How to pronounce Talia

Locals say Baaaath especially at rugby matches. C'mon Baaaath. Not Barth; you'd get the side eye and everyone would assume you're not local.

Hmm. I reckon enough locals say the r in Bath, for it to pass unnoticed.

An actual bowl of trifle would have got this by now.

I think Daniel Radcliffe sounds like a middle class Londoner. I don’t think his accent is neutral really.

@stillcrazyafterall

If you're from the SW and use a long A you don't have a local accent you've morphed towards RP.

Accents local to me sound similar to (but not the same as) those in the poems of William Barnes a Victorian poet who wrote in Dorset dialect.

Locals say Baaaath especially at rugby matches. C'mon Baaaath. Not Barth; you'd get the side eye and everyone would assume you're not local.

I have a "boring middle of the road voice" and I don't see that as an accent.

I just can't understand this. You pronounce words in a way that is different to the way other people pronounce those words.

That's literally all that an accent is. It's the way people pronounce words. Everyone has one. Everyone.

Jane has an American accent.
That is definitely her accent, not English Singaporean or Australian, but American.
We woudln't argue with that.
But if you were American you might then say - Oh that is a Florida/Tennessee/ New York accent.

This is the same.
You have an English accent.
Not American, scottish or New Zealand, but English.
To say you haven't got an accent is to be very deliberately obtuse.

Within England, you accent is described as RP or general southern.

An accent doesn’t mean “can specifically identify which is your nearest town”. It’s a way of describing how you pronounce your words. It’s often specific to very localised areas in the uk, but not necessarily. It’s a very narrow view to think that because an accent is predominantly to be found eg across large parts of the south of England, that doesn’t count as an accent. The south of England is tiny, geographically speaking, so it still does have geographical implications. And anyway, it’s a way of describing a particular method of speech. It’s not a way of describing “how different you are from the queen”.

What's your accent. Mancunian.

What's your accent. Middle of the road.

I can't get past how these are supposed to be seen the same. One's unmistakably from Manchester. The other, you just don't know.

They're both subsets of an English accent. 'English' is a reasonable descriptor of either, and then you get into the dialects and dialectical variations that sit within that. It doesn't need to be solely tied to a particular location to be a form of English accent. Again, why are you getting so hung up on the idea that if you can't tie an accent solely to a particular geography, it can't be considered an accent?

I used the example upthread of regional variations within SSE in the Home Counties.

But I don't. I said she "sort of" sounded proper and you're taking that out of context.

Ok, so what's the context for "She just pronounces her words properly" that doesn't mean that other pronunciations of those words are less correct?

That's the problem here - the suggestion that one accent is neutral/the norm, which you've just reinforced by your statement that 'I think some people have no notable accent/dialect.' Which is just nonsense. RP/SSB/SSE is as much a dialect/accent as any other.

By the way, I'm quite happy to see that you're far more educated on the topic than I am. You absolutely are. I'm trying to understand, and just absolutely can't. I have a "boring middle of the road voice" and I don't see that as an accent.

An accent is a way of pronouncing a language. It is therefore impossible to speak without an accent.

But it is largely about class, if you think that RP (in all its wonderful forms) is 'properly' and other dialects are less proper.

But I don't. I said she "sort of" sounded proper and you're taking that out of context.

For clarity. Other dialects are not "less proper".

What I'm saying is I think some people have no notable accent/dialect.

It was your claim not to have an accent at all that didn't make sense. England is a geographical location you know. I see you've now admitted you have an English accent like Daniel Radcliffe.

English is countrywide. Mancunians have an English accent. It was your own quote that said "boring middle of the road" re DR. That's not a place.

What's your accent. Mancunian.

What's your accent. Middle of the road.

I can't get past how these are supposed to be seen the same. One's unmistakably from Manchester. The other, you just don't know.

But it is largely about class, if you think that RP (in all its wonderful forms) is 'properly' and other dialects are less proper. RP is inextricably tied up with the British class system, and suggesting that the historically dominant UC/UMC accent (the only acceptable accent on the BBC for years, called 'Oxford English' for a bit because that's what Oxford students and dons sounded like') is 'proper' when others are not is based on ideas of one class being superior or better in the way they speak.

I think you're on a losing wicket trying to find examples of people who speak that way who aren't 'posh' as if it will somehow suggest that they are accentless. Everyone has an accept. RP/SSE/SSB is culturally dominant, though less so than in the past, and is unavoidably tied up with class.

That's not to say that every RP/SSE/SSB speaker is posh. No one has suggested that. That's my accent now, and I'm a bloody immigrant. It's my husband's, and he had quite a different accent growing up. Because of its historical dominance and class overtones, many people have adopted it, either consciously or unconsciously.

Holly Willoughby? I can't do her voice 100% in my head from memory...but I think she's got the kind of voice I'm referring too.

@TwinsandTrifle

It was your claim not to have an accent at all that didn't make sense. England is a geographical location you know. I see you've now admitted you have an English accent like Daniel Radcliffe.

I described myself as having an Irish accent upthread. Again there are lots of varieties of Irish accent, as there are many varieties of English or British accent, and I have one.

You can be more or less specific if you want, but you do have an English accent

I mean, I was talking about a royal. Who yes, I do think pronounces: properly, poshly (is that even a word)

And everyone ran off on the tangent of "ohhhh Kate Middleton, it's all about class for you"

Which is wrong. Hence I replaced with Daniel Radcliffe, and even that was jumped on for "ohhhhh posh school"

I'm trying to think of someone recognisable who can't just be poo-pooed as posh. Posh has got nothing to do with it. It's just been misleading in those two examples.

@TwinsandTrifle

I'm not "hung up" on thinking that I sound more "proper"

I don't sound posh. Or think I'm "proper." Or anything really. I sound exactly as the earlier PP Daniel Radcliffe quote. That's what I mean when I say I sound like him. "Boring, middle of the road English."

That's sort of what I mean. She just pronounces her words properly.

That accent is no more or less proper than anyone else's, taking an objective view that takes no view of class superiority.

@JassyRadlett I'm finding your posts really, really informative thank you for taking the time and effort.

So. If you are Southern England. And don't have a regional dialect that would put you as recognisably from a particular region. Are you default RP?

RP/SSE/SSB has a particular cultural history that other accents don't have so if you're looking for a direct equivalent that will allow you to think of it as an accent, you will fail.

No other accent has had the same interactions with ideas of class. Very few people will have adopted a Scouse accent to be able to get ahead in the Civil Service, or to avoid mockery at university, or to be able to talk on the BBC, for example.

If you think that cultural, social, political and educational dominance and exclusivity for the ruling classes over the last century and a half or so makes an accent 'better' or 'more proper' then knock yourself out. It's not an accent! It's how these sounds were meant to be said in the first place, not the result of centuries of complex development and change!

I get that that's a very comforting and comfortable thought, and it's how a lot of people from a position of relative privilege have thought for generations. But you'd be objectively wrong.

I'm not "hung up" on thinking that I sound more "proper"

I don't sound posh. Or think I'm "proper." Or anything really. I sound exactly as the earlier PP Daniel Radcliffe quote. That's what I mean when I say I sound like him. "Boring, middle of the road English."

I think where I get stuck is, Glaswegian, Edinburgh, etc all Scottish accents, from a large geographical area. You can't have a regional accent attributed to a place in Scotland without it also being a Scottish accent.

Where as RP covers the south of England, but there are many regional accents that are not RP.

Northern? Is Northern the equivalent? But then all Northern place attributed accents are Northern. But then a strong Dorset accent isn't RP, yet they both are Southern England.

Does that make sense? I'm not being obtuse, despite PP trying to project that, genuinely interested.

That's really informative. I'd dismiss the 1917 thing pretty much straight away, as things evolve, especially language, and imagine very few of us sound like we would have done over 100yrs ago.

Dismissing it straight away is pretty silly; it gives us a very strong view of where an accent came from and how it developed, and in particular what its geographical base is - particularly when you look at the consistency over the intervening years of class being the dominant non-geographical factor in the development of the accent.

Those aren't the only two sources; I mentioned both to show the remarkable consistency over at least a century of where RP is from, and what's it's 'for' in the eyes of many.

South of England is very broad too, and contains many regional accents. It's weird that it's stated as the standard, for the lower (third?) of the country, when there will be as many regional accents as in the middle third, for example, but the middle third doesn't have it's own "generalised standard" like RP? Or does it?

There is no generalised 'standard' for other geographies and you're right that this is because of the traditional cultural (class-based) dominance of RP/SSE. In some estimates over the years RP speakers in England are estimated between 3-10%.

South of England is very broad but I don't believe it's intended to be either geographically inclusive or restrictive; it's an attempt to describe an accent in a way that is less loaded than RP.

And there are variations as I said upthread - the eastern Home Counties have a more Estuary tone, the western HCs are quite different. And then there are, as you say, many other dialects within the broad southern English geography. Other people have suggested other names for it, such as 'General English' or 'General British'; none is particularly ideal.

IPA seems to use 'Standard Southern British' and notes
Standard Southern British (where 'Standard' should not be taken as implying a value judgment of 'correctness') is the modern equivalent of what has been called 'Received Pronunciation' ('RP'). It is an accent of the south east of England which operates as a prestige norm there and (to varying degrees) in other parts of the British Isles and beyond.

But I think you're now getting hung up on the name of the accent, rather than the fact that you have one, and that it is no more or less 'proper' than anyone else's.

Genuinely. I don't need to be interested in how you speak. I think many of us know that you probably don't speak how you think you do, in the same way that we know you know very little about accent, dialect, class or language.

Word to the wise- look at my pp. I know nothing about phonics or reading schemes. So I don't make ridiculous proclamations showing everyone else I know nothing.

Try it. It might be less embarrassing for you.