Editing Received Pronunciation (section)

===Sub-varieties===
Faced with the difficulty of defining a single standard of RP, some researchers have tried to distinguish between sub-varieties:

* {{harvtxt|Gimson|1980}} proposed Conservative, General, and Advanced; "Conservative RP" referred to a traditional accent associated with older speakers with certain social backgrounds; General RP was considered neutral regarding age, occupation or lifestyle of the speaker; and Advanced RP referred to speech of a younger generation of speakers.{{sfnp|Schmitt|2007|p=323}} Later editions (e.g., Gimson 2008) use the terms General, Refined and Regional RP. In the latest revision of Gimson's book, the terms preferred are General British (GB), Conspicuous GB and Regional GB.{{sfnp|Cruttenden|2014|pp=80–82}}
* {{harvtxt|Wells|1982}} refers to "mainstream RP" and "[[U and non-U English|U-RP]]"; he suggests that Gimson's categories of Conservative and Advanced RP referred to the U-RP of the old and young respectively. However, Wells stated, "It is difficult to separate stereotype from reality" with U-RP.{{sfnp|Wells|1982|p=}} Writing on his blog in February 2013, Wells wrote, "If only a very small percentage of English people speak RP, as Trudgill et al. claim, then the percentage speaking U-RP is vanishingly small" and "If I were redoing it today, I think I'd drop all mention of 'U-RP'".<ref>[http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/exotic-spices.html "exotic spices"], John Wells's phonetic blog, 28 February 2013</ref>
* [[Clive Upton|Upton]] distinguishes between RP (which he equates with Wells's "mainstream RP"), Traditional RP (after Ramsaran 1990), and an even older version which he identifies with Cruttenden's "Refined RP".<ref>{{cite book |last=Kortmann |first=Bernd |date=2004 |pages=217–230 |isbn=978-3110175325 |publisher=Mouton de Gruyter |title=Handbook of Varieties of English: Phonology; Morphology, Syntax |url=http://www.textbooks.com/Handbook-of-Varieties-of-English-Phonology-Morphology-Syntax/9783110175325/Bernd-Kortmann.php?CSID=AU3SS3ZKD3DATAOMCOKTADSAB&dHTxt=978-3110175325&TYP=SBJ&CSID=AU3SSSCJWAKTCKUDKDQMQKS2B&PART=PRINT&TXT= |access-date=29 March 2017}}</ref>
* An article on the website of the [[British Library]] refers to Conservative, Mainstream and Contemporary RP.<ref>{{cite web |publisher=British Library |title=Sounds Familiar |url=http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/case-studies/received-pronunciation |access-date=29 March 2017 |archive-date=10 April 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170410230006/http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/case-studies/received-pronunciation/ |url-status=dead}}</ref>