XPost: alt.usage.english, alt.english.usage   
   From: nobody@home.com   
      
   In article ,   
   hayesstw@telkomsa.net says...   
   >   
   > Yes, I know Shaw specified that the accent of His Late Majesty King   
   > George V should be the norm, but how many people have access to   
   > recordings of his speech,   
      
     Shaw merely cited the king as an example, to illustrate   
   the accent, diction and pronunciation common to the   
   English ruling, upper and educated classes of the day.   
   Which everyone in Britain (and its colonies) would know   
   very well, without ever needing to have heard the king.   
      
    Phonetics, accent and social class in Britain was the   
   basis of Shaw's play Pygmalion (and many more recent TV   
   sitcoms).   
      
   > and would all schools using English as a   
   > medium of instruction force all pupils to speak like that?   
      
     In Britain, well within my lifetime, class accent   
   mattered so much that in the 1950's many schools actively   
   discouraged regional accents and promoted RP. In my   
   childhood in north England, school teachers constantly   
   corrected local accents. Out of school, many parents of my   
   generation were paying for their child's private   
   "elocution " lessons.   
      
   Janet   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)