Essex girl, as a pejorative stereotype in the United Kingdom, applies to a woman viewed as promiscuous and unintelligent, characteristics jocularly attributed to women from the county of Essex. It is applied widely throughout the country and has gained popularity over time, dating from the 1980s and 1990s. [1]
The stereotypical image formed as a variation of the dumb blonde/bimbo persona, with references to the Estuary English accent, white stiletto heels, mini skirts, silicone-augmented breasts, peroxide blonde hair, over-indulgent use of fake tan (lending an orange appearance), promiscuity, loud verbal vulgarity, and socialising at downmarket nightclubs.
Time magazine recorded:
In the typology of the British, there is a special place reserved for Essex Girl, a lady from London's eastern suburbs who dresses in white strappy sandals and suntan oil, streaks her hair blond, has a command of Spanish that runs only to the word Ibiza, and perfects an air of tarty prettiness. Victoria Beckham –Posh Spice and her childhood friend Laura Efi, as she was –are the acknowledged queens of that realm ... [2]
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As mentioned above, the stereotypical Essex girl has an Estuary English accent, but with a very modern element to it. It has some pronunciation features of the Cockney accent but without the traditional element, and a very modern prosody.
Here are some examples of pronunciation features of the Essex girl stereotype:
In 2004, Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester in Essex, appealed for debate in the House of Commons on the issue, encouraging a boycott of The People tabloid, which has printed several derogatory references to girls from Essex. [3]
The Essex Women's Advisory Group was set up in 2010 [4] to combat the negative stereotyping of girls living in Essex by supporting Essex-based women's charities helping those in need as well as by funding projects that promote women's and girls' learning and success in science, technology, the arts, sports and business. The charitable fund is administered by the Essex Community Foundation. [5]
On 6 October 2016, Juliet Thomas and Natasha Sawkins of The Mother Hub launched a campaign on social media to draw attention to the negative definition of Essex girl in the Oxford English Dictionary and Collins Dictionary . [6] Their main goal was to raise awareness and to open a dialogue around the derogatory "Essex girl" stereotype. Their campaign centred on changing the definition of "Essex girl" to "a girl from or living in Essex" by encouraging women to use the hashtag #IAmAnEssexGirl and included a petition to change or remove the dictionary definitions. The campaign reached the national press. [7] [8] [9] In December 2020, after campaigning by the Essex Girls Liberation Front, the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, used to teach non-native English speakers, removed the term. [10] [11]
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances is the de facto common language used in government, education and commerce. Since the late 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide.
British English is, according to Oxford Dictionaries, "English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to the collective dialects of English throughout the British Isles taken as a single umbrella variety, for instance additionally incorporating Scottish English, Welsh English, and Northern Irish English. Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English acknowledges that British English shares "all the ambiguities and tensions [with] the word 'British' and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within a range of blurring and ambiguity".
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the accent traditionally regarded as the standard and most prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been argument over such questions as the definition of RP, whether it is geographically neutral, how many speakers there are, whether sub-varieties exist, how appropriate a choice it is as a standard and how the accent has changed over time. The name itself is controversial. RP is an accent, so the study of RP is concerned only with matters of pronunciation; other areas relevant to the study of language standards such as vocabulary, grammar, and style are not considered.
Cockney is a dialect of the English language, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners since the 19th century. The term Cockney is also used as a demonym for a person from the East End, or, traditionally, born within earshot of Bow Bells.
Estuary English is an English accent associated with the area along the River Thames and its estuary, including London. Phonetician John C. Wells proposed a definition of Estuary English as "Standard English spoken with the accent of the southeast of England". He views Estuary English as an emerging standard accent of England: an "intermediate" between the 20th-century higher-class non-regional standard accent, Received Pronunciation, and the 20th-century lower-class local London accent, Cockney. There is some debate among linguists as to where Cockney speech ends and Estuary English begins.
Blonde jokes are a joke cycle based on a stereotype of a dumb blonde woman.
English phonology is the system of speech sounds used in spoken English. Like many other languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of English share a largely similar phonological system. Among other things, most dialects have vowel reduction in unstressed syllables and a complex set of phonological features that distinguish fortis and lenis consonants.
Blonde stereotypes are stereotypes of blonde-haired people. Sub-types of this stereotype include the "blonde bombshell" and the "dumb blonde". Blondes are stereotyped as more desirable, but less intelligent than brunettes. There are many blonde jokes made on these premises.
Bimbo is slang for a conventionally attractive, sexualized, naive, and unintelligent woman. The term was originally used in the United States as early as 1919 for an unintelligent or brutish man.
East Anglian English is a dialect of English spoken in East Anglia, primarily in or before the mid-20th century. East Anglian English has had a very considerable input into modern Estuary English. However, it has received little attention from the media and is not easily recognised by people from other parts of the United Kingdom. East Anglia is not easily defined and its boundaries are not uniformly agreed upon.
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice. Glottalization of obstruent consonants usually involves complete closure of the glottis; another way to describe this phenomenon is to say that a glottal stop is made simultaneously with another consonant. In certain cases, the glottal stop can even wholly replace the voiceless consonant. The term 'glottalized' is also used for ejective and implosive consonants; see glottalic consonant for examples.
The phonological history of the English language includes various changes in the phonology of consonant clusters.
In phonetics and phonology, checked vowels are those that commonly stand in a stressed closed syllable, while free vowels are those that can stand in either a stressed closed syllable or a stressed open syllable.
English in Southern England is the collective set of different dialects and accents of Modern English spoken in Southern England.
This article describes those aspects of the phonological history of the English language which concern consonants.
Western American English is a variety of American English that largely unites the entire Western United States as a single dialect region, including the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. It also generally encompasses Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, some of whose speakers are classified additionally under Pacific Northwest English.
Dublin English refers to the diverse varieties of Hiberno-English spoken in the metropolitan area of Dublin, the capital of the Republic of Ireland. Modern-day Dublin English largely lies on a phonological continuum between two extremes. The more traditional, lower-prestige, working-class, local urban accent on the one end is known by linguist Raymond Hickey as Local Dublin English. On the other end, a more recently developing, higher-prestige, more widely regional accent exists, New Dublin English, only first emerging in the late 1980s and 1990s. As of the 21st century, most speakers from Dublin and its suburbs have accent features falling variously along the entire middle as well as the newer ends of the spectrum, which together form what is called Non-Local Dublin English, employed by the middle and upper class. The strict middle of the continuum is called Mainstream Dublin English, spoken by the middle class.
The English language spoken and written in England encompasses a diverse range of accents and dialects. The language forms part of the broader British English, along with other varieties in the United Kingdom. Terms used to refer to the English language spoken and written in England include: English English and Anglo-English.
The sound system of New York City English is popularly known as a New York accent. The New York metropolitan accent is one of the most recognizable accents of the United States, largely due to its popular stereotypes and portrayal in radio, film, and television. Several other common names exist for the accent, associating it with more specific locations in the New York City area, such as a Bronx accent, Brooklyn accent, Long Island accent, or North Jersey accent; however, no research has demonstrated significant linguistic differences between these locations.
Port Talbot English (PTE) is a variety of Welsh English spoken in Port Talbot, generally by the working class.
