Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, as played by Keira Knightley

In an effort to please her husband's family, Georgiana adopted "[t]he Cavendish way of doing things ... from the relentless self-control they exerted on their emotions to the peculiar drawl which marred their speech.  They prounounced her name 'George-aina' (as in rain-a)." [Amanda Foreman, Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire, London: HarperCollins 1998, p. 29].

As Georgiana came to speak in the Cavendish manner, it was imitated by her admirers and evolved into the Devonshire House Drawl, "characterized as part baby-talk, part refined affectation... By the middle of the next century all Whigs would speak in the Drawl, transforming a family tradition into a symbol of political allegiance."  [Foreman, p. 45].

The idea that you can know a person's political views by the way she speaks is an intriguing one, but even if it was true in Georgiana's time, could it hold true today?  Of course in America we wouldn't recognize a posh accent if we heard one, but in the upcoming election in England, is a posh accent any true indicator of how the candidate will deal with the debt, or the banks or the smoking ban?  And yes I know a posh accent is a matter of class, but what does class mean exactly, anymore?  Before she had elocution lessons, Maggie Thatcher was a Methodist and a grocer's daughter and acted and sounded like one.  Hardly upper class, but like that Everyman Ronald Reagan, (an actor, no aristocrat either) she helped engineer a redistribution of wealth to the elite and recreate a disparity between the rich and the poor not seen since the 1920s. 

The point is, people have a need to define themselves by what they wear and where they live and how they speak.  But then they also have a desire to obscure who they really are, what they really believe and what they're really doing.  And then it gets very confusing.  Closeted gay men become Republicans.  Child molesters Delicate boys who aren't good at games are encouraged to enter the priesthood.  They assume new identities in institutions that recruit them, then hide and defend them.  They learn to speak a special way to please the family who took them in.

I knew a man with a deep and meaningful love for other men in uniform. Or okay, maybe not meaningful but certainly very deep.  He'd been a Marine for years and was adamantly opposed to gays in the military.   "But you're gay and you're in the military," I said.

"I'm not gay," he asserted.  "I just like having sex with men."

He certainly did.  And at the same time very popular with the ladies, as they say; although no one could say he'd ever been to bed with any of them.  Confirmed bachelor. Tough guy, hard drinker.  Man's man, no pun intended.  

And he had the most charming southern drawl.