To think that a posh accent is still frightening to many people?

[MrsWinnibago]

I know this will be a bit of an offensive post to some people but I don't mean to be offensive...I'm just really interested in people.

On another thread, a user of MN was advised to get some support in seeking help for her DC with undiagnosed difficulties the poster had found her GP to be useless and dismissive... and the advice was to "Get someone to go with you...the posher and bossier the better."

And I thought but then I thought yes...she's probably right. A really posh accent and the authority which often goes alongside it, is a bit frightening to some people...they're easily cowed by a public school stance and attitude.

Then I thought about how long it's been since we had "gentry" and peasants but really not that much HAS changed as the fear of the "gentry" is still deeply embedded in the working people of this country...and in the middle classes to some extent too.

When I say "Posh" I mean REALLY posh....not a middle class chap who doesn't drop his H's....I'm not especially cowed by really posh folk...I've been around them a lot due to my work....but they do seem to have an innate ability to take charge of a situation don't they?

Surely you don't have to speak like the Queen to be articulate though?

can i just mention the difference between a proper RP accent and that awful upper class London accent with strangulated vowels and a half shut mouth? you know the one, where the name Hugo becomes Hegay? and coke is cake?

And look how those who try to imitate are mocked in popular media Hyacinth Bucket anyone? Sure there must be more examples.

See no you don't and I'm not arguing that nobody other than the privileged classes are articulate...I'm making a very specific point about that type of accent.

I don't think it's the actual accent exactly; more a tone of voice and manner that get you what you want.

For example my dad has a Dorset accent but at work he sounds very businesslike and serious which helps, also he's polite but firm.

I too have a Dorset accent but I can sound articulate and confident, providing I'm not feeling shy.

If I feeling shy then I definitely don't get anywhere because my manner is too self-depreciating.

Nigella to me, RP is the way in which a newsreader speaks. My post is about people who speak like whilst RP is

I agree. Yesterday I was in asda and there were two boys there with their mum. I didn't recognise their school uniform and they had a very posh accent (I presume they went to a private school). It stood out like a sore thumb amongst the local accents! These were teenage boys (about 13/14) and I felt so intimidated! They didn't even look at me but I felt shy and embarrassed to talk to my children when they were in ear shot. How stupid of me! I'm not that much of a stupid woman, I have a bachelor's degree and an interview for another one, but these teenagers made me feel dumb!

Years ago my DD had a joint birthday party with a girl in her class. It was held at this girl's house - a stately home on their private estate. I felt welcomed but very out of place, helping out her parents in the kitchen. Then I found myself standing behind a buffet table with her father while the kids were holding drinks in one hand and helping themselves to sausages etc with the other. The father said "I think they need plates. There are some in the kitchen" and looked at me as he would need to squeeze past me to get them. I started to say that I thought it would be awkward to hold a plate as well as a drink and eat as well, but he interrupted me and said "Get the plates!" and I immediately found myself hurrying to get the plates.

Not post accents - the 'assertive' (or you could say aggressive) ones! I've worked with allsorts - from minor royals to... well people like me, and it is the 'in yer face' people that make me take a back step.

Latara the right accent will give the thickest oik some power though...that's my point. You could be the stupidest person with no common sense and an accent like that which I'm talking about will make you seem far more worthy than you are.

As I said earlier, of course people with ordinary accents can appear to be confident etc. BUt it's what those with a really posh accent get for free...just by dint of their vowels.

Dozy you won't let that happen again though will you? Not now you've acknowledged it.

OP, I think you're right. I can do a posh accent very well. I'm from a working-class background but I went to a posh secondary on a scholarship, and I learned to speak the speak - not just the actual posh accent, but also the confident 'I will be listened to' tone. There have been times when the posh register has been really useful for exerting authority. For instance, the time I saw some security guards being over-zealous with a guy in tatty clothes (I'm sure they wouldn't have behaved like that if he'd been in a suit) I went over and stopped them in my most authoritative 'you are breaking the law' tones. I know quite well that had I spoken in my 'normal' register they would have ignored me.

Ah, but Mrs W - not all newsreaders have that accent these days. RP and BBC English used to be interchangeable terms for the same accent; not so now. The BBC has many newsreaders and presenters with regional accents. I offer Huw Edwards as an example .

It's not the accent, it is articulating your point which is the key.

Kate Middleton is not posh. She doesn't have the accent, she certainly doesn't have the vocabulary.

Miranda what a twat. Saying that I don't want people to think that I dislike people because of their accent. My brother married someone with an accent like that I've mentioned and a massive old house etc and her family were lovely, lovely people.

I think Kate Middleton's accent sounds plummier than her husband's.

I don't know though mrswinnibago I do not find Kate's accent that bad, it doesnt have that strangulated quality - mind you she is not all that at public speaking is she? staring at her script all the time.

I have worked with some incredibly not-very-bright bulbs with awfully post accents (old boys network).

Trust me, no amount of plumbs in the mouth could make some of the things they came out with sound intelligent.

It's all about confidence, isn't it? If you went to a very posh school, where the alumni were PMs, Cabinet Ministers, Nobel prize winners, etc, rather than local neds and crime watch regulars, then I suppose you would have a certain aura of confidence!

Dawn I KNEW someone would say that! But it's on the way to what I'm talking about and you know what I mean...find me a better example?

Wow you know what I mean though...by a newsreaders accent. Everyone does...that's RP. Basic, well pronounced English with no local accent at all.

Nice that's my point.

Posh is RP, surely as in eating nice ham in a niace haice? I have an English boarding school accent. I know how to make it sound intimidating and also how to soften it. But my confidence us what helps in trying situations.

FTR, i am most intimidated by confident men with hard looks and a regional accent. I don't mean it to but i find it makes me fear violence.

oh please no not the noblesse oblige/nancy mitford stuff!!
it broke up my family eventually (slightly over-dramatic..but...)