Is it important to speak Queen’s English any more?

Image of Queen Elizabeth II illustrating the Queen’s English and BBC accent spoken in Britain during the twentieth centuryQueen’s English. BBC English. Non-regional specific English. What on earth is that?

During the second World War (1939-1945), with men fighting overseas, women from across the UK took on new jobs outside the home, working in factories, on the land and in hospitals. These women worked together, they came from all sorts of backgrounds and they spoke with all sorts of accents.

Accents were more pronounced in those days, owing to less social mobility and the effects of mass media being restricted to firstly BBC radio, then television which began in 1932. The BBC was itself populated by broadcasters from the upper classes who spoke ‘Queen’s English’. People grew up speaking like their parents and their friends and accent was a great indicator of social class. As soon as you began to speak it was immediately obvious from your accent that you came from Norfolk, Kent or Manchester. Phonetics Professor Henry Higgins in George Bernard Shaw’s play ‘Pygmalion’ is able to locate Eliza Doolittle’s ‘despised’ Cockney accent immediately and accurately to Lisson Grove in London.

Strong accents can cause the listener to react to the speaker and the effect of the accent of the upper classes in 1940 was no exception.

During the second World War, The Honourable Nancy Mitford, debutante and socialite, was asked to deliver a series of lectures to trainee fire-watchers in London, but after the first lecture – she was sacked. Apparently Nancy’s upper-class vowels irritated her listeners so much that they wanted to her on the fire1.

However, Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth) spoke clearly to the nation during her first radio broadcast at the age of just fourteen in 1940, and her accent carries her social status in her young voice without a haughtiness often associated with the upper class.

Queen Elizabeth’s first television broadcast at Christmas 1957, allowed her heightened vowel sounds to be heard, with ‘often’ pronounced as ‘orfen’ and ‘lost’ as ‘lorst’. ‘Family’ was ‘fem’li’ and words with ‘a’ in them were longer as the original
/æ/ was pronounced in full. ‘Stand’ was ‘ste-and’; ‘grand’ was ‘gre-and’, for example.

Language and speech is an evolving phenomenon, however, and as the Queen has grown older, her accent has softened and her voice has lowered its pitch. It is still very clear and precise, however.

All around us, during the early decades of the 20th century, the exclusive broadcasting accents of those with an upper class, or BBC, accent were heard across the UK, both on radio and television. The owners of this accent were considered to be of a higher social status and well educated. They spoke ‘The Queen’s English’.

The sixties brought enormous change to the balance of power in the UK. Rock and Roll happened. Those with enormous artistic talent in music and fashion rocked the social balance and, as Melvyn Bragg observed in this era2, where energy goes, power follows. Scouse, Cockney and other regional accents flourished, breaking the old boundaries of wealth and class.

Since the last decades of the twentieth century, the BBC has actively recruited presenters and journalists from around the regions of the UK. John Cole, journalist, born in Belfast, reporting during the Thatcher era in the 1980s was a trusted voice to the people of the UK, according to BBC Director-General Tony Hall.

Still in the 80s, children were able to watch ITV’s ‘Biker Grove’ from Newcastle while their parents enjoyed ‘Auf Wiedersehen Pet’ about a team of builders working in Germany. They spoke with Cockney, Newcastle, Bristol, Liverpool and Birmingham accents and Cilla Black’s ‘Blind Date’ featured contestants from all over the UK. Today BBC Radio 4’s ‘The Archers’ characters represent just about every UK accent.

Colin Pillinger, the inspiring scientist behind Britain’s Beagle 2 Mars mission in the first decade of this century, spoke with a broad West County accent, which would have been unheard of coming from the mouth of a rocket scientist a couple of decades earlier. Yet Sir David Attenborough, born in 1926, still retains his Queen’s English accent and uses his remarkable voice to illuminate BBC documentaries such as Blue Planet 2.

Queen Elizabeth’s grandson, William, Duke of Cambridge, and his brother Harry speak an easy, relaxed upper class English. It still has the confidence and clarity of their grandmother, but is less ‘cut glass’ and more accessible, more in tune with modern Britain.

So the question is, does accent matter in modern Britain?

My thoughts are these:

  • Are you speaking clearly?
  • Are you clear about what you want to say?
  • Are you confident about what you are saying?

If the answer to these questions is yes – then that is the main objective of communication. The tone of your voice, the intonation, warmth, empathy, pitch and pace will come from your commitment and enthusiasm for your subject and these are hugely important qualities, more so than your accent.

Accents are becoming blurred from their origins. We live in a multicultural society where many people speak English as a second language, where English is often spoken with a strong foreign accent. With American Meghan Markle joining the Royal Family next year as she weds Prince Harry, the Queen’s English pronunciation is likely to change again. Always, however, the most important thing is to be understood and learning the rhythm and tune of the English language as well as the articulation is vital to your speech success.

The old Queen’s English or BBC English, still holds an elevated position for some and with it, the old upper-class social status. But with mass media and global travel the norm in the 21st century, many accents are becoming levelled out – and with it, the inability to pinpoint and make judgements about the speaker’s origin and class, which is probably a very good thing.

For more information about accents, get in touch.

  •  1 – The Mitford Girls by Mary S. Lovell (Little, Brown and Company 2001)
  •  2 – The Adventure of English, Melvyn Bragg (Hodder & Stoughton, 2003)

Voice Synergy – it’s all about clarity, confidence and impact