Received Pronunciation

[BigJon@Work]

Received Pronunciation

I’ve only recently learned of the concept of Received Pronunciation. What I heard over the BBC airwaves, I assumed to be a London area accent. Instead, I’ve learned, it is a construct having to with education and understandability. I’ve been poking around the web for information and examples, but what I usually find is academic papers and this site: http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/index.html. But the links won’t stream for me.

Can any of our UK subjects (and former subjects) enlighten me on this topic? Sound bites would be appreciated too.

[dai bread]

I got a 404 error when I tried this link.

I can't tell you much about received pronunciation. It's generally considered here to be a relic of the days when Britain was Home, and the BBC was the fount of all wisdom. We listened to its news bulletins through a background of static picked up as the radio waves bounced halfway around the world, so if we'd placed much reliance on what we heard as a basis for our accent it would have come out quite oddly.

Some would say it has anyway. Apparently the U.S. judges of your spelling bee contest had great trouble with the accent of the sole competitor from NZ, and Aussies have been rubbishing us for years. They say "feesh & cheeps" according to us, and according to them we say "fush & chups". Or, to quote a piece of graffiti in Sydney: "Australia sux", to which someone replied :"NZ nil".