Posted by Robert Dilley on October 22, 2003 at 19:21:21 from 65.39.15.73 user rdilley.
In Reply to: Re: Social Obstacles, RP & 'accurate' Surveys posted by Mike Dennis on October 22, 2003 at 07:39:31:
Go away for a couple of days (to Regina, where the temperature on Sunday reached 27!) and all sorts of fascinating threads develop.
"In political life there are lies, there are damned lies and there are statistics" was attributed by Mark Twain to Benjamin Disraeli, though some argue that Twain made it up himself.
Questionnaire surveys -- I have been using them and teaching their use for years and could go on for pages.... Briefly, if well-structured and properly administered they can be useful. You have to know how the survey was carried out: eg if by telephone, then people without telephones will be missed, and those with two lines will get twice the chance of being asked. How many times do you re-contact people who are out? (if you don't, you get a lot more stay-at-home replies). Is the question loaded? That is, some questions will elicit a defensive or self-interested response. Ask "What is your favourite TV show?" and you will probably get an honest answer. Ask "How much would you be willing to pay for your TV Licence?" and even if you were willing to pay more than at present you would be unlikely to say so for fear this would be used to raise the fee. Asked "How do you like where you are living?" may have the responder thinking "I don't like it much -- but if I say so, I am going to look like an idiot for continuing to live here" and so you get a defensive answer. I could go on....
My conclusion is that surveys/polls are not all bad nor all good; that each has to be looked at in detail.
As for accents -- I started a reply but it looked like going on and on, so I erased it. It is difficult for North Americans (and, I imagine, Australians and New Zealanders) to comprehend the depth of social status attached to accent in the UK (especially in England). One of the most important things that made me decide, after only one year in the US, that I did not want to go back to live in the UK was the pleasure of working where you were judged by what you were and could do; not by your accent or your school tie.
As for the Amazons -- my experience of growing up on the northern edge of the Lake District in the 50s and 60s was that the upper middle classes all spoke RP. And don't I remember a response from Australia a while back, to a question of mine about Mrs Walker's accent, to the effect that the same was true of the upper middles in Oz back in the 30s? I am sure Nancy and Peggy could do a passable local accent at will, but -- especially as they went away to boarding school -- I cannot imagine them using it between themselves or with the Swallows.