We are apt, in this island, to believe that nothing
can be dangerous which makes us smile. There is, for instance, that facile and meaningless phrase "The Oxford Accent." Were this expression only used to deride a particular intonation ex- pressive of social superiority, were it confined to the Dundreary drawl, then I should welcome it as calculated to drive from our language a particularly offensive affectation. But the point is that it is not so confined. It is applied to the educated accent as such. The B.B.C. announcers, for instance, seem to me to speak excellent standard English, nor do I detect in their soothing inflexions the slightest desire either to humiliate or to pose. Yet the very fact that they pronounce our language in an educated manner arouses feel- ings of disquiet (disguised as merriment), among those who do not possess this accent. The Scots, I am glad to feel, suffer from no such inhibitions; it is only the half-educated English who become annoyed.
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