Comments on: Okay Yah

By: sarah

sarah — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 14:48:14 +0000

to john
as a taylor’s hill girl i just want to ask you where are you from??
i just wanna defend my lovely school and road!!

By: Andie

Andie — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 19:33:24 +0000

In apartheid South Africa we used to be able to tell each other’s race from our accents. But nowdays we can shut our eyes and not know the difference. The country becoming a little US colony though, most middle-class and rich kids say like and wassup a lot, and the most important part is what kind of cell phone you talk on while you’re saying it.

By: Piers Morgan

Piers Morgan — Tue, 09 Dec 2003 14:20:23 +0000

Abart farkin’ time innit. Even I knew I edited the Mirror and I’m fick as shi…..

By: Riona

Riona — Fri, 05 Dec 2003 16:59:04 +0000

Does that weird Kennedy accent count, I wonder? Or is it entirely in a class of its own?

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Fri, 05 Dec 2003 15:26:26 +0000

The fine-grain of UK class distinctions is really what makes it so special, so that Orwell could without irony define himself as “lower-upper-middle class”. In a society where class is not precisely correlated with money, the signals used to spot intruders get more and more subtle.

By: Riona

Riona — Fri, 05 Dec 2003 12:57:05 +0000

Two observations:
When I moved to the States one of the things I liked was that I couldn’t detect class differences in accents, and so you didn’t make assumptions when you meet people (and everybody, myself included, does …)

I think class is important here in the States, but here class seems to be a function entirely of money – you make a lot of money, you move to middle class. In Britain and Ireland, you can be, say, a plumber who makes 120K a year but you are working class. The Americans, I think, don’t object to class distinctions per se as long as there is mobility between the classes.

By: Ger

Ger — Fri, 05 Dec 2003 06:10:21 +0000

Class warfare came to the Irish Senate, or Seanad, yesterday. The question of accent has come up between the protagonists in this debate before when Senator Ross put on the poor mouth to claim Senator Mansergh was the only Member with an oxbridge accent. He turned the tables during the debate on the budget to make the following point which is redolent of an enigmatic snobbery which cannot readily have been manifest to their peers.
——
Mr. Ross: Another small but highly significant matter is the tax allowance for membership of a trade union which rises from €130 to €200. Why is that?

Dr. Mansergh: Very good.

Mr. Ross: It is very good for Senator Mansergh who does not have to pay into a union and is never likely to be admitted to one because he is the only other public schoolboy

Dr. Mansergh: I am an Irish Farmers Association member.

Ms White: Do not spoil it now, say no more.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach: The Senator without interruption, although he is inviting trouble.

Mr. Ross: I must point out that Senator Mansergh is the only other public schoolboy in this House, a minor public school to boot, and he is welcome to that.

Dr. Mansergh: Does that disqualify me from being a union member?

–

Ross went to Rugby.

By: John

John — Thu, 04 Dec 2003 17:04:03 +0000

Hah…some of the the Irish have been obsessing about accents for quite a while, and not just the Dubs. In Limerick, you have the Ennis Rd. snobs, in Galway, the Taylor’s Hill gang and as for Cork poeple – they have snobbery down to the street level.

Naturally, the rest of us are perfect.

By: Ger

Ger — Thu, 04 Dec 2003 15:15:12 +0000

Many are the Micks who have draped themselves in the soothing purple raiment of a modulated RP accent. And it has stood to them. One is bound to feel ambiguous about the likes of chaps like the gentleman subject of the following obit. Apparently, the treatment the Christian Brothers charged with Patrick Cosgrave’s pastoral and educational care felt free to mete out in the absence of a father in his life turned him somewhat against the cultural experiment of the Irish republic.

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/obituaries/2001/0922/archive.01092200107.html

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Dec 2003 15:45:12 +0000

It is true here in the US that money (read: clothing and possessions) speaks louder than accent or grammar. Comes from the individualist, can-do, up-by-the bootstrap heritage in a capitalist context. That said, it is also true that there are some class associations with accents. The tricky part is that some of the interpretations are regional. What passes for a moneyed Texas drawl in Dallas would not be recognized by many in New York. And the uppercrust trimmings at Yale wouldn’t mean squat to those in Atlanta. Et cetera.