Is life easier in some ways for people who speak RP?

[user1466795981]

I have an older (retired) male friend/acquaintance who lives in a provincial town.

He is convinced he is called 'sir' in shops etc and addressed more courteously as he speaks in this way and not in the local/regional accent.

The merits of being attractive have recently been discussed. Is speaking 'RP' an advantage?

[VairyVAIRYhungrycaterpillar]

Yeah I think RP no longer exists as a spoken accent? If you go and watch some bbc broadcasts or listen to e.g. R4 desert island discs podcasts, no one speaks like that anymore, ergo it doesn't really exist, or is that wrong? Or has RP evolved?

[LaContessaDiPlump]

I hear it all the time I am in the south though.

[squoosh]

Even the Queen no longer sounds like the Queen.

[EssentialHummus]

When I meet new people sometimes they assume I'm stuck up because of my accent.

I'm a foreigner and I have to work quite hard to remember that not all people with RP accents are stuck up! From my POV an RP accent seems like a disadvantage. I love sounding "neutral international" (from moving extensively during my childhood and 20s) - I feel like the way I talk can't be used to make a judgment on my social class.

[Just5minswithDacre]

Or has RP evolved?

I think so. 1930s BBC would sound ridiculous

[VairyVAIRYhungrycaterpillar]

Oh yes, I just looked it up, it does evolve, I thought it was more that kind of war-time radio newscaster voice.

[user1466795981]

I saw Penelope Keith present a documentary last year. Her accent is without a doubt 'RP'.

That sounds like quite an advantage EssentialHummus

[squoosh]

So you want your kids to sound like Penelope Keith?

Why the fixation on this accent?

[user1466795981]

To be honest squoosh - I personally haven't got this accent - I just like it!

My regional accent is not particularly strong though so I'm 'neither one thing nor t'other'!'

[FayaMAMA]

I grew up in a town near Birmingham, but spent the first few years of my life living near Rouen and as a small child I had an absolutely hideous accent. Have you ever heard someone with a part french-part brummie accent? It's vile. And weird.

I'm very pleased to announce that I don't remember speaking that way, but the videos will always remember [shudder]. I had elocution lessons to speak English 'properly' (I have an English father who grew up between Singapore and America and a French mother... both also had lessons) and spoke with RP for a long time because of it. I also sounded like an idiot then .

I speak, generally, with a neutral accent now - as do my siblings - but I think learning how to speak with RP has developed my accent mimicking skills . I do use (almost) RP occasionally though as it is helpful in certain situations, especially when you want to be taken seriously. Every accent should be taken as seriously as the next, but unfortunately that is not the case anymore.

(My DDs get elocution lessons at pre-school which I don't understand, but pretension is rife in public schools...)

[squoosh]

I don't think you can really influence the accent your child will develop. They pick it up from the people around them, the voices they hear at home, but to a greater degree the voices they hear on the street and in nursery/school.

Penelope Keith has a pretty old school accent, so unless you lock your children in a room making them watch To The Manor Born on loop I don't think it's going to happen!

[PigletJohn]

Penelope Keith is an actress, and uses an exaggerated comedy accent.

RP has moved on. If you find an old recording of the queen, you will find she has softened her voice. At the time of the coronation, she said "orphan." Now she says "off-ten"

That dreadful Thatcher woman was a social climber and when trying to create a good (false) impression was laughed at for saying "A car, a rally, rally car" when her script called on her to fake empathy and say "I care, I really, really care" , and when pretending to be Francis of Assisi in her doorstep script. Towards the end of her reign she started affecting northern slang.

[Scribblegirl]

Not RP, but I come from Surrey and have a pretty strong home counties 'naice' accent (which is weird, because my sister doesn't, but there you are...)

Job interviews, being treated well in shops, making complaints - helpful
Socialising, meeting people in bars, generally getting on with work colleagues - I'm convinced it's made some people think I'm a bitch before I've even said anything of substance. (I'm not, I promise!!)

[Pendu]

I wish I had RP

I have a standard Home Counties accent (which is no accent I think ?!) which does me fine but I do wish I sounded posh

If I go abroad/upwards they do think I'm posh, but around here some people have claimed to hear a cockney accent (?????) come through, or even the Waynetta type tinge if I'm not careful.

In my line of study everyone is very clipped and professional and I'm rocking up all "a'right mate?"

[Pendu]

Darn hardest people to talk to though are Indians (especially older) who were taught English but live mainly in India - they speak some sort of next level English! I consider myself somewhat educated but blimey, they used full on old school/ posh words for everything.

[Felco]

RP gets things done. Yes, I think it's an advantage in a lot of situations. But really there are levels of any accent which give an advantage because they sound educated/wealthier/less mad.

[LikeDylanInTheMovies]

I have a standard Home Counties accent (which is no accent I think ?!)

Of course you have an accent! Everyone does. It is just that we hear the 'home' counties accent all the time in the media. If you came to Scotland and told people you didn't have an accent, people would laugh.

[Pendu]

Noooooo I don't have an accent

[i8sum314]

I hear that accent! as an accent I mean.

I spotted what Dexra did. I read it with a half smile!

[bigbluebus]

After DS came home from Uni and said that his new friends think he's posh, I've wondered what actually constitutes posh. Neither DH nor I have RP accents and nor does DS. He went to the local village school in a very working class area and the local comprehensive school. I can only assume that as he is at Uni in an area with a very distinctive accent it makes his ordinary English accent (if there is such a thing) sound posh.

I have known 2 people who were both Scousers who both had definitely posher accents when speaking to certain people - as in the 'telephone' voice someone mentioned upthread.

[seagreengirl]

I don't know about making life easier but I just prefer it, and I have made sure that the DC speak like me and not like their father who has a northern accent.

[CurlyMoo]

Several of my children have attended SLT and were initially assessed by the same fairly posh speech therapist who when giving me a summary of issues commented "how lovely that they don't have a accent

[afatalflaw]

I agree with scribblegirl. I have a Surrey accent and slip between 'posh' and glottal stop. Have been told in the past I sound very posh though and as I am a bit reserved it can come across as quite cold. I studied in Manchester and could almost see people react when I opened my mouth to speak. Being aware of it only made my speech more precise and the problem worse.

I have found it to my advantage on occasion though. As a teenager adults were more likely to believe my version of events. Being from Surrey and not growing up in a 'well off' home is another matter though.

[FullTimeYummy]

Surely anybody worth their salt has at least two accents?

One "posh" one for answering the phone, interviews and such like, and one "rough" one for trash talking and negotiating discount at the builder's merchants and such like

[Fuckingmoles]

I have an RP accent, ExH and all his relatives are from the East End and speak with a traditional cockney accent, DC went to a independent school and also have default RP accents. However, they both code switch to alter their accent and grammar according to who they are speaking to - it was unconscious (now less so) as they have done this from an early age but also quite a useful skill.

Both ExH and his sister are successful business people and I know feel that people who don't know them often make negative assumptions about their ability and intelligence, ExH in particular used to use this to his advantage.