A MAN’S accent has become so posh that it no longer sounds as if he is speaking the English language.
Julian Cook, who was born in Surrey, attended boarding school and now works for a London antiques auction house, has progressed beyond well-spoken to a dialect most people no longer recognise as English.
With the help of a translator, Cook said: “My mother always encouraged us to elongate our vowels as much as possible and not really move our mouths when we speak.
“For me, being almost incomprehensible is a sign of good breeding.”
While other posh people might occasionally slip in a ‘Diddy’ for ‘Daddy’ or say ‘baarth maart’ instead of ‘bath mat’, almost every word Cook says bears no resemblance to its written form.
He continued: “It also doesn’t help that my vocabulary is painfully obscure and I often can’t resist a foray into Latin when I’m doing something like buying a pint of milk at the corner shop.
“I’ve even encountered prejudice because people assume that I can’t possibly be English. Someone told me to go back to where I came from, which is a massive house in Richmond upon Thames.”
