Wally wrote: > RP is ''received pronunciation'', the particular variety of english that for > many years was a requirement of BBC speakers. it is basically educated > southern british english or public school english without traces of regional > varieties. it has become increasingly rare. one of the marks of true RP is > the absence of glottal stops. however, because of RP's association with the > ''establishment'', many young or more progressive RP speakers started adding > glottal stops to their speech patterns, especially in the 80's after lady di > and john major used them in public. another example of how much RP has > changed over time is the pronunciation of ''girl''. in her very lively > enquiry into ''aristocratic'' english [her own variety, by the way] called > noblesse oblige [published in 1955], nancy mitford complained about the > tendency of young people to rhyme ''girl'' with ''pearl'' rather than with > ''pal''. i don't think there's one RP speaker left in the world that would > meet mitford's criterion today!
I've got a great book by Nancy Mitford's sister, Jessica (called Hons and Rebels) which describes much of their up-bringing. It doesn't surprised me that Nancy was so particular about accents, when you read what their father was like! A sordid little family history, with another sister infatuated with Adolf Hitler! Hell ____________________________ "To have great poets, there must be great audiences too." - Walt Whitman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hell's Personal Photo Page: http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~hell/main/personal.htm Visit the NBLs (Natural Born Losers) at: http://www.nbls.co.nz
