“Accent”, the journalist AA Gill writes in The Angry Island: Hunting the English, “is the last redoubt of prejudice”. Depending on where you hail from, it’s a statement that will have varying degrees of truth. I know Londoners of a certain background who are unconvinced by the idea that how you sound can be a barrier to success. But I also know many people – myself included – who have two different accents: the one we grew up with and the one we use for “official business”. Like the gamekeeper Mellors from Lady Chatterley’s Lover, we find ourselves explaining the split to bemused friends after overheard phone calls home or a misplaced word (“tea” rather than “dinner” is my main culprit).
If you can use the same voice at work as you do with your parents without risking embarrassment in either situation, you enjoy a privilege many of us don’t share. You also probably spend less time thinking about your voice; indeed, you may think you don’t have an accent at all. In an otherwise excellent piece on James Blunt in the Independent, Sarah Perry notes her relative privilege by calling herself “largely accentless”. The line is undoubtedly well-meaning, but it is also a reminder that English culture still has a dominant accent – one so widespread it is often just thought of as “normal”.
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