Well spoken areas - Accents

[arizonagirl]

Hi there,

We currently live in Surrey and I have to admit - the accent is really nice and the children speak so nicely. Always gets comments.

Ok, so we are looking at preps in another home county (probably Hertfordshire/Bucks/Berks). I am going to probably get really slated for this thread but hey...I am intrigued and really do wish to know people's thoughts. Which areas within an hour of London could we go to where people are very well spoken eg. 'yes' instead of 'yeah' etc. Not too impressed with Kent, Essex, Epsom tbh. Looking at Bishops Stortford - any thoughts.

Thanks!

PST have you thought about starting a column in a Sunday newspaper? They'd love you! Just ham it up ever so slightly more and I'm sure you'd find a loyal readership among 'ladies of a certain class'. (Reminds me of that song by the Divine Comedy:

Meanwhile, I am in rural Oxfordshire and yes there is definitely a rural Oxfordshire accent. It's rather lovely.

I'd only consider the Telegraph or the Daily Mail. And to the woman who insists that all academics are threadbare Preacher poor, again, read what I wrote. You say most academics you know think twice about buying a round of drinks. I would say that is most probably true for some Chemistry lecturer at a Polytechnic somewhere. I'm saying that traditionally, and it is still very much true today, those who go on to study the humanities or the arts to a doctorate level generally come from money in the first place, and it generally was old money. Since the younger sons usually did not inherit their fathers lands or businesses, they generally entered a genteel profession such as the cleargy, the Navy/Army, academia or medicine.

Most academics I know from around my place of residence in Surrey generally derive most of their income from trust funds set up many years ago by their fathers or grand-fathers. Their actual salary is pin money to them. Now, this is for lecturers who teach History, Philosophy and Literature at places like UCL, Kings and LSE. This would be even more apparent if one examined the History departments at top flight universities in the provinces such as Oxbridge, Durham, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool, etc. I dare say this will become even more transparent once the tuition fees begin, as the only students who will choose to take a humanities course in a post-graduate level will be those who hail from families blessed with wealth and priviledge. The less well-off and the middle-class will be drawn more to the more vocational subjects like Engineering, Law, Accountancy, Sociology and the like. The arts and the humanities will go back to being the domain of the wealthy and the priviledged. I'm not so sure that's a good thing, but it will happen nonetheless.

I'm from B stortford, we're a cross of those who shop in the local waitrose and those who venture out the 8 miles into Essex for asda

Where in Surrey do you live PST?

PST (what does that stand for, I wonder?) your last few posts have made me want to bash my head against the computer.

I feel incredibly passionately about higher education, having benefitted from quite a bit of it myself and being fortunate enough to be a member of a university which absolutely love, and of which I was most proud last month. And yes, I'm in humanities, and no, no-one in my family has a title, which is also true of most of the academic staff I know. So what you are saying is not only prejudiced drivel but is utterly false in 2011.

The point is this: it is absolutely vital for universities to employ the best staff and accept the best students regardless of class. I quote: 'we don't want to end up as a finishing school for rich students.' I know many of the people involved in interviewing prospective students and they fight tooth and nail to make it more possible for working-class teenagers to apply and be accepted. Universities absolutely must be meritocracies, and we must fight for them to become more so. No two ways about it.

So amusing though your social analysis, such as it is, has been, and much as I can see you fitting right in in the Daily Mail, I'm going to have to say, if you go around spouting that kind of outdated nonsense, you will do damage.

I think PST is practising for a newspaper column/blog called 'Debretts come to life' or similar.

PathanKhansWoman, hello!! Was just thinking that I hadn't heard from you for ages. Sorry if illusions have been shattered. If it helps, I was hamming up the fried-chicken emporium for comedy effect ? it's not actually on my street, it's round the corner with the Costcutter.

Ahh thats better, i suppose you gaze at the plebs, from the comfort of the 'big hice' .

That's it in a nutshell!

Some of the comments you have made i could imagine being said my my MIL who is a terrible snob. The interesting thing is that she thinks that Surrey is terribly provincial

Posh Spoken Twat Threadstarter?

LadyClarice - I very much doubt that Debretts would wish to be associated with the views expressed by PST

It was a flippant comment ... sorry if I'm inaccurate. I just meant Debretts as shorthand for, you know, old-fashioned posh.

I have read thread assuming PST is being funny.

Was I ? Surely not!

trying to be funny, that is.

Try a search of his/her posting history, Elibean ...

having done that, BecauseImworthit, I now guess it is a spokeswoman for Surrey Council!

I first thought it was...ehm...a poster previously known as L.......

PST stands for 'none of your business', and I stand by Surrey. None of the other Home Counties can compete against Surrey and the quality of its residents. Of course the accents will be largely in Received Pronunciation--as if there's something wrong with that. If that's just too 'posh' for some of you then you're welcome to remain in your drab lower middle-class dormitory towns in Kent and Essex.

Could it stand for "Promote Surrey to tourists"? You do seem rather obsessed.

My bruvva is a history professor at a very good uni. He hasn't got a pot to pissin. Also from a family from the proper east end. Very poor. Hence my mums emphasis on education. She's a proper cockney with the best clipped 1950's accent when required.

Intelligent, interesting and funny people will transcend an accent.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just trying to establish a fact to another bonehead who didn't grasp the concept of class from a British perspective. I explained, it wasn't necessarily about income or material possesions, it was more about family background, occupation and level of education. Trust me, I thoroughly comprehend that over the last 20-30 years in this country, higher education has become far more democratised; thus, more and more working-class people have entered the higher level professionslike academiawhich were once the domain of the aristocracy and upper-middle-class. Your brother being one such example.

Not had time to search, but PST your posts do make me giggle, intended or not.

My Dad grew up in Surrey and loved it (for its countryside rather than its accents). Personally, I wouldn't want to live there - considered it once, but no.