Is anyone else disappointed by declining standards in spoken English in Britain?

EDIT: However I do think you could have picked a better example to complain about. I haven't noticed it very much with the BBC and I've never had a problem understanding Naomi Grimley - the examples you pointed out are more examples of the effect of accent rather than the irritating trend many young people have of cutting out words, making up their own words (WTF is a bredrin?) and so on.

pfft. my grandma brings all the boys to the yard.

And if your mother hadn't acquired that trait, you wouldn't have been born.



Bye.

The ancient "their they're there" debate never ceases to amaze me.... People, it's not hard!
Also people who can't tell the difference between "could of" and "could have" and the difference between "less" and "fewer". I was in a supermarket the other day and they'd managed to use less in place of fewer on a rather large sign. Nice one!

Dear OP,

Phonological differences occur, deal with. Secondly I'd be much more worried over syntax if I were you.

" Is anyone else disappointed by declining standards in spoken English in Britain?"

Really ought to be declining standard (note singular) of spoken English etc. (note genitive construction).

Your usage of the plural and a locative construction is the kind of colloquialism you apparently detest, no?

You're not a linguist, you're not the arbiter of the English tongue.

Shocking.

anunciation

That's another thing, "your language" the language is spoken by several million people, what gives you the right to arbitrate? On what criteria? solely on what you feel is correct? Your title already demonstrates your poor grasp of the tongue, your following posts serve only to reinforce this perception.

Yes, by you're own admission you're not a linguist, what then gives you the balls to be so damn sure? And why, by the Queen's hairy ball sack, do you honestly think being 27 when coming across as a self important pseudo-intellectual uninformed brat is a good thing?

Feel free to re-iterate your nonsense, strewn with poorly spelled Italicisms, misc speak like "Problem?" and ample use of the Borat emoticon once more.

P.S: If I annoy you that much, feel free to write a letter about it.

I do love how OP avoided this

Help help they're speaking differently from me! Ban this sick filth!

Also the video you linked was perfectly legible and I had no trouble understanding what she was saying.

My God. I think you need to take a little more of a sympathetic approach, and if that is too much for you: at least try not to make sweeping generalisations. =/

It's bad enough hardly hearing an English word on a trip through parts of your home city (London), or, when you do hear it, it's spoken in "this language which is wholly false, which is this jamaican patois that's been intruded in England. This is why so many of us have this sense of literally a foreign country" (Starkey, 2011). Hearing it start to 'intrude' on the BBC is, for me, still more disquieting..

Here is a letter of complaint I've just sent to them:

Having once been a bastion for proper English it seems that the BBC is now so keen to demonstrate diversity that it actually risks contributing to the decline in standards in spoken English in the 21st century.

I was watching the BBC Weekend News, the national news mind, and was disappointed to hear the reporter, Naomi Grimley, pronouncing several words as one might expect a slang-speaking South London schoolgirl to:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17720269

The words: “Independent” and “effect” end in a ‘T’, “Labour” is not pronounced ‘LAYBA’, and “ever” is not pronounced ‘EVA’.

This sort of thing is not congruent with the rich and exemplary tradition of the BBC in this domain, and I think that (news) program producers need to take a view on this. Positive discrimination/equal opportunity are all well and good, but the number one priority must surely be high standards and a high quality of service?

Does anyone else agree that this sort of thing is a shame/concerning, or is this fundamentally unimportant in modern Britain?

Where do we draw the line between comedy RP newsreader accents of the early 20th century and having people who wouldn't sound out of place in Kidulthood reading the news?

(would be handy to state your own standard of English/cultural background in posting, for context e.g. my spoken English is decent and I'm from a white, middle class/suburban North London background)

You'll be pleased to hear that I'm composing a stern missive to TSR's editorial body as we speak.

Language standards change over time.

Such change is labelled as a 'decline' because some people have a vested interest in the continuation of earlier standards. For example f one has a prestige dialect then one's interests are served by defending perceptions of that dialect.