> !!!!!

Thanks for the welcome Mz J smile

Luke, I opened this page with my wife looking over my shoulder - she said somtin' like "hm... tell Jackie I send my love too!" smile

Farbeit for me to return to the topic an' all, but. Here's my take on RP for whatever it's not worth.

An Open University text I have references John Walker’s Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language of 1791 and AJ Ellis’ On early English Pronunciation, 1869-1889 as early uses of this description but even more pointed is JC Wells’ citation of Daniel Jones* as the "great describer and codifier of the Received Pronunciation of English" in the 1890s.

Whatever its precise origins the term “received” seems to have (heh) been generally received to mean “the form of speech generally accepted by Society”. Note my use of the capital S: in my lex this term has always been freighted with social connotations that many parallel linguistic terms in other countries are not burdened with, such as for example General American or Standard Dutch or whatever. Wiki’s pretty good article (imho) quotes the phonetician Jack Windsor Lewis frequently who criticises the name "RP" as "invidious", a "ridiculously archaic, parochial and question-begging term" and opints out that American scholars find the term "quite curious". Beverley Collins and Inger Mees use the phrase "Non-Regional Pronunciation" for what is often otherwise called RP, and reserve the phrase "Received Pronunciation" for the "upper-class speech of the twentieth century".

What is objectively clear, whatever view is taken of the socio-cultural baggage train, is that RP is very narrowly used – Trudghill is widely quoted in his estimate that no more than 3% of the UK population use this form of lexical production, complete with stretched vowels, intrusive r’s and all the other phonological features also mentioned in wiki. He has an article that some of you may find interesting here.

There’s a good little discussion about the BBC’s relationship to RP, with some interesting quotes from BBC Pronunciation Unit personnel and so on here.


* Wells JC, 1982 Accents of English - An Introduction Cambridge University Press

PS I totally concur with the 'plums in the mouth' description as indicating an early 20th centrury upper class English accent.