A number of years ago, when Doctor Who was first being revived, there were some stories that ran in the American press describing the basic concept and the latest iteration. One aspect that made a few stories was the fact that the Doctor was now a Cockney.
Except that of course he wasn't. The Doctor at that point was played by Christopher Eccleston using something approaching his natural accent. Eccleston is from Manchester, in the Northwest of England. "Cockney" is a dialect used in part of London, which is in the country's South.
The source of the confusion is the shaky conception Americans tend to have about British English. The presumption is that British/English people will be highly educated and upper class, or at least sound like they are. Needless to say this has little to do with either reality or with Britons' conception of themselves. And it leaves you short when you hear a British person who's clearly working class but doesn't fit the narrow definition you have of a working class Brit.
2 comments:
De soce o' de confusion is de shaky conception Yanks tend ter 'uv about british english. de presumption is dat british/english people wul be 'ighly educated and upper class, er at least sound like dee ay.
I found a website some while back called 'Whoohoo!' that offers to translate English into various British dialects. Unfortunately, there was no Mancuse on offer so I chose the Liverpool one instead. It's not all that accurate but it's hard to find written dialect translation programs - most of them are text to voice.
I tend to imagine I lived in England just a short while ago without consciously realizing it was the virtual Dark Ages. Back then it was a common assumption among the upper classes in London Old Etonian was the only acceptable manner of speech. The underwriters I worked for in the City had that attitude about accent defining class. The novelty of me being Canadian let them overlook the fact I didn't sound posh.
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Whoohoo! looks like a fun site. It also looks like it's in the early stages of development, regardless for how long it's been around. Not having a translation function for Manc dialect is a rather major oversight. I guess the Geordie might be considered close, but not that close. Still, you have to like a website that helps you speak like Ali G. Assuming they also help you stop speaking like Ali G, that is.
The sixties had to have been an exciting time to be in London. While the British had by that point lost a lot of their previous political power--i.e. the Empire was well on its way to dissolving--the country was more of a cultural heavyweight than it had been in some time, particularly in the realm of pop culture. The emphasis on Old Etonian/BBC English was still a marker of the time, I guess. My understanding is that a lot of people from humble backgrounds gamed the system by taking classes in it.
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