Posted by Peter Ceresole on October 18, 2003 at 02:29:22 from 80.177.22.49 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: Blackett English posted by John Lambert on October 18, 2003 at 00:36:04:
As always in Britain, it's a question of class. You know the expression- "An Englishman carries his caste mark in his mouth." It's still true now- but enormously more so 70 years ago. My daughters are both married into the 'working class' of graphics artisans and pop musicians and both speak with what in the '30s would have been considered a slightly cockney intonation, but although they and their blokes are solidly in the New Bourgeoisie, in London now the girls are still absolutely clearly 'middle class'. That's because I speak Standard English and their mother, although she has a quite strong French accent, has a learned English based entirely on Received Pronunciation. This will stay with my girls for the rest of their lives; although they can simulate a cockney accent if they want to it will always be subtly different from the real thing. But some friends from academic circles used to be critical (to me) of the way we allowed the girls to speak in a sloppy way- to drop their 'h's and use the glottal stop (you did wha'?).
These things matter much less than they used to; the Walkers, Blacketts, Callums and Dudgeons wouldn't have consciously thought about it much but they would have been fiercely thorough about bringing up their children to talk 'properly'- and they would all have talked alike and recognised each others' class solidarity across a crowded cocktail bar or in a bus queue.
Small jokes about accents have always been part of the English social fabric- making gentle fun of Sammy's accent would for the Amazons have been just that- fun. They were children after all. It doesn't mean that in the wrong circumstances such jokes wouldn't have been hurtful and resented, could even have been used as a weapon, but they were a fact of the class system. I think AR was just representing reality.