A touch of clarse

There aren’t many things on which John Humphrys is undecided, but one of them shows itself nearly every time he presents the Today programme. It’s a trait shared by many broadcasters, and indeed people from all walks of life, and constitutes one of the great social barometers of our time. It’s the inability to decide whether your ‘a’s should be long or short.

If your upbringing conditions you to pronounce ‘grass’ to rhyme with ‘ass’ rather than ‘arse’ — if, in short, you’re a non-posh non-Southerner — there is a temptation, on moving to London, to lengthen your ‘a’s in order to fit in. To say ‘clarse’ instead of ‘class’ (an apt example, as that is what this is all about). An accent may be softened, or even jettisoned altogether, but that irritating first letter of the alphabet remains, ready to trip you up. Unless you insert an ‘r’ after it (sorry, ‘arfter’ it), your cover will be blown.