Accent is on the Queen's English

7:00pm Tuesday 29th July 2008

Comments (3)   Have your say »

OH, I say, how fraightfully amusing. According to a survey one has just read, there is a spiffing new fad called Accent Envy and the person British people most want to sound like is The Queen.

You what?

Just who exactly did they question in this poll? The Windsor chapter of the Women's Institute? Members of the Brian Sewell Appreciation Society?

One thing's for sure, it certainly wasn't a bunch of Bournemouth clubbers or Toxteth teenagers.

Yet, while these findings may initially seem bizarre, they begin to make some sense when the survey - which, it must be said, was carried out by a company that flogs voice technology gadgetry - explains that most of the 2,000 people questioned simply hated the sound of their own voices, oh, and other peoples' if they happen to be Brummy or Scouse, and longed to talk posh.

Which, ideally, meant sounding like her Maj, or, wait for this, those famous faux toffs, Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant.

So, posh is the new black and where once regional accents were celebrated and encouraged, apparently they are now falling out of favour as people yearn to be perceived as more sophisticated, educated and, well, rich.

Failing that, they say the next best thing would be to have an Irish lilt or a Scottish accent (couldn't agree more, Jimmy), though one assumes they were thinking more Kirsty Young than Rab C Nesbitt.

And sure enough, when it comes to who actually does like the sound of their own voice, the Scots, Geordies and Welsh take the podium positions.

According to a spokesman for the company: "Accents are intricately tied into our own sense of identity. It is interesting that those with distinct cultural or class identities are more satisfied with the way they speak, and it is precisely those accents that the rest of us want to acquire."

Sadly this all points to the eventual demise of the wonderful diversity of regional dialects, and, while some of the crueller among us may point to the Bristol burr and say that's no great loss, it would, surely, be a tragedy.

So let's embrace our differences. Let's clispe them and be fess about our roots and vall to do zummat about; let's end al's nonsense and wag the old Darzet dialect out of the county's inns and bring it hwome to the streets again.

Imagine how much more colourful and pleasant the scenes on a Saturday night in our town centres would be if the usual band of revellers went about shouting out immortal lines such as: "Please car' me to the nearest backhouse as I've got a bit drinky on a nitch-load of furmety, and oive got bandylags and moi tummy feels like a pile of nettlens." (Or, in Queen-speak: "Please carry me to the nearest toilet my good man as I appear to have gotten rather drunk on too much of the local tipple which has resulted in a severe case of crooked legs and my tummy feels like a pig's innards).