England 7

Listen to England 7, a man who speaks with a Received Pronunciation dialect. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: N/A

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

PLACE OF BIRTH: N/A

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: white

OCCUPATION: archaeologist

EDUCATION: N/A

AREA(S) OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS: N/A

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject was recorded in Cairo, Egypt, but speaks Received Pronunciation and, in the recording, perfectly impersonates the lord of the manor.

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Krista Scott

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/11/1999

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

When I was 16 and I’d taken my school exams with a whole bunch others (that’s an American expression, isn’t it?), um, they didn’t know what to do with us for the last two weeks at the school, so they sent us all off on a local archaeological excavation for two weeks, and it was in June, and it was in England and it was pouring with rain, and we arrived at 9 o’clock on Monday morning on the estate of Sir Giles Isham, who was, ah, in his eighties, and he was the last of a long line of aristocracy that traced it’s, eh, his ancestry way, way back into the medieval period, and he lived in a building called Lamport Hall, and he wanted to extend his, ah, greenhouses, in his garden on his estate, but before he could do so, he had to have an excavation to get the planning permission because there’d been a skirmish there during the Civil War in the 17th century; so, so the local archaeological society arrived, and we all arrived one Monday morning, started taking off the turf … digging … and we’d been there about half an hour, must have been about half past 9 in the morning, and out of the rain came this gaunt figure wearing a long raincoat, waterproof hat and a long shooting stick, and stood there at the side of the trench, stabbed the ground, and said, “Found anything interesting yet? My word, damn fine show. Carry on chaps.”… Disappeared … After about two hours, the same figure came … striding down the lawns … still pelting with rain, stood at the side of the trench …, “Still here? Damn good show. Carry on chaps. My word. Found anything interesting? Absolutely riveting, what?” … Disappeared … A little while later, same figure arrived at the side of the trench; we were all standing there, up to our knees in mud, still pouring with rain, (must have been very dedicated at 16 years old). Didn’t say anything at all, just sort of walked around and stabbed the ground a bit more with his shooting stick, and then after a little while he said, “Is it 12?” So we all looked at our watches, and it was about twenty-five minutes to 12. “Fancy a stiff one?” None of us at 16 years old really knew what he meant. But, he disappeared again and then about half an hour later a butler wearing a raincoat and his carrying an umbrella, and a silver tray with six gins and tonics on it, came staggering down the lawn through the rain, and we all stood there in the trench drinking gins and tonics in the rain on the very first day of archeology in my life, and I’ve never looked back.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Tom Picasso

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

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