Can you speak Queen's English?

Kurt in China   Mon Mar 20, 2006 2:19 pm GMT
Lister:

Maybe you are right.

I'v found that some old bands such as Eagles and Lynyrd Skynyrd pronounce more "RP" than new ones.Maybe Queen's English is getting more and more old-fashioned.
Kelly   Mon Mar 20, 2006 2:47 pm GMT
Sophie Alis Baxtor uses RP when she sings and this makes her song even duller.
Most Brit pop artists (like Sugababes) prefer General American when they sing.
Ed   Mon Mar 20, 2006 8:03 pm GMT
RP is relatively common in the south west of England alongside a regional dialect.

The south western regional dialect is marked by a rather irregular use of the word "to". For example instead of saying "Where do you live" many will say "Where do you live to?" and "Where is that to?" instead of "Where is that?".

I always remembered asking a bus driver in Bristol for directions and he said "Where did you get on the bus to?" which confused me as I assumed he was asking where I was going but actually wanted to know where I got on the bus.
Ed   Mon Mar 20, 2006 8:07 pm GMT
Recently though my mother has been telling me off for starting to pick up a slight westcountry accent, for example pronouncing 'price' as if it might be spelled 'proice', 'five' as 'foive' etc...
Antonio   Fri Mar 24, 2006 3:43 pm GMT
Ed,
so you mother jeers/rebukes you for that. I met a huge 6'4" cupboard-like bloke from Birmingham who would always pronounce his "oi"´s instead of "Ai"´s and whenever I mentioned that trait he would come up to me and say "u speak to good English to be english!" hehe. Noight, doi, foiv, ohoys ('always')...
Guest   Sat Mar 25, 2006 9:05 am GMT
>For example, Australian is basically in the Queens category but has some Cockney features like the pronunciations of /fajs'/ and /snajk/ for "face" and "snake".

As has been mentioned, this is utter rubbish, although I believe there are two or three very old people from Whitechapel but now living under Ayers Rock who will trot out the odd ignorant archaism for gullible tourists.
Guest   Sun Mar 26, 2006 2:44 am GMT
It's not rubbish. Those Cockney features are present in Australia English. But his use of symbols to represent them is totally incorrect. The vowels in "face" and "snake" are common to both Cockney and Australian English.
Guest   Sun Mar 26, 2006 2:46 am GMT
Or the vowels sounds, rather.
Trawick   Tue Mar 28, 2006 2:21 pm GMT
In Cockney, Australian and Estuary English, it's best represented as /VI/ rather than /aI/ or /aj/, which would be over the top.
Mat   Sun Apr 02, 2006 6:21 pm GMT
The English language is changing at an alarming rate,younger people are leaning towards "Chav" English which shortens word eg "innit" instead of Isn't it, and ending sentences as if they were asking a question. Queens English or Oxford English is sadly dying out due to lazyness and bad infulences.Accents can be a wonderful and colourful thing but English today is on the decline.
Lazar   Sun Apr 02, 2006 6:54 pm GMT
<<In Cockney, Australian and Estuary English, it's best represented as /VI/ rather than /aI/ or /aj/, which would be over the top.>>

No, I think [AI] (for Cockney or Estuary) or [Ae] (for Australian) would be the most accurate transcription. [VI] is used in some West Country accents, but I've never read of it being the pronunciation used in the London area or Australia. JC Wells ( http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-english-uni.htm ) criticizes the Oxford dictionary's use of [VI]: "Upton's notation implicitly identifies the first element of price with the vowel quality of cut -- an identification that accords with the habits neither of RP nor of southeastern speech (Estuary English). His choice of [VI] is really very unsuitable."
Guest   Sun Apr 02, 2006 10:46 pm GMT
>>[AI] and [Ae] <<
>> /aI/ <<

These represent the diphthong in "bike", "price", "eye" for several different dialects. It has no bearing on the diphthong vowel in "face" and "snake" which was alluded to originally.
Lazar   Sun Apr 02, 2006 10:53 pm GMT
<<It has no bearing on the diphthong vowel in "face" and "snake" which was alluded to originally.>>

Sorry, I forgot which diphthong they were talking about and made a complete dumbass of myself. :-( Yes, the "face-snake" diphthong for Estuary and Australian is in the [VI]~[{I] range.
Guest   Mon Apr 03, 2006 2:19 am GMT
The face-snake diphthong isn't [VI] in Australian either! Maybe that range is valid for Estaury but not Australian where it's more like [{I] or [æI] in IPA.
Lazar   Mon Apr 03, 2006 9:38 pm GMT
<<The face-snake diphthong isn't [VI] in Australian either! Maybe that range is valid for Estuary but not Australian where it's more like [{I] or [æI] in IPA.>>

That's correct; in Australian it's limited to [{I]. In Estuary, I've read it can range from [{I] to [VI]. I just wanted to include both dialects without getting overly specific.