Queens Speech Presenting

[renegadefm]

I've often wondered when did different accents take over in terms of media presenting on both television and radio?

 

If you watch or hear old radio or television footage, the presenters all spoke in a posh way, as I like to call it the Queens speech way. 

 

I'm not sure how or when this changed. My guess would be sometime in the 70's, when suddenly all the presenters seemed to have bold accents from all over the country. 

 

I'm from Cornwall, but I have to say I struggle to understand certain accents, and the broader the accent the worse it is for me to understand. 

 

Did presenters in the old days purposely have to speak poshly for the wider audience to understand? 

[pastafreak]

If was known as "the received pronunciation " and was meant to be understood worldwide. It wasn't posh...it was correct.

[renegadefm]

pastafreak, 

Its quite amazing really when you hear presenting from the 50's for example, it sounds over the top posh in comparison with today.

Ok not posh as you say, but it comes across as really posh. 

 

What decade would you say this changed? My guess is the 70's. 

[pastafreak]

Oh, I don't know. I've been here since 1989 and of course it seemed posh to me then.

[Atheist]

Listen to any recording from the fifties, and it sounds different from today, wherever the accent comes from. Voices change over time. (Also, bodies change. After the war, most people were rather gaunt and healthy, whereas nowadays everyone over 15 looks chubby).

[jourdain2]

Received pronunciation was made to sound 'posh'. But I feel that there is a real need for a commonality of understanding. 

I'm very happy that accents are now not a problem - but slovenly dialectical and slang speech has crept in and I'm glad to know that I'm not alone in struggling to follow some of it.  

We still need a national standard that everyone can use and understand.

Some presenters send me into screaming at  theTV or radio and the mispronunciations are appalling - these are people paid to speak!  e.g . controversy instead of  controversy. Drives me nuts and leads to misunderstandings.

A common language and understanding is essential to a country.  France is quite right in its insistance that everyone who lives there speaks French.

[renegadefm]

I think in the old days to be a presenter of any kind, you had to have a high standard of speech, so that its presentable to everyone listening. Also setting an example to a degree. 

 

 

[Atheist]

jourdain; all our English language newsreaders speak English. But there accents, of course, even in France.

[Atheist]

My experience of French media (apart from the local newspaper) is restricted to radio. One finds lovely easy-to-understand France Culture news, and then 'Smashy and Nicey' stuff on the local radio stations. I like them all, as it lets me hear the French as they speak, in all their varieties. None of them talk like what do the locals in our village, but that's another story.

[renegadefm]

I think to a certain degree, some accents are weakening. 

What I mean is in a county here like Cornwall, you used to be able to tell where someone lived by their accent, so basically there where even variations of accent from village to village.

 

Just as I am sure there are different degrees of accent in any part of the country.  But in my observation I know people who were born and breed in Cornwall, yet they don't have the Cornish accent. Its almost like they have purposely tried not to copy the accent. That in itself completely baffles me. 

I'm told I have a very strong Cornish accent, but with a Southern Irish twang in there, not sure how I got that, I'm not aware of it myself. 

[Atheist]

Wigan accent differed a lot from Bolton or other nearby towns.

[renegadefm]

Atheist, 

Yeah I'm not surprised. 

I really struggle to understand certain degrees of the Scottish accent. Theres a particular youngish comedian, I can think of his name now, but I can't make out a single word he says. Yet Billy Connolly I could understand him no problem.

 

Some Northern Irish presenters I can't understand either, yet Southern Irish I actually quite like and understand that well. 

 

People like Danny Dyer, lays his Cockney accent on with a trowel. I used to think he was putting it on, but over the years I've come to the conclusion thats really how he speaks. 

[Gill1941]

It's called the King's English what BBC presenters used to sound like.

I have no problem with most accents but bad diction is dreadful.

I came to Cornwall to the far west in 1958 and could not understand a lot that was said but nowadays Cornish people do not have such a strong accent. I suppose it's down to all the "incomers"!

[drmorgans]

 

You want to try Tipton in the Black Country, fast and impenetrable, even to their neighbours in Dudley.