As most of us (including me) are not RP speakers it is tempting to overstate the unpopularity and demise of our 'standard' accent of English. This news story, found in both the Telegraph and the Mirror is a useful balance. The TomTom research seems to support what Howard Giles found about attitudes to accents.
Sadly for West-Midlanders, it seems the Birmingham accent is still bottom of the popularity polls, though now joined by the Liverpool accent, also disliked by 20% of the 2,000 adults surveyed. A Yorkshire accent was considered the most reassuring while the Scottish brogue was seen as the sexiest - but the hardest to understand. The Geordie accent was voted the best overall, the most friendly and the most fun to listen to. A TomTom spokesman said that with people more mobile than ever because of work and education, as well as high levels of immigration, it is not uncommon to hear a variety of accents in any one area. This could mean some regional accents are no longer deemed as distinctive as they once were, while 'posh' accents are no longer just seen as upper class.
With varieties of accents increasingly a norm in many localities, will we find the old stereotypes no longer hold? And will RP - however adapted - make a significant comeback? Let's look out for the next generation equivalents of Lumley and Paxman.
