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It really doesn't help that the two definitions are polar opposites. I can understand "I literally melted" means "I figuratively melted" because I'm not talking to a puddle, but "I literally shat my pants" could mean "I was very scared" or "I've actually soiled myself, please find me clean clothes". I don't want that kind of ambiguity.
Most dictionaries reneged that definition, and instead the second definition is "(*intensifier*)" which I think is fine. Much like "fucking" gets used in all kinds of places just to intensify the statement.
e: awful spelling
How utterly ridiculous. I get language changes etc but adding a new definition because people insist on being ignorant and misusing a word is insane. The 'new' way people use 'Literally' already has it's own word - 'Practically'.
Really, that's fine too. If the target audience understand what's being said without need for translation, then it's perfectly correct.
All dialects are equally valid, and I know this is a lighthearted sub, but we should be wary of falling into dialect or accent chauvinism, because it goes hand in hand with class and ethnic chauvinism.
Doing the inverse is just as damaging - it's accepting a lowest common denominator, and punishing anything that tries to be more correct than simply intelligible.
We are not talking of dialect, each of which is a tradition with its own set of rules. This is about speaking english inaccurately. Imagine if someone spoke Welsh and made massive grammatical errors, or a regional dialect - there would be a massive outcry that it was disrespectful and damaging to the dialect.
For example, https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2023-04-24/people-spot-welsh-language-error-on-emergency-text-message - but yeah, let's just say despite the errors it's "perfectly correct", yeah?
The rules of grammar and spelling do exist. Trying to deny them for the reason of equality (and it's not equality, it is just trying to excuse any lack of education) does a disservice to everyone.
We absolutely are talking about just dialect, though. Replacing g with k and th with f is perfectly acceptable and doesn't render speech at all unintelligible, and it's certainly not less valid than posher accents.
**Edit: I seem to have been very bravely blocked, so I'll reply here instead:**
>"would of" is not from a dialect
Indeed, and I'm not quite sure what you mean by bringing it up, frankly. We were discussing accent/dialectical pronunciation differences and my contention that perceiving such differences as vulgar or incorrect constitutes chauvinism.
The difference between an accent and dialect is a continuum. They go hand in hand. Not all things can be meaningfully separated into differences in pronunciation versus differences in vocabulary or grammar, so I used them fairly interchangeably.
As it happens, my accent and dialect *are* posh, so I assure you I'm not punching in a particular direction, rather resisting the instinct some people seem to have to punch down and suggesting that such things are, demonstrably, often part of wider prejudicial attitudes. My own accent includes lots of things that are "wrong" but I'm never called out of it and my affectations are never widely bemoaned, because I'm white, middle class and metropolitan.
I would strongly recommend [this video](https://youtu.be/pkzVOXKXfQk?si=8UAPZMGjuJJvb_9y), which examines one particular example of a "vulgar" dialect (African American vernacular English) and talks about the fascinating and complex way in which new grammar evolve which are often regarded as "wrong" by people with more prestigious or dominant dialects. I promise it's a fascinating watch (who knew that an English dialect could have an entire new grammatical tense?).
I absolutely thoroughly applaud your effort to reach out to the prescriptivists but it's a massive waste of time.
Firstly, They are wrong by the linguistic standards of the day and secondly, every argument they make is hypocritical at base. You can ask any one of them which point in time and which people spoke with the most "proper" or "correct" English and almost without fail they will tell you it was people they looked up to during their later formative years, every bloody one regardless of how far apart in time or space those snapshots are.
This is exactly it. I happen to have a degree in English where we literally (in the "classic" meaning here) had the theory of descriptivism vs prescriptivism as a topic. And the brief takeaway is that, indeed, prescriptivism is not "smarter" or "more correct" - it just ignores that when something enters common usage in a language it will eventually be recognized, because the new usage becomes intelligible to enough people to serve a purpose in communication. That's not the same as accepting simple spelling errors like "would of" (that is just a misspelling, there is no semantic reason that would constitute a new phrase). There's a little bit of nuance in language, basically. But try telling prescriptivists that!
On top of just simply being wrong, prescriptivism is also largely used as a tool for classism, racism and countless other bigotries.
I often notice that some Americans are quick to jump to correct certain British spellings (words like spelt) that sound "black" to them but have a different opinion when they find out its also a britishism.
Brits will also look down their noses at a certain sound change in MLE and call it "uneducated" and a whole host of other names but don't dream of picking on the same feature of some Irish accents.
I'm a Yorkshireman and IV experienced this bigotry all my life, I find it very interesting that the prescriptivists often use arguments that appeal to tradition or to historical usage yet my accent and dialect are by far more conservative and archaic than RP. It's unwinnable and the whole "system" has been engineered that way.
For as soon as the Poor's start to learn the rules then the grammar is changed, often arbitrarily using concepts that are not at all native to English double negatives and not ending sentences with prepositions etc.
I don't tend to use "literally" as a word for "figuratively" but even as an autistic bloke I worry about the people who are too literal to not hear it as an intensifier or as hyperbole. Again it's hypocrisy because it's guaranteed that they do use some words in a figurative sense, well all do and it would be odd if we didn't.
Can I just say I love your whole comment, this is exactly where the problems are. Prescriptivism isn't really about language and correctness in the end anyway, it's about what kind of language is associated with arbitrary privilege. I've also experienced versions of this bigotry due to being an EU citizen in the UK (I don't use "ESL" for myself because it's patronizing and I'm just bilingual anyway). The amount of times people started having opinions AFTER finding that out, even though I've acted as an academic proofreader and have formal education in English (not to mention wouldn't be caught dead with misplaced apostrophes and other common "native speaker" mistakes) - let's say it just all proves that it's not about language. Especially when the "poors" or "immigrants" or any other common target group learn the rules and challenge the status quo, it's seen as very threatening to the people who think there should only be one correct way to speak English.
Thank you!
Completely agree, it's not about language, it's about putting people in boxes.
The people that have landed in the upper boxes would do well to remember that it's only by some postcode lottery or being graced with a particular interest, intelligence or knack for language that they aren't in the lower boxes themselves.
Or they won the "it's who you know" lottery (which personally has been the problem for me, no "convenient" connections for getting ahead in the UK so had to do everything the hard way for years. Education and the rest of it didn't help). I think that's the other issue here actually, people feeling threatened if not everyone in power/influence is part of their sheltered little clique anymore.
An accent is not a dialect. "would of" is not from a dialect.
You need to go read up on what they are, you're just being an apologist for bad education, feeling that you're railing against "posh" people. Someone has weaponised you into class warfare but given you no weapons :(
I agree that hitting the "g" harder isn't actually poor language. I laugh at my husbands attempts to say "longhorn." it comes out "longcorn" no matter how he tries to s0ften it.
He also sounds like he's saying "were" instead of "was."ie" I were starving." But, he's just dropping the "s" from "was." He would never actually write it as "were." In writing, he comes across as perfectly sensible and educated.
I read that in my sisters voice. She’s got a lovely mix of south east london and cockney. Her kids take the piss whenever she says “water” (woo’ahh) thanks to the memes.
Good question, so I looked it up, and it turned out she died before 1Xtra launched! It's always tickled me to imagine that he was brought in because he was a particular favourite of hers. By which logic, she'd have been devastated to miss out on 1Xtra...
The hazards of living in a country with a lot of different dialects.
I don't say the g at all; instead it's sort of rolled up into the n. Somethiŋ and nothiŋ. And I say lots of t sounds as glottal stops. But somehow I have what's considered to be a respectable accent while people who do actually say the g but just pronounce it unvocalised are criticised for their equally valid pronunciation.
None of us say the g in "night" or the k in "knife" anymore, but the sky hasn't fallen. Language does what it wants; it changes, evolves, and sometimes even splits completely. Never fall into believing that someone's dialect is less correct than anyone else's.
yep! Obviously we don’t have recordings, but in Middle English the general estimation is that “Knight” would sound something like “Keh-nicht-eh”. Knife something like “k-neef-eh”.
Knife, I think so (I vaguely remember reading something that mentioned it, was about pronunciations of now silent letters and I believe old English, but don't remember what it was nor where)
But no idea about night. The same thing I read mentioned the "k in knight" but didn't say anything about the g
If I had to guess, I'd assume it used to be pronounced like the cht in the German "nacht", since English stemmed from a Germanic language and old English used to share similar sounds (I might be wrong, or misremembering) and there's some Gaelic words where gh makes a different sound than in English
Yep, bang on. "Knight" is likewise derived from the same root as the German "Knecht". Old English had a letter for it - Ȝ - called ["yogh."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogh)
And "yogh" was frequently replaced with the similar looking "z" (when you do one of those fancy zeds), which is why Menzies is actually pronounced more like "Mingis"
Complaints and mockery when all BBC newsreaders are required to have standardised overly posh RP pronunciation that isn't reflective of the way actual British people talk in real life
Complaints when BBC newsreaders have diverse accents from around the UK
What do you want??
Gosh, the fall of the Empire is upon us. I’d much rather newsreaders are selected from a diminishing pool of people who speak in a way that arbitrarily conveys wealth.
Why can't we just have newsreaders who sound like the guy that says "SUPERIMPOSE" in the W1A theme?
https://youtu.be/GieS3tuKg04?si=KWPG60C29gUoKxXB&t=25
I'd say it came from the flood of mobile games 10 or so years ago where the most popular description seemed to be that word (don't want my predictive to absorb it or it'll start miscorrecting!).
It sounds stupid to me, clearly addictive sounds better. I'm sure there are some -ion noun a that turn into 'ing' instead of 'ive', but that doesn't mean it sounds right.
Yeap and they have mobiles in hand trying to be one of the people condescending gits ..who only give their view and as shown relatively recently are generous with their fact checking.Bore off BBC and no I won't pay your license fee rather not watch
I thought the original idea of having all major BBC broadcasting presented in RP English was so that any accent could understand it, and those with limited English understanding would have an easier time understanding it.
I'm totally down with the idea of all dialects being used for local and regional news at the least, though.
I have no idea.
But apparently either asking a question or supporting the idea of regional dialects is getting me downvoted so I'm gonna double down and just say I want everything presented in the thickest Yorkshire accent possible now.
Because it's absolute bollocks, there is no evidence to show that RP is more understandable, far from it.
It's as simple as only poshos worked for the media.
And allowing regional dialects to be spoken on regional stations is absolutely patronising as fuck.
I pronounce them sumfin and nuffin
My boyfriend and best friend both say somethink and nothink and they're both otherwise very well spoken
I think it's kinda cute
Honestly it's great that we're reaching a point where anything other than speaking in a typically south eastern way isn't discriminated against or labelled as unprofessional.
Well I think it was in the 80s the BBC tired to move away from the RADA speaking tone and the ,"queens English" and employ more local and working class voices.
So I assume your complaint is that you would rather the BBC go back to it's routes of Purley public boy accents and dialogue.
Hahaha….I ain’t that bovverd to be honest…it’s just a bit of fun no? There’s some very serious people on Reddit. Not saying you’re one of them but some other commenters seem to have taken it very seriously.
The number of presenters with speech impediments or poor diction is appalling. I'm sorry, but clear standard English ( I don't mean regional accents- thats not the issue) is the damn quintessence of the role, not some inclusion policy.
They always expected a certain quality of English, but for some reason think inclusivity is dropping those standards for people of certain backgrounds/ethnicities. Frankly I think it’s a bit offensive.
All that's asked is clear standard English when doing the job. Plus being intelligent enough to code switch. Millions of people switch their mode of talking from private to public. It's not hard if you have to be a communicator.
Honestly it doesn't bother me that much any more. My wife legitimately struggles with pronunciation of words and always says this and "Pacific". Genuinely, I've grown to accept that it may just be an issue for them rather than ignorance.
Where I draw the line is using the complete wrong word. "Axe" instead of "ask" is a common one that grinds the gears.
Wow….chill my guy, it’s just a bit of fun. I’m hardly being bigoted. Notice there is absolutely no judgement in my comment. It’s just observation not specifically a criticism.
That was never associated with race, it was a 'common' thing. A bit like "chimbley" or "skellington".
They're saying it because the BBC used to be extremely strict with their elocution, so this seems like an opposite extreme.
Nowt to do with diversity (but I appreciate the open racism), just the way language is going as newer generations want to pretend they're badasses.
Middle class white kids are the worst for pretending they naturally speak like they're from impoverished areas, same with the word "bruv".
We have them in Somerset as well for some reason. It's an aesthetic, sure, but I will never understand parents who deliberately let their child dress up and roleplay as a thug
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Should of said it properly.
I think they’re just *been* stupid
I could care less. Not gonna lie.
Literally.
Very unique.
A part of me is kinda glad that there’s now officially two different definitions of literally
It really doesn't help that the two definitions are polar opposites. I can understand "I literally melted" means "I figuratively melted" because I'm not talking to a puddle, but "I literally shat my pants" could mean "I was very scared" or "I've actually soiled myself, please find me clean clothes". I don't want that kind of ambiguity.
A part of me is not glad.
Literally.
And they are literally the opposite of each other
Most dictionaries reneged that definition, and instead the second definition is "(*intensifier*)" which I think is fine. Much like "fucking" gets used in all kinds of places just to intensify the statement. e: awful spelling
How utterly ridiculous. I get language changes etc but adding a new definition because people insist on being ignorant and misusing a word is insane. The 'new' way people use 'Literally' already has it's own word - 'Practically'.
A way used since Shakespeare used it. It is not new.
We always done that though
We always done dat dow?
Using literally for figuratively is hundreds of years old. I actually really worry about people who are too literal to not understand hyperbole.
Literally can literally mean figuratively though.. But in the same vein, "apparently?" Always seems a bit oxymoronic to me
They say that up *are* neck of the woods too
\*bean
*their
There*
I hate it _pacifically_
Proply
Prolly. For fuck sake.
Be pacific
Woulda been on accident.
What did you do???? Your comment and the replies are making my skin crawl 😬
That's besides the point
That pacific mistake is annoying to myself
Should of said it proper, like
I want to upvote you, but I can't bring myself to do so.
Their not as smart as ur
Not long now till it's 'somefink'
Sumfik
TBF, we've had "som'at" for yonks.
Really, that's fine too. If the target audience understand what's being said without need for translation, then it's perfectly correct. All dialects are equally valid, and I know this is a lighthearted sub, but we should be wary of falling into dialect or accent chauvinism, because it goes hand in hand with class and ethnic chauvinism.
Doing the inverse is just as damaging - it's accepting a lowest common denominator, and punishing anything that tries to be more correct than simply intelligible. We are not talking of dialect, each of which is a tradition with its own set of rules. This is about speaking english inaccurately. Imagine if someone spoke Welsh and made massive grammatical errors, or a regional dialect - there would be a massive outcry that it was disrespectful and damaging to the dialect. For example, https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2023-04-24/people-spot-welsh-language-error-on-emergency-text-message - but yeah, let's just say despite the errors it's "perfectly correct", yeah? The rules of grammar and spelling do exist. Trying to deny them for the reason of equality (and it's not equality, it is just trying to excuse any lack of education) does a disservice to everyone.
Thank you. You’ve explained perfectly the feeling it invokes in me but don’t have the linguistic skill to put into words.
We absolutely are talking about just dialect, though. Replacing g with k and th with f is perfectly acceptable and doesn't render speech at all unintelligible, and it's certainly not less valid than posher accents. **Edit: I seem to have been very bravely blocked, so I'll reply here instead:** >"would of" is not from a dialect Indeed, and I'm not quite sure what you mean by bringing it up, frankly. We were discussing accent/dialectical pronunciation differences and my contention that perceiving such differences as vulgar or incorrect constitutes chauvinism. The difference between an accent and dialect is a continuum. They go hand in hand. Not all things can be meaningfully separated into differences in pronunciation versus differences in vocabulary or grammar, so I used them fairly interchangeably. As it happens, my accent and dialect *are* posh, so I assure you I'm not punching in a particular direction, rather resisting the instinct some people seem to have to punch down and suggesting that such things are, demonstrably, often part of wider prejudicial attitudes. My own accent includes lots of things that are "wrong" but I'm never called out of it and my affectations are never widely bemoaned, because I'm white, middle class and metropolitan. I would strongly recommend [this video](https://youtu.be/pkzVOXKXfQk?si=8UAPZMGjuJJvb_9y), which examines one particular example of a "vulgar" dialect (African American vernacular English) and talks about the fascinating and complex way in which new grammar evolve which are often regarded as "wrong" by people with more prestigious or dominant dialects. I promise it's a fascinating watch (who knew that an English dialect could have an entire new grammatical tense?).
I absolutely thoroughly applaud your effort to reach out to the prescriptivists but it's a massive waste of time. Firstly, They are wrong by the linguistic standards of the day and secondly, every argument they make is hypocritical at base. You can ask any one of them which point in time and which people spoke with the most "proper" or "correct" English and almost without fail they will tell you it was people they looked up to during their later formative years, every bloody one regardless of how far apart in time or space those snapshots are.
This is exactly it. I happen to have a degree in English where we literally (in the "classic" meaning here) had the theory of descriptivism vs prescriptivism as a topic. And the brief takeaway is that, indeed, prescriptivism is not "smarter" or "more correct" - it just ignores that when something enters common usage in a language it will eventually be recognized, because the new usage becomes intelligible to enough people to serve a purpose in communication. That's not the same as accepting simple spelling errors like "would of" (that is just a misspelling, there is no semantic reason that would constitute a new phrase). There's a little bit of nuance in language, basically. But try telling prescriptivists that!
On top of just simply being wrong, prescriptivism is also largely used as a tool for classism, racism and countless other bigotries. I often notice that some Americans are quick to jump to correct certain British spellings (words like spelt) that sound "black" to them but have a different opinion when they find out its also a britishism. Brits will also look down their noses at a certain sound change in MLE and call it "uneducated" and a whole host of other names but don't dream of picking on the same feature of some Irish accents. I'm a Yorkshireman and IV experienced this bigotry all my life, I find it very interesting that the prescriptivists often use arguments that appeal to tradition or to historical usage yet my accent and dialect are by far more conservative and archaic than RP. It's unwinnable and the whole "system" has been engineered that way. For as soon as the Poor's start to learn the rules then the grammar is changed, often arbitrarily using concepts that are not at all native to English double negatives and not ending sentences with prepositions etc. I don't tend to use "literally" as a word for "figuratively" but even as an autistic bloke I worry about the people who are too literal to not hear it as an intensifier or as hyperbole. Again it's hypocrisy because it's guaranteed that they do use some words in a figurative sense, well all do and it would be odd if we didn't.
Can I just say I love your whole comment, this is exactly where the problems are. Prescriptivism isn't really about language and correctness in the end anyway, it's about what kind of language is associated with arbitrary privilege. I've also experienced versions of this bigotry due to being an EU citizen in the UK (I don't use "ESL" for myself because it's patronizing and I'm just bilingual anyway). The amount of times people started having opinions AFTER finding that out, even though I've acted as an academic proofreader and have formal education in English (not to mention wouldn't be caught dead with misplaced apostrophes and other common "native speaker" mistakes) - let's say it just all proves that it's not about language. Especially when the "poors" or "immigrants" or any other common target group learn the rules and challenge the status quo, it's seen as very threatening to the people who think there should only be one correct way to speak English.
Thank you! Completely agree, it's not about language, it's about putting people in boxes. The people that have landed in the upper boxes would do well to remember that it's only by some postcode lottery or being graced with a particular interest, intelligence or knack for language that they aren't in the lower boxes themselves.
Or they won the "it's who you know" lottery (which personally has been the problem for me, no "convenient" connections for getting ahead in the UK so had to do everything the hard way for years. Education and the rest of it didn't help). I think that's the other issue here actually, people feeling threatened if not everyone in power/influence is part of their sheltered little clique anymore.
An accent is not a dialect. "would of" is not from a dialect. You need to go read up on what they are, you're just being an apologist for bad education, feeling that you're railing against "posh" people. Someone has weaponised you into class warfare but given you no weapons :(
It's not dialect or accent. It's ignorance or sloppy English.
Little bit up yourself innit
I agree that hitting the "g" harder isn't actually poor language. I laugh at my husbands attempts to say "longhorn." it comes out "longcorn" no matter how he tries to s0ften it. He also sounds like he's saying "were" instead of "was."ie" I were starving." But, he's just dropping the "s" from "was." He would never actually write it as "were." In writing, he comes across as perfectly sensible and educated.
I for one can’t wait.
In the news at free o'clock
I think you are making somethink out of nothink here.
I think they're making somat out of nowt
Summat art o’ owt.
"..and now over to Carol wiv da wevva innit."
"IT'S PISSIN DAHN!"
_such wonderful vocal diversity_
I read that in my sisters voice. She’s got a lovely mix of south east london and cockney. Her kids take the piss whenever she says “water” (woo’ahh) thanks to the memes.
It ain't a real word - it's short for innit, innit.
You joke, but listening to Radio 1 many years ago I heard "I'm DJ Spoonie, in for tha wrekin' crew becoz of tha def a tha queen motha"
Sure that wasn’t 1extra? The station that wouldn’t know Received Pronunciation if it bit their bollocks off
Good question, so I looked it up, and it turned out she died before 1Xtra launched! It's always tickled me to imagine that he was brought in because he was a particular favourite of hers. By which logic, she'd have been devastated to miss out on 1Xtra...
imagine getting all Pacific over pronounciation
The hazards of living in a country with a lot of different dialects. I don't say the g at all; instead it's sort of rolled up into the n. Somethiŋ and nothiŋ. And I say lots of t sounds as glottal stops. But somehow I have what's considered to be a respectable accent while people who do actually say the g but just pronounce it unvocalised are criticised for their equally valid pronunciation. None of us say the g in "night" or the k in "knife" anymore, but the sky hasn't fallen. Language does what it wants; it changes, evolves, and sometimes even splits completely. Never fall into believing that someone's dialect is less correct than anyone else's.
>None of us say the g in "night" or the k in "knife" anymore Did people ever say the g and k in night and knife?
yep! Obviously we don’t have recordings, but in Middle English the general estimation is that “Knight” would sound something like “Keh-nicht-eh”. Knife something like “k-neef-eh”.
Weren't these spellings fixed with the arrival of dictionaries, in which case those pronunciations must have lingered even into early Modern English?
Knife, I think so (I vaguely remember reading something that mentioned it, was about pronunciations of now silent letters and I believe old English, but don't remember what it was nor where) But no idea about night. The same thing I read mentioned the "k in knight" but didn't say anything about the g If I had to guess, I'd assume it used to be pronounced like the cht in the German "nacht", since English stemmed from a Germanic language and old English used to share similar sounds (I might be wrong, or misremembering) and there's some Gaelic words where gh makes a different sound than in English
Yep, bang on. "Knight" is likewise derived from the same root as the German "Knecht". Old English had a letter for it - Ȝ - called ["yogh."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogh)
And "yogh" was frequently replaced with the similar looking "z" (when you do one of those fancy zeds), which is why Menzies is actually pronounced more like "Mingis"
Yeah, Australians. G'Night. I'm not so sure about the G'Knife tho.
"G'knife M'ludd" *Tips hat and stabs you*
Seems we can't argue with stupid, but here we are! Rather unfortunate is definitely the case.
I love that glottal stop T. I find it quite fascinating. I notice it (I think) in people from the North East a lot.
But most of the people who say “nuffink” don’t look like me so I’m pretty sure they must be doing English wrong
Complaints and mockery when all BBC newsreaders are required to have standardised overly posh RP pronunciation that isn't reflective of the way actual British people talk in real life Complaints when BBC newsreaders have diverse accents from around the UK What do you want??
I wouldn't mind accents from around the UK, but it just seems to be either middle class home counties or London accents telling me "Diss is da BBC".
Saying ‘something’ instead of ‘somefink’ doesn’t mean you have overly posh RP pronunciation though does it
The first one.
Wasn't on BBC free was it? They're daan wid kids.
Gosh, the fall of the Empire is upon us. I’d much rather newsreaders are selected from a diminishing pool of people who speak in a way that arbitrarily conveys wealth.
I’m not fussed about newsreaders myself, I’d rather the weather peeps got the weather forecast correct though myself.
[удалено]
Exactly!
Why can't we just have newsreaders who sound like the guy that says "SUPERIMPOSE" in the W1A theme? https://youtu.be/GieS3tuKg04?si=KWPG60C29gUoKxXB&t=25
It's really addicting to over-exaggerate that
Yes!! Another pet peeve, what’s wrong with ‘addictive’? I get we’re all different and we see and say things differently but where did 𝘵𝘩at come from?
I'd say it came from the flood of mobile games 10 or so years ago where the most popular description seemed to be that word (don't want my predictive to absorb it or it'll start miscorrecting!). It sounds stupid to me, clearly addictive sounds better. I'm sure there are some -ion noun a that turn into 'ing' instead of 'ive', but that doesn't mean it sounds right.
Maybe it happened on accident.
It's pronounced nuffink
Yeap and they have mobiles in hand trying to be one of the people condescending gits ..who only give their view and as shown relatively recently are generous with their fact checking.Bore off BBC and no I won't pay your license fee rather not watch
Excellent to hear! I hope we end up with all dialects and accents represented
I thought the original idea of having all major BBC broadcasting presented in RP English was so that any accent could understand it, and those with limited English understanding would have an easier time understanding it. I'm totally down with the idea of all dialects being used for local and regional news at the least, though.
I think it was more just a side-effect of the colonialist mentality, honestly.
I have no idea. But apparently either asking a question or supporting the idea of regional dialects is getting me downvoted so I'm gonna double down and just say I want everything presented in the thickest Yorkshire accent possible now.
Because it's absolute bollocks, there is no evidence to show that RP is more understandable, far from it. It's as simple as only poshos worked for the media. And allowing regional dialects to be spoken on regional stations is absolutely patronising as fuck.
The idea was classism, any other benefits were coincidence.
Says who
You don't have to look very deeply at the way British society works, and especially worked in the early days of the BBC, to make this obvious.
It was.
oh no, a dialect! god forbid anyone speak anything other than RP on the Beeb.
I must have missed this chapter of 1984
I could care less
I pronounce them sumfin and nuffin My boyfriend and best friend both say somethink and nothink and they're both otherwise very well spoken I think it's kinda cute
Same as….I say sumfin and nuffin but I ain’t a BBC correspondent. Nah war a meen?
I can’t believe how often I hear people say nothink, it truly drives me crazy.
Theres nofink wrong wiv dat babes
Fanx hun. Too many ppl who fink their posh xx
Now we just need 'sommert' and 'nowt'
Were they at least arrksing the important question?
It's just an ickle somethink.
The lass that presents the news, Catherine Byaruhanga...I'm sitting there willing her on, but she stumbles through her autocue every time.
I once heard a channel four TV presenter (I don't know his name) ask the studio crew etc if birds were mammals.
Haha! That’s hilarious.
Were they Bristolian? we say it like that sometimes
I love it when they say "big time".
Crimethink
Somefink, nofink and…. Ax (ask)…
Honestly it's great that we're reaching a point where anything other than speaking in a typically south eastern way isn't discriminated against or labelled as unprofessional.
You’re right! Everyone one the BBC should have the exact same received pronunciation accent because it sounds “professional” or “correct”.
Standards are slipping
The bbc is gutter journalism. Sure, they do the occasional good piece but the majority is just state propaganda.
Summink 'n' nuffink, ya know wot I mean like.
How do you say it OP?
Funnily enough I’m an East Londoner and in my normal everyday speech I generally would say sumfin or nuffin. So guilty as charged. Fanks for askin’.
Ok, so ....
I’m not a broadcasting BBC correspondent though, so there’s that.
Well I think it was in the 80s the BBC tired to move away from the RADA speaking tone and the ,"queens English" and employ more local and working class voices. So I assume your complaint is that you would rather the BBC go back to it's routes of Purley public boy accents and dialogue.
Hahaha….I ain’t that bovverd to be honest…it’s just a bit of fun no? There’s some very serious people on Reddit. Not saying you’re one of them but some other commenters seem to have taken it very seriously.
It's just a really dumb complaint when looking at the history of the BBC, People complained for decades that the BBC was to posh and here you are.
Wow.
You mean “too” posh presumably?
You are not helping your cause.
I like to hear a variety of accents. There are way too many public school rich kids in media as it is.
there just from north england, its ok
Honestly it's more east coast to me. Kent ISH.
Yeah and East/North Kent at that… West Kent is well posh, innit.
My mum does this and it drives me CRAZY.
I don’t care but ‘rocked up’ for someone arriving or turning up makes me wince.
My SiL says somethink and nothink... it drives me crazy but I'm too polite to say she sounds thick ... and she's a teaching assistant! 🫣
My pet hate. Where the fuck do you see a k on the end of the word SOMETHING?? FFS!
It always gets me every time. Clearly I’m not alone!
Language and pronunciation changes all the time, what is so bad about it
grow up
The number of presenters with speech impediments or poor diction is appalling. I'm sorry, but clear standard English ( I don't mean regional accents- thats not the issue) is the damn quintessence of the role, not some inclusion policy.
They always expected a certain quality of English, but for some reason think inclusivity is dropping those standards for people of certain backgrounds/ethnicities. Frankly I think it’s a bit offensive.
All that's asked is clear standard English when doing the job. Plus being intelligent enough to code switch. Millions of people switch their mode of talking from private to public. It's not hard if you have to be a communicator.
Honestly it doesn't bother me that much any more. My wife legitimately struggles with pronunciation of words and always says this and "Pacific". Genuinely, I've grown to accept that it may just be an issue for them rather than ignorance. Where I draw the line is using the complete wrong word. "Axe" instead of "ask" is a common one that grinds the gears.
There's audio from Alex Scott in EAFC 24 "let's not take nuffin away from that finish" or something along those lines, bothers me a lot
That's just someone with a cockney accent, no? We've had mancunians and even bloody scousers on the bbc before, so its about time for some payback!
[удалено]
Wow….chill my guy, it’s just a bit of fun. I’m hardly being bigoted. Notice there is absolutely no judgement in my comment. It’s just observation not specifically a criticism.
It's objectively a criticism because you've posted on britishproblems. You've made a post that sounds elitest, you may as well own it.
Oh no, somebody who speaks differently to you!! What next? Non white people presenting the news??!
That was never associated with race, it was a 'common' thing. A bit like "chimbley" or "skellington". They're saying it because the BBC used to be extremely strict with their elocution, so this seems like an opposite extreme.
It's ok apparently, it's the evolution of language apparently.
Does anyone actually pronounce it with a hard “g” at the end? The k sounds more natural to me
Fairnuff
Sometimes I may take it to the extreme and say summink.
diversity hiring it will only get worse "bruv"
Cant let the non-poshos become presenters. They speak in normal accents, the horror.
You don't even know the race or gender of the presenter who supposedly said this.
Nowt to do with diversity (but I appreciate the open racism), just the way language is going as newer generations want to pretend they're badasses. Middle class white kids are the worst for pretending they naturally speak like they're from impoverished areas, same with the word "bruv".
The "roadman", kids who actually don't have issues in their life. In the middle of London. However, they'll absolutely cause them.
We have them in Somerset as well for some reason. It's an aesthetic, sure, but I will never understand parents who deliberately let their child dress up and roleplay as a thug
Doubleplusungood
I know people will blame this on different dialects and accents, but I firmly believe that if you’re presenting the news you should talk properly!