A short introduction to the book

Sue Townsend (b.1946) is best-known as the creator of the Adrian Mole diaries. The Queen and I is a satire on the Royal Family and an overview of British society. It describes how the members of the family would survive if the Monarchy were dissolved.

In the story a radical prime minister, Jack Barker, is chosen, and his first action is to force the Queen to abdicate. The whole Royal Family is then escorted to live in a humble suburb among working class people. The Royals have to do without their castles, horses and servants and get along with "unrefined" neighbours. Different social backround and different language cause problems. Some of the royals adapt themselves better to the situation than others: Prince Charles gets in trouble with the law; Prince Philip's mind starts to crack; and the Queen's dog becomes an inobedient mongrel. Some of the family members even change their speech patterns in order to fit into the environment.

On the language in the book

Language plays a key part in the book. It causes several hilarious misunderstandings between the Royals and ordinary people. The Royals speak extremely marked RP (=received pronunciation) while the working class families speak more or less sophisticated Cockney. So finding a common language is sometimes difficult. I shall now give an overview of both ways of speaking English and their distinctive features.

The speech of the Royals

1. the use of "one" as a formal subject

The Royals refer to themselves as "one". Here Prince Charles talks about the problems he has in choosing a surname: "Er, Diana and I haven't discussed it yet...er...on the one hand, one feels drawn to Mountbatten, but on the other, one also feels , er...well....er...". "One" is very formal, as if the Royals were afraid of using "I" or "we". Here we also see that Prince Charles in particular is prone to speak slowly and to consider his words carefully. That's why his speech abounds with the words "er" and "well".

2. Formal speech

The Royals's talk is extremely sophisticated and even spurious. Sentences like "I refuse to acknowledge its existence" are examples of this. The following conversation between the Queen and Prince Charles consists of sentences which in everyday use would seem overcomplete, especially among family members. C: The secret is one puts a fifty pence in the slot. Q: But I haven't got a fifty pence piece. C: Neither have I. Would Papa have one? Q: Why would Papa have one? C: Quite. William may have one in his piggy bank. Should I...er...go and..? Q: Yes. Tell him I'll pay him back. 1

3. Foreign terms

The Royals are very well educated and they use some foreign terms unknown to ordinary people. Here are some:

• mega vulgaris (Latin)= extremely unsophisticated (Latin: vulgus= folks,
• ordinary people) faux pas (French)= bad step, an act against expected
• social behaviour ( In the book Princess Diana is going to give her
• visitors money, which turns out to be a faux pas).

4. Pronunciation

The distinctive pronunciation of the Royals causes misunderstandings. Briefly:

• an axe: heard as an ix
• a house: heard as an arse
• a rat: heard as a ret

5 Obsolete vocabulary

The words the Royals use may have been dropped out of the speech of ordinary people or they may have found new meanings. In the following conversation a neighbour tells the Queen Mother he has been divorced from his wife.

The Queen Mother: "So you are a gay bachelor now?"

The man isn't pleased with the question. The Queen Mother's question meant if he led a merry life on his own. But the word "gay" isn't much used in the meaning of "happy" and its former connotation, homosexual, has become the dominant meaning, at least in spoken language.

The Queen mother also employs the auxiliary "shall" more often than usual nowadays. When referring to the future, people tend to use the verb "will" more and more often.

6. Expletives

The Royals are not very prone to use expletives. When they (usually Prince Philip) do use them, they are likely to say "bloody", a rather mild expletive. Interestingly, the working class families tend to say "bleedin'"instead of "bloody".

The speech of the neighbours

1 Special vocabulary

Some of the words and expressions appearing in the speech of the neighbours are confined to non-standard English. Here are some:

• bloke: a man
• quid: a pound. Plural is alike: fifty quid
• poofter: a homosexual
• to shag: to make love
• ta: thanks
• scrum: a fight
• to bonk: to make love
• loony: mad
• turd: excrement; stupid talk: Stop talking turd (vulgar).
• posho: a rich conceited person
• wee: to take a ~= to urinate
• to nip round: to drop by
• nowt: nothing: There is nowt= There is nothing
• cowin': lousy, disgusting: The cowin' police came.
• ain't: I ain't= I am not. I ain't got it= I haven't got it
• nick: prison
• crap: (adj) lousy: It was a crap day all round.
• mullarkey: a very stupid person
• Dunno: I don't know.
• No sweat: Don't worry!
• It's more than my job is worth. I won't do it because otherwise I'll lose my job.

2 The pronunciation

Cockney pronunciation doesn't follow RP pronunciation standards.. Among the most conspicious features there are the omission of "h", elision, and assimilation in words.

The omission of the letter "h" is the most notable feature in Cockney. "I ain't 'andin' it over to 'im" =I'm not handing it over to him. The letter "g" in the "ing"-forms of verbs is elided in speech.

The assimilation of words can be noticed in sentences like "Gerrin!" meaning "Get in" where two words are pronounced as a single unit.

3 Short sentences

When Prince Charles is sent to prison he is asked "Whatcha in for?" meaning " Why are you here? "Whatcha doin'" is for "What are you doing? Clauses can be short and the auxiliary "do" can be omitted: "Why they moved?". Both the auxiliary and the personal pronoun are sometimes left out: "Seen her somewhere."= I have seen her somewhere.

4 "Who" vrs "whom"

According to grammatical rules "who" is replaced by "whom" in front of a preposition: "With whom did you travel?" or, more commonly nowadays, "Who did you travel with?" This rule is not so clear to everyone as it used to be. Prince Charles actually embarrasses himself by saying " by whom" in front of his son. Other fathers say "by who", although it is not (yet) approved in standard English.

5 "Them" instead of "those"

"Them" can replace the pronoun "those" in plural forms. " Them blokes are nice" means " Those men are nice".

Summary

The book is enjoyable reading. The author wittily demonstrates that the Royals are humans after all. Some problems in British society, like deficient social security, are also dealt with. Still, the story doesn't lose its joyful touch.

Language is effectively employed in the book to describe the communication problems that people with the same mother tongue might have if they have grown up in a both linguistically and socially different environment. There is no point in arguing which way of speech is better, the non-standard way or the over-standardized. Every language has variations of lower or higher prestige which should all be entitled to exist. In practice it often happens that people moving to a different linguistic environment must adopt a new style of speech in order to avoid embarrassing situations, just the way Prince Charles and Princess Diana have done in the following conversation.

• D: You look fab, darling.
• C: Truly?
• D: Yeah, fabbo.
• C: D'you think Mommy will like it?( Charles' pony tail)
• D: Dunno. Your pa won't.

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Bibliography

1. Raija Hurme, Marita Pesonen, Olli Syväoja: Englanti-suomi suursanakirja
2. The Penguin English-English Dictionary/Englantilais-englantilainen suursanakirja
3. Sue Townsend: The Queen and I
4. George Yule: The Study of Language