The Queen's English? Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'be -
Byline: FRANCIS WHEEN
PRINCESS Michael of Kent told an interviewer last year that the Queen is a gifted mimic who entertains her friends by putting on a cockney accent.
"She can be very funny."
Is the joke on Princess Michael?
What she took for mimicry may in fact be the monarch's normal voice, according to phonetics experts who have studied all the royal Christmas broadcasts from 1952. Half a century ago the Queen would say, "I em speaking to you from my own hame", but since then her vowel sounds have drifted eastwards towards the Thames estuary.
If she lived for another 30 years, by my calculations, she could moonlight as Janet …
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Publication information:
Article title: The Queen's English? Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'be -.
Contributors: Not available.
Newspaper title: The Evening Standard (London, England).
Publication date: December 5, 2006.
Page number: 12.
© Not available.
COPYRIGHT 2006 Gale Group.
This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.
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