1) I am most comfortable with the speech I learned as a child. Since my parents were not native English speakers, I learned "book English" leavened with their considerable experience with English in the US and Canada. I generally have no problem producing upper class vocabulary and grammar, though accent is a little tricky in the US.
I just recognize this is a quirk of my upbringing that is very convenient for me. Other people learned different speech as children that blended into their families and communities. I agree that there is no god-given (or natural) "right" way to speak. Language is what it is.
2) The middle classes may hew to the line most strongly, but the English they push for is what they perceive as "upper class" English, and the English they try to stamp out is mostly "lower class" English--whatever "lower class" happens to mean in this context. In the US it's often black or rural dialects (and probably Spanish-influenced English as well, though I haven't observed this in person.)
3) The introduction of mass media has done a lot to standardize usage and pronunciation. I'm not quite sure it has increased the pressure on people to "talk right" though. You could argue it makes it easier to "talk right" since there are plenty of models available at all hours to study.
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I just recognize this is a quirk of my upbringing that is very convenient for me. Other people learned different speech as children that blended into their families and communities. I agree that there is no god-given (or natural) "right" way to speak. Language is what it is.
2) The middle classes may hew to the line most strongly, but the English they push for is what they perceive as "upper class" English, and the English they try to stamp out is mostly "lower class" English--whatever "lower class" happens to mean in this context. In the US it's often black or rural dialects (and probably Spanish-influenced English as well, though I haven't observed this in person.)
3) The introduction of mass media has done a lot to standardize usage and pronunciation. I'm not quite sure it has increased the pressure on people to "talk right" though. You could argue it makes it easier to "talk right" since there are plenty of models available at all hours to study.