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English has been my pain for 15 years

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Re: English has been my pain for 15 years

#301

Post by moocowduckquack »

toyg wrote: post #297
moocowduckquack wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Classist" Received Pronunciation was out, regional accents were in (mostly so that Scottish cronies could occupy civil-servant jobs and the likes of John Prescott could eventually become plausible Peers of the Realm, but I digress) Fucking hell, you're a prize twat. Besides, the shift from RP to regional accents in the media started during the 60's, not the 90's, it isn't some Blairite conspiracy. My mum used to win…

Thank you for the kind words, as a foreigner I try hard to fit in! :) I've been around here since 2001 and from what I've read, the blairites were the ones responsible for big changes at the BBC in particular. The topic had been raised and policies had been half-heartedly implemented before, but they were finally enshrined after Blair came to power. Same goes for the Scottish influence in civil service and ministeria…

So you are saying that there was an orchestrated move against RP to regional accents in the media in the 90's and you think it was partly to help a Scottish influence in civil service and ministerial appointments and to help John Prescott in some nefarious plan to become a lord.

Sorry for swearing at you before, but this seems unlikely.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years

#302

Post by fieryeagle »

notahacker wrote: post #179
toyg wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BBC used to have the excellent World Service programming. BBC radio programmes were also at the receiving end of a wave of political correctness sweeping through the Blair years. "Classist" Received Pronunciation was out, regional accents were in (mostly so that Scottish cronies could occupy civil-servant jobs and the likes of John Prescott could eventually become plausible Peers of the Realm, but I digress). The r…

Nah... RP is the accent all us inverse snobs snigger at. In all seriousness, there are more "neutral" and aurally-pleasing English accents than old-fashioned RP. It's interesting to see the effects of varied accents in modern British television programming on largely self-taught English speakers in relatively isolated communities though: Burmese Cockney has to be my favourite.

Burmese Cockney eh? This I hafta listen to at least once in my lifetime.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years

#303

Post by mdpye »

JetSetWilly wrote: post #290
mdpye wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly in the UK, 'or' and 'awe' or very similar. But I'm pretty sure the same is true across the states. The 'awe' in 'awe, shucks' is not even really a word, just a sympathetic utterance in the same sort of class as 'um' and 'aaah', so I don't think it has an official spelling, just a phonetic approximation. It is certainly distinct from the word 'awe' that's the root of 'awesome'. Edit: I meant to point out tha…

What part of the UK? They are wildly different in Scotland, Northern England, Northern Ireland, in fact probably anywhere except for the south of England, and even there it doubtless varies.

Really? Can you have a stab at describing the difference? Because I've spend the vast majority of my life between Edinburgh, Nottingham and Leeds and I can't bring it to mind. I can see a slight differentiation in places with more solid 'r's (Scotland and the borders for instance), but any wild variation escapes me...

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years

#304

Post by JetSetWilly »

mdpye wrote: post #303
JetSetWilly wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of the UK? They are wildly different in Scotland, Northern England, Northern Ireland, in fact probably anywhere except for the south of England, and even there it doubtless varies.

Really? Can you have a stab at describing the difference? Because I've spend the vast majority of my life between Edinburgh, Nottingham and Leeds and I can't bring it to mind. I can see a slight differentiation in places with more solid 'r's (Scotland and the borders for instance), but any wild variation escapes me...

That's the difference though isn't it? Come to glasgow and hear the intensely rhotic pronunciation of "or" and compare to "awe" which has no R at all. The two words sound very different.

"burger" in much of the UK is completely rhotic, with both R's intensely rolled, while in other parts it is more like buhguh. Really sounds quite distinct to my ears.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years

#305

Post by citrin_ru »

brownbat wrote: post #81

Most of English's "problems" come from a sort of natural drift that all languages experience all the time. There's no way to freeze a language in its "most useful" form, because a billion different speakers are simultaneously pulling it in different directions. It either ends up as a sort of democratic consensus, or eventually fractures into mutually unintelligible dialects. 1. Shakespearean pronunciation: http://www…

It is "problem" of most natural languages - they always change. Interesting book about this: Why Do Languages Change? by Larry Trask http://amzn.com/0521546931

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years

#306

Post by citrin_ru »

userulluipeste wrote: post #291
sergeykish wrote: post #164

My mother tongue is russian. At childhood I was astonished by spelling scene in translated american film: - Как пишется "кот" # How to spell cat? - К О Т # C A T It's quite a dumb question on russian. There is no difference between spelling and pronunciation. Yet repeating word character by character shown as a mark of intelligence. Later on I've learned english by reading. Direct mapping to known phonemes gives very…

Another opinion here. I've had to learn Russian and the pronunciation was presented easy only at the beginning. Russian has: - Diacritics that do not usually appear in the broad case writing. One example that I happen to remember now is «ё», which most of the time is written only as a plain «е» (but is still pronounced differently). - Broad range of similar pronounced letters, like the group «и, й, ь, ъ» (Ukrainian a…

Accents is not big problem in Russian - even with wrong accent other people will understand you in most cases, but it will sound a bit odd. In some cases in different regions (or even social groups) accent for same word will be different (and a few native speakers know which variant is officially proper).

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years

#307

Post by toyg »

moocowduckquack wrote: post #301
toyg wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the kind words, as a foreigner I try hard to fit in! :) I've been around here since 2001 and from what I've read, the blairites were the ones responsible for big changes at the BBC in particular. The topic had been raised and policies had been half-heartedly implemented before, but they were finally enshrined after Blair came to power. Same goes for the Scottish influence in civil service and ministeria…

So you are saying that there was an orchestrated move against RP to regional accents in the media in the 90's and you think it was partly to help a Scottish influence in civil service and ministerial appointments and to help John Prescott in some nefarious plan to become a lord. Sorry for swearing at you before, but this seems unlikely.

Hyperbole doesn't really work on the internet... of course it wasn't a conspiracy to have the Queen replaced by a Scottish miner, but it's well documented that Blair and friends did bring in a new wave of civil servants and appointees from the North, and a new attitude towards regions outside the Tory enclaves of Home Counties and Midlands. Which was very welcome and very refreshing (and likely helped acceptance of people like me, sporting a clearly non-UK accent), but was certainly motivated in large part by a desire to advance the careers of regional Labourites, and produced, as collateral damage, a certain ostracism of RP, something that I personally think is detrimental to the country as a whole (or even just to the image of the country, as perceived from abroad). Even a strong "regionalist" like Tony Wilson, wandering the country in his Granada years, had a spotless accent (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCuqKzW6r7M from 1985), whereas most popular broadcasters in their 30s/40s, these days, tend to have a recognisable accent.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years

#308

Post by galawa »

Houshalter wrote: post #269
galawa wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the internet is full of every one censorship,from government,politics and economic sanction. when do you think will the internet world be totally free for everyone?

What are you talking about?

i meant some site are banned or there are blocked and hence affect internet freedom.
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