Friends, there was a time when, if you didn't speak "the Queen's English", i.e. English with an upper-class British accent, you wouldn't get anywhere near a BBC microphone or a television camera. And I say: right you were, snobs! Mere peasants have no right to assail us with their dreary diction. Of course, a lot has changed in Britain's class system since the end of WWII. Nowadays, a compromise, middle class accent, denuded of regionalisms, is arguably taking over. That's "democracy" at work, I suppose. In the U.S., it has long been the case that one's accent does not necessarily indicate one's social status. This is why I favor the reinstitution of sumptuary laws. Look 'em up, peons!
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c05q318501yo
In other news, the WaPo is absolutely right to celebrate the recent decline in food insecurity, and to tie this trend to the waxing prosperity of the "developing world", but it is somewhat missing the forest for the trees, since the real news -- in a world-historical sense -- is that, in this day and age, virtually no one is starving. That may not seem very surprising to those of us who live in the USA and have supermarket-sized expectations for caloric intake, but for most of human history it has been shockingly common for large numbers of people to starve. Not so long ago it was pretty common in "Afro-Asia" too. No more! Modern agricultural methods have banished famine almost altogether, and guess what? That's kinda good!!! We don't stop to reflect on it very often, but we should. Chances are, you'll never be desperately hungry, and therefore just plain desperate. You can thank the Brits and their pioneering work in the Agricultural Revolution for that.
