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Old 15th Jun 2018, 9:39 pm   #21
MurphyNut
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Default Re: Cut glass 1930s RP female accent required!

Those Harry Enfield's Chummondley Warner spoofs can be found on youtube, they are so well done, they have me in stitches!
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Old 15th Jun 2018, 11:56 pm   #22
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Default Re: Cut glass 1930s RP female accent required!

There were also some ads for Mercury using the characters & made in the same style.
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Old 18th Jun 2018, 12:10 pm   #23
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Default Re: Cut glass 1930s RP female accent required!

There is a not_so_tentative_link joining Mercury Communications Ltd, NTL, and laterly Virgin Media, and they used to have a lady with several 1930s vintage plumbs in her gob doing the speaking clock. Whoever she was her voice was far more "severe" than either Pat Simmons or Jane Cain, so who was she?
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Old 19th Jun 2018, 5:13 am   #24
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Default Re: Cut glass 1930s RP female accent required!

Hello everybody.

I have had quite a bit of experience with "getting the message through" using radio and telephone communications. Both Australian Army and civilian State Emergency Service as well as being a workplace trainer in the mining industry.
An operator using the Received Pronunciation (RP) form of speech has far less requests for "say again" return messages.
I am not sure if it is my age or some other factor but I find it is an easy accent to listen to particularly as with advanced years my hearing has deteriorated to some extent.
I think the OPs thoughts on period charm are a good idea.
As has been said in previous posts I agree with the idea of seeking out amateur theatrical groups as your source for the ideal voice.

Shades of "Are You Being Served".

Just my 2d worth.

Cheers, Robert.
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Old 19th Jun 2018, 7:02 am   #25
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Default Re: Cut glass 1930s RP female accent required!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Junk Box Nick View Post

To be really up-to-date it is necessary to begin every sentence with 'So'.
Oh don't get me started on that! Some academics explaining things do it every sentence! I would expect them to know better!
Also everything is "basically" or "literally".

"So Basically I was literally waiting for a bus"... aargh!

You were just waiting for a bus!

One of the best cut glass accents I have heard was on the Dansette demo disc prompting you to buy their Broadcaster replacement "needles".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdBSoP8XpUc

Rich.
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Old 19th Jun 2018, 8:05 am   #26
Craig Sawyers
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Default Re: Cut glass 1930s RP female accent required!

So "so", so really irritates me.

Off topic, but it had be said. Mods delete as necessary.
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Old 19th Jun 2018, 10:15 am   #27
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Default Re: Cut glass 1930s RP female accent required!

I so agree Craig.
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Old 19th Jun 2018, 10:27 am   #28
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Default Re: Cut glass 1930s RP female accent required!

Surely one of the best recent examples of R.P., but not done ostentatiously, is the recently retired B.B.C. Radio 4 newsreader Charlotte Green .
She was an absolute delight to listen to.
Sadly missed, and replaced by people of a lower standard, who are no doubt considered more "modern" sounding. Tony.
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Old 19th Jun 2018, 10:37 am   #29
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Does she still do the football results?
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Old 19th Jun 2018, 11:07 am   #30
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Default Re: Cut glass 1930s RP female accent required!

Quote:
Originally Posted by slidertogrid View Post
Oh don't get me started on that! Some academics explaining things do it every sentence! I would expect them to know better!
Also everything is "basically" or "literally".

"So Basically I was literally waiting for a bus"... aargh!

You were just waiting for a bus!

Rich.
Verbal ticks I call them.

Don't forget 'like'!!!! How could we like, forget ... like, like.

Sentences starting with 'So' are to grab ones attention in a vain attempt to enthral you, difficult with a pedantic monolog! At least 'right' seems to have fallen out of favour.

Back on topic, a lady who occasionally pops into our local (quiet country pub) clearly went to a very good school with a good upbringing. Very eloquent, engaging and with a bit of pizazz! None of todays bluffing spliffora.

Mark
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Old 19th Jun 2018, 1:03 pm   #31
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Default Re: Cut glass 1930s RP female accent required!

One of my favourite fiction writers in Nevil Shute. I'm currently reading his novel 'Marazan': first published in 1926. In many places in the text, there are examples of phrases, exclamatory remarks, etc. that one no longer hears. Here are some examples:

"Man alive!"
"It's so frightfully good of you!"
"The devil of a fine position to be in".
"My neck had had a beastly wrench".
At one point, there is a reference to a 'morning-room'.
"I was most fearfully done".

And those extracts are between only page 1 and page 33 of a total of 224 pages!
All very quaint - but for me, there is no nostalgia. (Book dates from 1926: I'm not that old! ) However, I do suspect that there are some sections of the English population where such English can still be heard - but I don't have any contacts in that grouping. And such English will almost certainly be pronounced 'RP style'.

But just to conclude: it's an exciting novel to read: absolutely spiffing, ol' chap!

Al.
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Old 19th Jun 2018, 1:07 pm   #32
Skywave
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Arrow Re: Cut glass 1930s RP female accent required!

Quote:
Originally Posted by boxdoctor View Post
Surely one of the best recent examples of R.P., but not done ostentatiously, is the recently retired B.B.C. Radio 4 newsreader Charlotte Green.
She was an absolute delight to listen to.
Agreed - without any reservations.

Al.
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Old 19th Jun 2018, 1:11 pm   #33
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Default Re: Cut glass 1930s RP female accent required!

Technically, 'so' and its ilk, like 'um' and 'er' are disfluencies, believed by many experts to be a means of gaining thinking time without relinquishing the conversation.
Perhaps the increased pace of life in general, and of conversation in particular, have forced them to the beginning of sentences as well as the middle, as one has to jump in quickly or the opportunity is lost.
It can be (and used to be) countered by means of 'control', as the lady advised, but that's something which has rather gone out of fashion!
It's interesting to note the ubiquitous misuse of words such as 'amazing', which means 'maddening' - and indeed it is!

Last edited by dseymo1; 19th Jun 2018 at 1:26 pm.
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Old 19th Jun 2018, 2:50 pm   #34
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Default Re: Cut glass 1930s RP female accent required!

Quote:
Originally Posted by boxdoctor View Post
Surely one of the best recent examples of R.P., but not done ostentatiously, is the recently retired B.B.C. Radio 4 newsreader Charlotte Green .
She was an absolute delight to listen to.
Sadly missed, and replaced by people of a lower standard, who are no doubt considered more "modern" sounding. Tony.
In my opinion, another delight from further back was Patricia Hughes on Radio 3. As she is quoted saying at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21393374 :

"Reading the news isn't something that it is absolutely necessary for men to do... you don't have to have a deep voice to sound authoritative."

She was authoritative in a way the current wave of so-called 'empowered' female presenters would do well to emulate.

Steve
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Old 19th Jun 2018, 3:48 pm   #35
boxdoctor
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Default Re: Cut glass 1930s RP female accent required!

Quote:
"Reading the news isn't something that it is absolutely necessary for men to do... you don't have to have a deep voice to sound authoritative."
She was authoritative in a way the current wave of so-called 'empowered' female presenters would do well to emulate.
An American accent now seems to be considered a good indicator of "authoritativeness" by the B.B.C., it seems. Tony.
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Old 19th Jun 2018, 4:30 pm   #36
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Default Re: Cut glass 1930s RP female accent required!

As with having reporters standing out in the rain (snow, gale, etc.), it's the custom now to have the actual subjects talking rather than voiced by others. Not many have such clear speech though.
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Old 19th Jun 2018, 7:36 pm   #37
IvorBlister
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Default Re: Cut glass 1930s RP female accent required!

Reporters now appear to have to walk around as they speak, as do many news readers. Obviously it makes their reports that much clearer !!
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Old 19th Jun 2018, 8:17 pm   #38
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Default Re: Cut glass 1930s RP female accent required!

There are, perhaps, different flavours of RP?

There is that which simply has no trace of regional accent and doesn't use the 'flat a' of the north (and so is usually associated with 'the South') and then perhaps the more clipped version that the OP is looking for. I'm thinking here of Celia Johnson in 'Brief Encounter'. Revising my original thought, whoever the OPer gets to record, perhaps to obtain the effect required they need to ham it up a bit.

I have to confess that I have difficulty with some announcers/presenters on Radio 4 and Radio 5, in that I simply don't find them clear in enunciation. I'm not a great listener to Radio 5 but there's one presenter whose voice I find so difficult that I tune away immediately.

I've no objection to hearing a regional accent though it has to be said that some are easier on the ear than others. Wilfred Pickles broke the ground way back - a necessity for the BBC to sound nearer the people when the country was in difficult times. Irish brogue, and soft Scots and Welsh accents have long been acceptable, and possibly our greatest cricket commentator, John Arlott, had a marked Hampshire burr. Regional accents are now penetrating the hallowed ground of Radio 3.

The World Service went through a phase where its English broadcasts featured some fairly strong national accents. It seemed to me that this defeated the object as many listeners to the WS would not have English as a first language.

Advertisers have long known that different voices will lend authority a product or provide association with a particular strata of society that is their target audience. Consider the different accents - some quite strong - used in current radio commercials.
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Old 19th Jun 2018, 8:35 pm   #39
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Default Re: Cut glass 1930s RP female accent required!

I have a longstanding interest in RP and its gradual change in soc iety over time. As far back as 1943, the BBC was facing criticism for how its increacingly extreme RP was deviating from the 'Queen' s (King's?) English. See 'Thermion' on p411 of September 1943 Practical Wireless https://www.americanradiohistory.com...PW-1943-09.pdf

(I don't have RP, but can offer a decent grammatically correct version of Scots, forsaking the occasional redundant vowel in, eg. 'filum')
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Old 20th Jun 2018, 4:25 pm   #40
Graham G3ZVT
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Default Re: Cut glass 1930s RP female accent required!

Also the increasing use of a rising inflection where there is no question?

My Speech Therapist daughter tells me it's called HRT or High Rising Terminal. but another, deliciously cruel description I found was, "The Moronic Interrogative".
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