We Are Not Amused: Victorian Views on Pronunciation as Told in the Pages of Punch

Hardback

Main Details

Title We Are Not Amused: Victorian Views on Pronunciation as Told in the Pages of Punch
Authors and Contributors      By (author) David Crystal
Physical Properties
Format:Hardback
Pages:96
Dimensions(mm): Height 210,Width 161
Category/GenreLanguage - history and general works
Slang and dialect humour
ISBN/Barcode 9781851244782
ClassificationsDewey:421.55
Audience
General
Illustrations 54 Illustrations, black and white

Publishing Details

Publisher Bodleian Library
Imprint Bodleian Library
Publication Date 13 October 2017
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

Pronunciation governs our regional and social identity more powerfully than any other aspect of spoken language. No wonder, then, that it has attracted most attention from satirists. In this intriguing book, David Crystal shows how our feelings about pronunciation today have their origins in the way our Victorian predecessors thought about the subject, as revealed in the pages of the satirical magazine, Punch. In the sixty years between its first issue in 1841 and the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, jokes about the fashions affecting English usage provide one of Punch's most fruitful veins of humour, from the dropped aitches of the Cockney accent to the upper-class habit of dropping the final 'g' (huntin' and fishin'). For We Are Not Amused, David Crystal has examined all the issues during the reign of Queen Victoria and brought together the cartoons and articles that poked fun at the subject of pronunciation, adding a commentary on the context of the times, explaining why people felt so strongly about accents, and identifying which accents were the main source of jokes. The collection brings to light a society where class distinction ruled, and where the way you pronounced a word was seen as a sometimes damning index of who you were and how you should be treated. It is a fascinating, provocative and highly entertaining insight into our on-going amusement at the subject of how we speak.

Author Biography

David Crystal is a writer, editor, lecturer, and broadcaster on language. His books include The Stories of English (2004), Wordsmiths and Warriors: The English-Language Tourist's Guide to Britain (with Hilary Crystal, 2013), The Oxford Dictionary of Original Shakespearean Pronunciation (2016) and The Story of Be: A Verb's-Eye View of the English Language (2017).