dis2@houxm.UUCP (A.NESTOR) (08/08/84)
At Oxford in the early fifites, the British English speakers used
simple test to determine whether another person spoke Non-British
English. The person was asked to pronounce "Mary", "marry", and
"merry". If the three were not quite distinct, the person was
identified as Non-British no matter how British his or her accent
seemed.
Incidentally, there was then an important and invidious distinction
made by British English speakers in regard to whether one spoke U or
Non-U English. Nancy Mitford (definitely U since she is an Hon.) wrote
an amusing monograph on the subject. I have observed in subsequent
stays in England that the U and Non-U distinction has been replaced
by a BBC and Non-BBC distinction.
Until the middle seventies, many council schools had special classes
for children who spoke with socially undesirable accents (Cockney,
Tyneside, etc.) where they learned to speak a kind of generalised
London. I don't know if this continues.
Creighton Clarke
sdcsvax!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxl!houxm!dis2andrew@inmet.UUCP (08/21/84)
> At Oxford in the early fifties, the British English speakers used > simple test to determine whether another person spoke Non-British > English. The person was asked to pronounce "Mary", "marry", and > "merry". If the three were not quite distinct, the person was > identified as Non-British no matter how British his or her accent > seemed. Remember, though, that had it not been for us tacky, Non-British-English speaking Americans, the English would all be speaking German today! Andrew W. Rogers ...{harpo|ihnp4|ima|esquire}!inmet!andrew
malcolm@west44.UUCP (Malcolm Shute.) (08/28/84)
<<>> > Remember, though, that had it not been for us tacky, Non-British-English > speaking Americans, the English would all be speaking German today! It's not very relevant, but to paraphrase the B.B.C. comedy series "Not the Nine o' Clock News": 'The Americans feel so bad about being late for the previous two world wars, they are determined to be early for the next one.' :-)