent per se, just as speaking carefully and clearly, but my listener commented that my "accent" was much less pronounced than other Americans' -- so I treated her to a few sentences of my normal speech for comparison! ;)

(Needless to say, I had to go back to the artificial one, because she looked horrified...)
Travis   Fri Nov 18, 2005 8:50 am GMT
>>Can't speak for English people, but I know I've been in situations where I was talking to a non-native speaker, and I made an effort to "clean up" my speech patterns -- enunciate each word clearly and evenly instead of running them together, pronounce my T's as T's and not D's, speak slowly, etc. I didn't think of it as changing my accent per se, just as speaking carefully and clearly, but my listener commented that my "accent" was much less pronounced than other Americans' -- so I treated her to a few sentences of my normal speech for comparison! ;)

(Needless to say, I had to go back to the artificial one, because she looked horrified...)<<

I myself find that I do exactly the same thing, except that I often don't simply "clean up" my speech, but rather speech in a purely formal register to begin with. But even when I am still speaking in an informal register I still will often try to remove certain aspects of the phonology of my dialect simply so that the person I am speaking with will not trip over them (probably the example that sticks in my mind here is individuals tripping *multiple times* over "toss the receipt", due to them not expecting the /D/ in "the" to be realized as an [s] in that case).