Nevertheless, UR has a point. There is no Canadian equivalent of RP and more importantly, no general mindset of judging the other person's accent for class.

[QUOTE=bats;10998006]I think there is a posh way of speaking in Canada. /QUOTE]

Of course there is. It's with a British, RP accent.

Oh i think you are so wrong there. Not my experience at all.

It's interesting to me that this thread has touched on where "posh people" send their kids to school. I'd actually mostly agree with dbd, that there really aren't Canadian equivalents to Oxbridge. Maybe Queen's, maybe McGill, but posh Canadians study at, well, Oxford or Cambridge, or Harvard or Yale or Princeton.

But that raises the broader point. While there's not necessarily a "posh" accent in Canada (though I'm not sure I agree with this statement), there is definitely a set of linguistic clues to a speaker's background. Mostly, these are around choice of words, breadth of vocabulary, lack of swearing; and enunciation rather than pronunciation. Much of this is directly linked to education rather than social class per se, but of course there's an inextricable connection between the two.

I'm with bats. It's more seeking negatives in Canada, someone who speaks as well as say, me, sounds relatively posh here because I don't, like, duh, bimbo along, I can manage a sentence without a **** in it, I don't have the fractured syntax of someone new to speaking English and I don't have an accent recognisably from a region of Canada. However, placed next to a posh cradle I sound as much of a peasant as Rob Ford. In the political arena, I suggest Peter MacKay is posh (for someone raised abroad).

Poshness is more than an accent of course. It's education, vocabulary, grooming, manners, posture, facial expression. Many things can be learned and mimicked but it's hard to acquire the whole package. Should you want to do so.

with truthful answers (for the reason that I'm as common as muck) born & raised in an extremely rough council estate my score on the totally stupid quiz was 0%

I'll bet not many folks on BE would own up to 'not so posh' for the reason they'd all want to be the Mrs Bucket type or whatever else differentiates them from common folk.

I'm proud of my roots & would easily fit right back in after 46 years

Other way round, innit? People exaggerate the poverty and deprivation experienced during thier childhood. I, for example, have not disabused people of the mistaken impression that I grew up eating only the jelly from the eels.

mimicking ...... posh is more an accent" - well I never knew that

I could fake posh now (even speaking with the North West accent) far better than I could have 40 years ago. And BTW, being Uni educated does not make a person posh in most any of the points that you made ....

the fact that you know (had to do a google search) what was that - "jelly & eels" yoose must be posh

Wow. Someone who thinks knowing what jellied eels is is posh, was your Mum called Angela?

To loosely paraphrase Louis Hartz, posh people should be pitied not envied.

Clearly there are class differences in Canada, and speech variation is one identifier of differences. However the broader point is that Canadians don't generally seek to class differentiate with the same highly developed and reflexive skill that Brits do. This isn't to say none do, simply that is not prevalent.

Looking at the issue in reverse: in Britain, "poshness" tends not to be judged by house or car, despite there being a fairly standard correlation. There are exceptions to this notion (the county of Essex comes to mind - sorry Oink) but in general wealth is not measure. Same goes for accent in Canada.

Not that one, no. The one I had in mind was two blokes, one interviewing the other.

it's Mam not Mum. Only posh folks call their mother "Mum"