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Pedants' corner

Priti Patel and her dropped Gs

45 replies

AKeyFox · 11/05/2014 22:42

Always drops her Gs (speakin, learnin, feelin etc).

But has anyone noticed how she doesn't drop her Gs when she's angry or talking quickly ?

She's just been on Radio 4 and got slightly hot under the collar.
Forgot to drop about 4 in a row!!

Utterly hilarious.

OP posts:
notnowbernard · 11/05/2014 22:46

I don't know who she is

lucidlady · 11/05/2014 22:47

Who?

AKeyFox · 12/05/2014 13:52

Indeed lucidlady Grin

OP posts:
ohmymimi · 12/05/2014 23:29

I'm so glad it's not just me that has noticed the dropped Gs. I find her listenin' to her speakin' intensely irritatin'. So, is it an affectation then, if she loses it in anger? What programme was it, AKeyFox ?

ohmymimi · 12/05/2014 23:34

not and lucid She's a Tory MP.

bellathebluebell · 01/06/2015 07:17

Yes absolutely awful! Minister for Employment...

Seems unable to listen and answer questions either.

meglet · 01/06/2015 07:20

I can't stand listening to her.

prism · 01/06/2015 09:12

Gordon Bennett! Heard her on the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning and NOT ONE gerund or participle had its associated "g". Maybe this is the real difference between Labour and the Tories thses days- glottal stops or dropped "g"s.

senua · 01/06/2015 09:15

But has anyone noticed how she doesn't drop her Gs when she's angry or talking quickly?

No, I didn't spot that because I had stopped listening way before that because the dropped g was causing me such stress.

NanFlanders · 01/06/2015 09:16

Which part of the country is she from? I thought it was just me getting annoyed as I'm from the Black Country, and although dialect diverges from RP quite a lot, we NEVER drop our g's!

senua · 01/06/2015 09:21

Born in London. went to school in Watford, represents an Essex constituency. Says it all, really.

DaysAreWhereWeLive · 01/06/2015 09:26

I don't care about her dropped g, I was too busy rolling my eyes at the fact that she couldn't answer a question like a normal human bein'.

Greythorne · 01/06/2015 10:26

I heard her on the Today programme and was going to start a thread about her! She must be the most irritating politician in the UK. Not only a defender of the death penalty (despite not knowing how a deterrent works) but also the MP with the single most irritant speech pattern. Plus as a pp said, incapable of answering (understanding?) a sime question.

Who are the fuckwits who voted for her?

namechange0dq8 · 01/06/2015 10:35

So what point are you making? That she's dropping terminal consonants in order to sound like a huntin' shootin' fishin' member of the landed gentry, but forgets to do it under pressure and reverts to standard middle class British Asian (father's a Ugandan Asian, and her accent sounds very much like others I know of similar heritage)?

She's a bit of an idiot, and ticks so many "token" boxes (daughter of immigrant, daughter of shop-keeper) for the Tories that they would promote her even if she could barely do joined up writing. And the . But the accusation that she's pretending to be posh seems a bit much when there's so many other reasons to dislike her.

DadDadDad · 01/06/2015 10:38

Agree with days: speech patterns are a superficial issue compared with the inability to engage with the questions. I know politicians have the points they need to get across, but it just made her look stupid.

They made a big promise about childcare in the election because of a bit of a bidding war between parties, but the costs and practicalities are now coming home to roost, so they are using the usual trick of "we need to consult before we can make any decisions".

flowery · 01/06/2015 10:46

I drop a lot of my Gs. And Ts and some Hs as well. It's due to my accent which is largely influenced by the East London background of my family.

Fortunately most reasonably intelligent or half decent people do listen to what I say (and what most people say), without discounting it or stopping listening because of my accent.

Luckily they are the only people whose opinions I'm remotely bothered about, so it works pretty well.

Anyone who gets worked up about the quirks of an accent (which everyone has) clearly hasn't got enough going on in their lives. Must be exhausting for you being that judgmental.

flowery · 01/06/2015 10:55

"Born in London. went to school in Watford, represents an Essex constituency. Says it all, really."

Says what? What do those things say exactly senua?

prism · 01/06/2015 10:56

I don't think anyone here has anything against dropped 'g's per se, flowery, I certainly don't; it just that some politicians have completely implausible speech patterns which are obiously the result of bad efforts to sound like real people. Tony Blair studiouly added glottal stops to his speech, as did Ed Miliband, and to my ears Priti Patel sounds the way she does because she's desperate not to sound posh, not because she's trying to sound like someone out of a Wodehouse novel. It's the insincerity that grates, not the speech patterns themselves.

senua · 01/06/2015 10:56

That she's born and bred South East. What else?
You're sounding very defensive.

theowlwhowasafraidofthedark · 01/06/2015 10:56

You ladies are nasty nasty nasty

Greythorne · 01/06/2015 10:58

I have a strongish regional accent and am deeply defensive of accents. But I guess flowery you have not heard this woman speak? It is not a regional accent, it is a mish mash of a well-educated accent with a completely jarring dropping of final gs which is just odd. I don't mind any regional accents, but hers is odd and i would bet my life forced in some way.

Greythorne · 01/06/2015 11:02

Cross posted with prism. It's the peculiar nature of her accent that means she ends up as a subject on MN, not the fact that she has a SE accent.

Greythorne · 01/06/2015 11:04

She doesn't have any of the other SE / Thames Estuary accent characteristics.

When she said "Good mornin' John" to John Humphries this morning (mornin') I just cringed because she sounds soooooo fake.

flowery · 01/06/2015 12:04

"That she's born and bred South East. What else?
You're sounding very defensive."

Grin Ok then. Think we both know you wouldn't need the "says it all really" if you weren't being disparaging but whatever you say.

Yes I am sounding defensive because it irritates me when ignorant people are snobbish about some accents but not others.

Mind you, as I said before, those types of people aren't individuals whose opinions I value so I don't know why I'm bothering really. You're revealing far more about your own intelligence levels and personality than my accent does about mine, so I'll leave you to paint a picture of yourself for the world to see. Knock yourself out!

InstitutionCode · 01/06/2015 12:29

I don't think affecting a dropped g means she's pretending to be posh does it? More that she's pretending not to be posh.

FWIW, I live quite close to her constituency and her accent in that You Tube Clip sounds quite normal to me. The Grammar School kids tend to stand out because they don't speak that way however, and can usually form an argument slightly more articulately Grin