Timeline for What style guide does the Queen use?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
21 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 30, 2015 at 4:35 | comment | added | Elliott Frisch | @WS2 Since you asked. The Elements of Style and AP Stylebook are the two I'm most familiar with. | |
| Jan 6, 2014 at 22:53 | comment | added | WS2 | @JanusBahsJacquet What exactly is a style guide? Is it one of those things that tells you when to sign off 'yours sincerely' or 'yours faithfully'. And how have I managed to survive all these years without ever having used one? | |
| Jan 6, 2014 at 22:13 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @WS2, impressed? Er, no, why should you be impressed by a mere mentioning? Oxford just happens to be the most prominent (though not the only) style guide in the UK that advocates -ize rather than -ise. Cambridge, where it all apparently happens, is as far as I know quite indifferent in the matter. And if by “modern academics” you mean the likes of Hart’s Rules (1904) and Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage, then sure, consider it limited to “modern academics”. They’re modern academics that were quite influential in British schools even before the Queen was born, though. | |
| Jan 6, 2014 at 19:40 | comment | added | WS2 | @tchrist A brief scan of that article reveals it all to be about pronunciation. There is nothing sensational about the fact that the Queen does not use the usual middle-class received pronunciation (RP). She uses an accent often known as 'Marked RP', which is used by a tiny minority, mostly those of gentry connection. In MRP, one pronounces, for example 'off' as though it were spelled 'awfe' and 'cloth' as 'clawthe'. Some, who have tried to convert to MRP have spectacularly come to grief. | |
| Jan 6, 2014 at 19:32 | comment | added | WS2 | @JanusBahsJacquet By the way am I meant to be impressed by your citing Oxford? Cambridge is where it all happens. | |
| Jan 6, 2014 at 19:24 | comment | added | WS2 | @JanusBahsJacquet It might be fashionable among some modern academics, but anyone who was taught English properly, like the Queen was, in the first half of the twentieth century wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. | |
| Jan 6, 2014 at 12:22 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @WS2, obviously not honor, that's confined to AmE; but -ize is almost as common in BrE as -ise, and several style guides (most prominently Oxford’s) require it. | |
| Jan 6, 2014 at 12:06 | comment | added | WS2 | @Mari-LouA Bearing in mind that she is 87 years old and has been on the throne for 62 years, I too would be a little bit surprised if she does not have help with her voluminous correspondence. As she pointed out at a dinner party at Buck House, attended by the then-current and two former American Presidents 'my job is not something you do simply for two four-year terms'. | |
| Jan 6, 2014 at 12:03 | comment | added | WS2 | @JanusBahsJacquet She certainly wouldn't spell things -ize as in realize, or -or as in honor or neighbor. She knows far better than that. | |
| Jan 6, 2014 at 9:06 | answer | added | Mari-Lou A | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jan 6, 2014 at 8:19 | comment | added | Mari-Lou A | Are you asking if Queen Elizabeth's official correspondence is proofread by anyone before being sent? Does she actually write any official documents herself? I doubt it. I think a department in the civil service, or a qualified civil servant might be involved somewhere here. | |
| Jan 6, 2014 at 6:14 | comment | added | Kris | The Queen is the style guide. Voting to close as a no-brainer (just kidding). | |
| Jan 6, 2014 at 3:13 | comment | added | Sven Yargs | Related question: Was the King's English what the Fowler brothers said it was, or what the King said it was? We may have stumbled upon the CoE correlative of papal infallibility. | |
| Jan 6, 2014 at 2:36 | comment | added | tchrist♦ | This is a toughy, considering that it’s been shown that not even ER herself uses the Queen’s English anymore. | |
| Jan 6, 2014 at 1:46 | comment | added | Mitch | The queen's style guide | |
| Jan 6, 2014 at 1:07 | comment | added | Elliott Frisch | At one time, the way the monarch spoke greatly influenced the language - howsoever she wants is probably the correct answer. | |
| Jan 6, 2014 at 1:02 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | I wonder why this was downvoted—it’s quite an interesting question. Would official letters from the Queen, for example, use the Oxford comma? Spell -ize or -ise? Use en or em dashes (close-set or spaced off)? Surprising as it may seem, I have never received a missive from the Queen, so I cannot answer these questions from firsthand knowledge. | |
| Jan 5, 2014 at 23:20 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | I don't think she had a speaking part in the Olympics ceremony, but you can listen to her 2012 Christmas speech here. (Sigh. What a dame! :) | |
| Jan 5, 2014 at 22:56 | comment | added | jwodder | @WS2: OK, but just how does the Queen speak & write? | |
| Jan 5, 2014 at 22:50 | comment | added | WS2 | Most things that are used and honoured collectively in Britain are said to be the Queen's. We have HM Armed Forces, HM Government, even HM Loyal Opposition (in Parliament). The calm on the streets is said to be 'The Queen's Peace'. If you break that peace you can be sent to HM Prison, and before the days of integral sanitation, you were issued with a chamber pot bearing the letters HM PRISON SERVICE. So not surprisingly, the standard elegant form of the language, used in educated circles I choose to name the 'Queen's English'. And that is what the Queen speaks. | |
| Jan 5, 2014 at 22:23 | history | asked | jwodder | CC BY-SA 3.0 |