14 DAY TRIAL // Several linguistics students at the University of Manchester can now be held accountable for causing quite a stir simply by drawing attention to the fact that, as the years went by, the Beckhams' way of uttering words in English has changed to a noteworthy extent.
Not to beat about the bush, it appears that both David and Victoria Beckham have switched from sounding a tad too working class to sounding “posher” than their roots would have allowed them to in the first place.
Following their taking the time to watch several YouTube videos of the couple, these linguistics students came to realize that Victoria Beckham has moved beyond her so-called Essex roots.
Thus, she no longer drops her Hs, she has bid Cockney vowel sounds their farewell and she is quite eager to pronounce the L at the end of words such as “all,” Sky News reports.
“Our analysis shows that Posh's speech is definitely getting posher because of changes to her L vocalisation,” student Naomi Proszynska said.
“In 1997, her speech resembled what we associate with the classic Essex girl. But by 2012, her speech no longer so strongly represented her Essex roots. We think this may be connected with the fact that she's forged a different career as a widely respected fashion designer,” Naomi Proszynska added.
David Beckham is no stranger to such changes in his manner of speaking either, meaning that he too has made the effort of switching to the standard English accent.
“It's clear that Becks, once a broader Cockney, nowadays speaks with more of a standard English accent. In fact, he's even hypercorrecting himself because he puts Hs into words when it's not really required.”
“In America, they use the 'H' sound more, which explains how he acquired it. But my guess is that his dropping of those Cockney sounding vowels was linked to his ambassadorial role for the Olympics and his subsequent high social status,” student Charles Boorman explained.
Unfortunately, these linguistics students were unable to say whether or not the Beckhams' changing their accent in order to sound “posher” had anything to do with their watching My Fair Lady one too many times.