Re: Blackett English


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Posted by Peter Ceresole on October 18, 2003 at 10:50:54 from 80.177.22.49 user PeterC.

In Reply to: Re: Blackett English posted by Mike Dennis on October 18, 2003 at 07:41:44:

But.. the remark "Small jokes about accents have always been part of the English social fabric -", not sure about jokes, often it verges on the racist.

Not race- class. The differences are in some ways similarly irrational and corrosive. I wasn't implying that these jokes were harmless or that the class system was benign; it can be that way, but I regard them as being potentially oppressive and cruel. After all, what else is class division if not that?

The BBC only have to use a regional accent to read the news and the hate mail floods in, and in the case of one female Scottish presenter (I forget her name) it went beyond hate mail and for awhile her life was a misery.

Would this be Kirsty Wark? Or somebody else earlier on?

You have to remember that the BBC always excites primitive passions. Every crank in the land is watching the Beeb like a hawk for some imagined insult to their world view. Accent has been an ideological totem pole ever since the BBC started broadcasting; when I was young, apart from a smattering of Scottish accents and some specialised ghettos like Wilfred Pickles's 'Down Your Way' programmes, RP was effectively the only possible option for a presenter. In AR's time, quite unthinkable to deviate from it. Now, anything goes. It's a huge improvement, consciously promoted over decades, and one of the nicest features of the place in my time there.


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