A teacher in a Berkshire school was told by Ofsted inspectors to ditch her Northern accent and speak with a more southern one.
(The teacher, from Cumbria, has been set this by her school as one of her "targets" to improve performance.
Luckily they don't have a leg to stand on if they attempt to enforce this, but it is part of a worrying trend: A school in the Black Country, gave its pupils a list of ten banned regional phrases which, it said, could damage their prospects. These included "ya cor" meaning "you can't" and "ay?" instead of "pardon".
The headteacher said: "It is about getting them ready for job interviews."
They shouldn't want to work for companies that require poncy accents.)