Guru

Disciple Dave has emailed to alert Guru to this recent posting on graduate career site Here Comes The Boss.

It covers a story about people changing their accent in order to get a job or move up the career ladder. The Queen's English came out top in terms of being the easiest to understand and the most professional.

No surprise that the Liverpudlian, Mancunian and Midlands accents came out bottom. However, not one Irish person admitted to having changed their voice for either professional or personal reasons. Unbelievable isn't it? An Irish person in a professional situation... 

The implausably named David Crystal, professor of linguistics at the University of Bangor, said (presumably in a Welsh accent, boyo): "The survey shows that people have now learnt to use different accents and alter their speech, depending on the situations in which they find themselves, to their best advantage."

This brought to mind former England manager Steve McClaren's hilarious interview with Dutch TV - now a You Tube classic - where he attempts to adopt a native accent.

David Beckham has also been in on the act, in an interview with Italian TV following a recent AC Milan game. Strangely enough he starts sounding like Borat: "I score goal, make net flap, win win points for team."