Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83 based; site houxm.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!dis2 From: dis2@houxm.UUCP (A.NESTOR) Newsgroups: net.nlang Subject: Americanized and Biritshised English Message-ID: <823@houxm.UUCP> Date: Wed, 8-Aug-84 16:23:47 EDT Article-I.D.: houxm.823 Posted: Wed Aug 8 16:23:47 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 9-Aug-84 04:22:15 EDT Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ Lines: 21 At Oxford in the early fifites, the British English speakers used simple test to determine whether another person spoke Non-British English. The person was asked to pronounce "Mary", "marry", and "merry". If the three were not quite distinct, the person was identified as Non-British no matter how British his or her accent seemed. Incidentally, there was then an important and invidious distinction made by British English speakers in regard to whether one spoke U or Non-U English. Nancy Mitford (definitely U since she is an Hon.) wrote an amusing monograph on the subject. I have observed in subsequent stays in England that the U and Non-U distinction has been replaced by a BBC and Non-BBC distinction. Until the middle seventies, many council schools had special classes for children who spoke with socially undesirable accents (Cockney, Tyneside, etc.) where they learned to speak a kind of generalised London. I don't know if this continues. Creighton Clarke sdcsvax!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxl!houxm!dis2