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style="FONT-SIZE: 13.6pt; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #faebd7">Edgar J. Watkiss, with his
roll of lead piping round his arm, said audibly, humorously of course: "The
Proime Minister's kyar."</FONT></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
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<DIV>Leaving aside the ramifications and peculiarities of his name, what is his
accent? This has subconsciously bothered me for years. It has been
suggested that it is Irish. “Proime” sounds Southern Irish; alternatively,
very Birmingham to me. Is “kyar” Irish? It doesn’t sound like
any accent I can readily think of. </DIV>
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<DIV>Woolf wrote in “Memories of a Working Women’s Guild” (1930):</DIV>
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<DIV>“to deride ladies and to imitate, as some of the speakers did,</DIV>
<DIV>their mincing speech and little knowledge of what it pleases them to</DIV>
<DIV>call ‘reality’ is not merely bad manners, but it gives away the whole</DIV>
<DIV>purpose of the Congress, for if it is better to be a working woman</DIV>
<DIV>by all means let them remain so and not claim their right to undergo</DIV>
<DIV>the contamination of wealth and comfort.” (E5 182)</DIV>
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<DIV>If he says it “humorously”, then is he perhaps parodying upper-class
speech?</DIV>
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<DIV>Stuart</DIV>
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