The wargamers library

[grizzlymc]

Nothing wrong with an elongated vowel or two. I think those vowels of which the Baron speaks were declared national treasures and evacyted to an abandoned coal mine. Perhaps now might be a good time to bring them back.

[Shahbahraz]

Given that many people seem to struggle with consonants by dropping the h, and the g, and adding or subtracting r at random, the whole thing seems a little late.

In all seriousness, movies set in London often leave me wishing for subtitles, as the whole mumbled slang plus accent is incomprehensible.

[FreddBloggs]

You mean guy ritchie geezer speak!

[RMD]

Nothing wrong with an elongated vowel or two.

There is when they're spoken with a whine that rivals a pair of Rolls Royce Speys at max chat.

[Shahbahraz]

Well, you know the old joke.

How can you tell when a new plane load of Poms has arrived?

The captain turns the engines off but you can still hear the whine.

[FreddBloggs]

After Ponting and Smith, no longer applies.

[Shahbahraz]

There seems to be plenty of whine to go around.

[BaronVonWreckedoften]

In all seriousness, movies set in London often leave me wishing for subtitles, as the whole mumbled slang plus accent is incomprehensible.

There was a three-part BBC series called "Our World War", which consisted of dramatised versions of incidents from WW1. The first episode involved the first VC of the war, won by Lt Maurice Dease, who was killed at Nimy Bridge in August 1914. One of his men, Private Sidney Godley who was also awarded the VC, volunteered to cover the retreat of the survivors, survived a nasty head wound and was captured. After the war, he made a recording and it is astonishing how different his early 20th Century cockney (which was still alive in the early 1960s when I was a lad) is from the Estuary English/"East Enders" accent we associate with Londoners today.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p ... -first-day

The recording starts at 57:00.

[RMD]

Yes, I've often noticed how different the traditional 'Cockney' accent is on recordings from WW2. Old Man Steptoe always spoke with that accent in Steptoe & Son.

On a semi-related note, my dad and I were wandering around the Operation BLUECOAT museum in St Martin-des-Besaces and there was a BBC recording of the 53rd (Welsh) Division choir singing an impromptu concert in the field. As an experienced and accomplished Welsh chorister from his earliest days, my dad was completely blown away by it, as he'd never heard anything like it in over 60 years; 100 or so young men, all brought up in the Welsh chapel and choir tradition (like he was), rather than what you get now, which is a bunch of wheezy OAPs who only started singing after retirement, because they wanted something to do.

[BaronVonWreckedoften]

Old Man Steptoe always spoke with that accent in Steptoe & Son.

All the more impressive, given that Brambell was an Irishman! And (in the TV series) a WW1 vet, despite having only been born in 1912!

I don't know how you feel, but the loss the chapel and the grammar school really screwed up Welsh society, IMO.