or Let's all Agree to say Marjarlne
"The word 'vegetables '. I am afraid I must side with the lower classes. Four syllables, please. None of the dictionaries give an alternative version with three."
(BBC Internal Memo)

In 1926 the British Broadcasting Company (as it then was) decided to set up an Advisory Committee on Spoken English. For 13 years its distinguished members deliberated on problems of pronunciation. Their recommendations were primarily to give guidance to announcers, but they were also published and widely reported., Drawing on the BBC's written archives Paul Ferris charts the progress of the most concerted effort in the history of the language to regulate the way we speak it.

With Allan McClelland as Bernard Shaw
and MICHAEL TUDOR BARNES, TIMOTHY BATESON, WALTER HALL, BRIAN HEWLETT , FRASER KERR, HENRY KNOWLES, PENELOPE REYNOLDS, ANNE ROSENFELD and MANNING WILSON
Consultant HAZEL Wright Producer ALAN HAYDOCK