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, the nature and classification of its sub-varieties, how appropriate a choice it is as a standard, and how the accent has changed over time. The name too is controversial. RP is an accent, so the study of RP is concerned only with matters of pronunciation, while other areas relevant to the study of language standards, such as vocabulary, grammar, and style, are not considered. History The introduction of the term Received Pronunciation is usually credited to the British phonetician Daniel Jones. In the first edition of the English Pronouncing Dictionary (1917), he named the accent "Public School Pronunciation"; for the second edition in 1926 he wrote: "In what follows I call it Received Pronunciation, for want of a better term." However, the term had been used much earlier by P. S. Du Ponceau...