The nanny state again

[Bypassblade]

There's nothing wrong with a regional accent, you can still speak properly and eloquently using one. There's nothing wrong with regional dialect either. It's all part of a rich linguistic heritage.

 

Most people will have a range of language styles - the language you use in the pub with your mates, the language you use with your elderly relatives, the language you use in a job interview, or when giving a professional presentation.

 

Most people know when to use the appropriate style, and switch subconsciously between them, whilst retaining their natural regional accent.

 

It's when people don't recognise that certain styles are inappropriate to certain situations that they come unstuck.

 

Spot on Olive

[Mecky]

In your haste to make that most excellent point you neglected to follow up on this story. It's nothing to do with the government [LINK].

 

Amazingly (to a statist like yourself) things do happen without the government becoming involved.

 

Oh, and in the spirit of what Carol Walker is trying to achieve.

 

 

 

Keep trying old bean, one day you may get the better of me.

 

or so you thought

 

---------- Post added 08-02-2013 at 18:07 ----------

 

Of course, if it is the government interfering, this will be a policy enforced across all the schools in that region. But it isn't is it?

 

Why will it?

[LeMaquis]

Why will it?

 

Because you said yourself that it was government policy. If it were, then all schools would have to implement it. But it isn't, as people have shown.

 

Have you heard the saying about when in a hole, stop digging?

[aliceBB]

Do you always speak in riddles ?

 

No. Do you always assume something is a 'riddle' if you are unfamiliar with the vocabulary being used?

 

Translation (just for you) of what I said:

 

It's unhelpful, when discussing language use, to refer to people speaking 'correctly' or 'properly'. It's unhelpful because it implies there is a right and a wrong way to speak regardless of context (situation). There isn't.

 

There are situations (e.g. a formal job interview) when it is appropriate/useful/in your interests to speak standard English, and there are other situations when to do so would sound very stuffy and formal. In those situations (e.g. down the pub with your mates), it's fine to speak using regional dialect rather than standard English. In fact, there are many contexts where you would be considered socially a bit odd if you didn't.