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  Peter Roach

The Queen's/King's English

25/9/2020

4 Comments

 
A recent edit of the Wikipedia article on Received Pronunciation added in as an alternative name "The Queen's/King's English". This has been removed by another editor on the grounds that no reference was given to establish that this term is really an alternative to "Received Pronunciation". I suspect that this may lead to a lengthy argument, but to me it is beyond question that the "Queen's/King's English" name refers to a set of grammatical, lexical and phonological characteristics of one variety of English, while "Received Pronunciation" is only concerned with phonetic and phonological characteristics of the standard accent. 

(Sept 26th) I am not surprised to see that the person who added the term "The Queen!s/King's English" has put it back in, with a reference. Not surprisingly, the reference is to the British Library web article that seems to have become the default reference on the subject of RP (apart from the Wikipdia article) and this is one of a number of ways in which the BL article seems to me unsatisfactory. I still believe that it is incorrect to say that the term "The Queen's/King's English" is an alternative name for RP.
4 Comments
Salah Essa
25/9/2020 08:10:02 pm

Dear professor,

To avoid this long name " TheQueen's/King's English", may I suggest an alternative naming; that is "The Royal English"

Reply
Peter
26/9/2020 09:51:44 am

Thank you. I don't think this new name would be generally accepted. The terms "The King's English" and "The Queen's English" have been in use for a long time.

Reply
Salah Essa
26/9/2020 10:19:59 am

Thank you for your reply! I am aware that these two names are being widely used and well spread for a long time, yet the reason beyond my suggestion was that to unify the two names as monarchy is changing in the UK and the throne is occupied by male/female monarch.

Reply
Sidney Wood link
4/10/2020 11:47:52 am

I've always understood that "the Kings/Queen's English" referred to grammar, following a prescriptive book on grammar and style published around 1900. S it refers to standard written English, rather than pronunciation. Whenever an RP speaker felt the need to rebuke me on my accent it was always "why don't you speak English? No majesty was ever invoked. The difference was a mere handful of phonemes, evidently enough to create an abyss.

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    A blog that discusses problems in Wikipedia's coverage of Phonetics

    Peter Roach

    Emeritus Professor of Phonetics,
    ​University of Reading, UK

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