The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
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.

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.

Obviously you've not given this much thought. 'The standard BBC accent'
which was referred to was nothing like the best choice if intelligibility
was the issue. It was simply the one of the upper classes in the south of
England. And when heard now sounds very dated.

Everyone has an accent. And if 'standard English' is stuck to rigorously,
the language would never evolve which would be equally ludicrous.

Its not 'accent'. Its correct and clear enunciation and pronunciation.

Like John Thaw in Morse. I could listen to him talking for quite a long
time.

I've no objection to 'Gie's a wee dram' instead of 'Might I have a small
scotch'

Like Kevin Whately, again in Morse. One has no accent, the other has a
North East accent, but both enunciate very well.

But not on national radio, or TV, when the aim is to reach the largest
number of people.

So why do we have to put up with Johnathon Woss and that other
Lancashire accented announcer on one of those police chase programms?

Woss can't be arsed to use the letter R and the other persistently uses
the glottal stop instead of the letter T.

Dave