"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Alang wrote:
On Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:22:08 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
The day the BBC allowed some of those dreadful common oiks into the
newsrooms was the the day standards went out of the window.
The whole country used to be grateful to have a single standard,
where
they could hear their betters speak and aspire for their offspring to
have a decent education and be able to speak like that also.
Its all part of the 'lets pretend that the country can be run and
governed by people who are as stupid as the worst member of the
electorate'
So you actually think an accent reflects intelligence or ability?

No, but it reflects an adherence to standards that is in itself
reasonably laudable. And something intelligent people understand the
need for.

So you want someone to use your accent rather than just be able to
speak clearly and use the words correctly and in the correct order.
Possibly you hate Wilfred Pickles
The current ethos is 'standards make people feel inferior, or superior
and so we shouldn't have any'.

I'd trade a bit of wounded or misplaced vanity for competence any day.

Competence in the use of language is not dependant on accent. The
clearest speaker I ever heard was a Scot from the Northern part of
Scotland. He did not use words like loranorder or droring unlike some
RP speakers we hear on the broadcasts. Why do Southerners confuse batter
with butter?

Not talking about accent. Dav was, it seems. Its correct pronunciation and
grammar, that's all.

What's the "correct" pronunciation of Castle, Grass, etc then? The old BBC
RP would only have it one way, whereas there's at least two valid ways of
saying those words. Accent is very pertinent to pronunciation.