Accents you've no clue about

[canadagoose]

I was watching a video earlier, and was unexpectedly confronted with a central Scottish accent that I didn't recognise. I thought it sounded a bit like Dalkeith or Newtongrange or something, but it definitely wasn't when I listened to more of it. He certainly wasn't Glaswegian or Edinburgh, that's for sure. I was about to post a comment asking him where he was from because it bothered me that I didn't know it. Turned out he was from North Ayrshire, a part of the country I'm totally unfamiliar with, so that makes sense.

I'll admit I'm a bit obsessed with accents, but I think everyone has their views on them, whether they're "informed" or not. Which accents would you not recognise if you heard them? Are there any you've never encountered in real life?

Also, what on earth does a working-class person from Oxford sound like? I can't imagine it at all. I used to know someone from Oxfordshire, but she spoke with a fairly modern RP accent, and I doubt people on estates and other deprived bits speak like that.

[manticore]

Also, what on earth does a working-class person from Oxford sound like? I can't imagine it at all. I used to know someone from Oxfordshire, but she spoke with a fairly modern RP accent, and I doubt people on estates and other deprived bits speak like that.

The Oxford working classes are weirdly split between common-or-garden estuary and a kind of west-country yokel accent, which I found quite comical when I lived there. I think yokel is spoken by people who have been there for generations, while estuary suits the newer estates like Blackbird Leys.

[Captain Poodle Basher]

The Oxford working classes are weirdly split between common-or-garden estuary and a kind of west-country yokel accent, which I found quite comical when I lived there. I think yokel is spoken by people who have been there for generations, while estuary suits the newer estates like Blackbird Leys.

I worked with someone from Oxford who had a rather RP accent unless she was drunk or over excited when it switched to a West Country accent which she'd vehemently deny having at all if anyone mentioned it to her.

[Cuellar]

Yeah 'Oxford' accent is a bit west country, you can really hear it with the long 'a' vowel sounds (half, bath etc.): not 'harf', more 'haahf', like Cardiff-Welsh.

[buttgammon]

I'm obsessed with accents too, but there are great swathes of the world where I don't have a clue about them; my only reference point for the entire East Midlands is Saxondale, for example. I've never knowingly heard an Oxford accent either, but I assume it's part of the strange intermediate area between Estuary and Westcountry accents. My nana was from Buckinghamshire and she straddled this line too (although it came out sounding a bit Australian to be honest).

I'm getting better at identifying American accents but still get confused with certain ones. The best American accent I ever heard was a guy I knew who was from Georgia but had a strange, slow, lilty voice that didn't sound Southern at all. The only way I could describe it was like a Scientologist on drugs reading the news on Voice of America, and I've no idea where it came from.

[touchingcloth]

Jason Statham. I looked him up on wikipedia the other day and found that he was born in Derbyshire and raised in Norfolk, so I've no clue where picked up a cockney accent from.

[NoSleep]

From a Hollywood toilet seat?

[Morrison Lard]

my only reference point for the entire East Midlands is Saxondale, for example.

Speaking as an East Midland(ite?) that accent he did was a right fucking mess,
and Coogan is usually spot on with that sort of thing.

[Sebastian Cobb]

my only reference point for the entire East Midlands is Saxondale, for example.

Not a Shane Meadows fan I take it?

[Vodka Margarine]

I always thought Saxondale was a Brummie.

[Paul Calf]

Speaking as an East Midland(ite?) that accent he did was a right fucking mess,
and Coogan is usually spot on with that sort of thing.

Ahmfrum Sheerwood and I thought it was more-or-less OK. North-Nottingham, sort of Hucknall or Arnold. He did stray into East Derbyshire a few times but I thought it was a decent job. For a foreigner.

[Morrison Lard]

clean yer tabs out, youth.

[Attila]

Mr Attila was baffled by two actors' accents on a Twilight Zone episode we watched last night; that's cos Major Winchester does not have the definitive 'New England' accent. That's yer Katharine Hepburn of course. :)  (One was a well-known character actor who was from Rhode Island, and the other was Mariette Hartley, Connecticut native.)

[touchingcloth]

Hey, Robin, I'm enjoying directing you while you're wearing a wig and facial prosthetics and fake boobs and an elderly lady's dress and all, but...what's that accent you're doing?

"It's British."

Oh. Where in Britain?

"Everywhere."

[Vodka Margarine]

It's odd how Seth MacFarlane reasonably nails a campy upper crust English accent with Stewie but can't get anywhere near another one (Cockney, Scouse etc). Maybe that's part of the 'comedy' - that Americans have a chequered history with Brit accents so why try hard now?

[doppelkorn]

It's odd how Seth MacFarlane reasonably nails a campy upper crust English accent with Stewie but can't get anywhere near another one (Cockney, Scouse etc). Maybe that's part of the 'comedy' - that Americans have a chequered history with Brit accents so why try hard now?

What I don't like is how he slips into this weird transatlantic thing with Stewie at times, e.g. here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-iIqDvcA4o

"Howda lose a guy in ten seconds"

[touchingcloth]

It's odd how Seth MacFarlane reasonably nails a campy upper crust English accent with Stewie

He nails it in that it's a great voice, but it's not one that's even close to anything I've ever heard come out of the mouth of an English person.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

I thought it sounded a bit like Dalkeith or Newtongrange or something, but it definitely wasn't when I listened to more of it. He certainly wasn't Glaswegian or Edinburgh

Does a Dalkeith or Newtongrange accent sound different from a 'natural' (as opposed to braying public schoolboy) Edinburgh accent then?  Don't think I could pick such subtleties out - does it sound slightly Borders-y?  It's all just Limmy's 'that accent' over there in the east, is it not?

Of course, it's well known that all Ayrshire people sound like the late RMT leader Jimmy Knapp (complete with whistling dentures) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wu_8ZuWOq8

[Blue Jam]

Simon Farnaby's accent in Mindhorn. I spent the whole film trying to work out what it was supposed to be before deciding it was probably South African. Apparently it's Dutch.

[Steven]

Simon Farnaby's accent in Mindhorn. I spent the whole film trying to work out what it was supposed to be before deciding it was probably South African. Apparently it's Dutch.

Well, Afrikaans is derived from Dutch, so ostensibly they're the same.

[Pseudopath]

Yeah 'Oxford' accent is a bit west country, you can really hear it with the long 'a' vowel sounds (half, bath etc.): not 'harf', more 'haahf', like Cardiff-Welsh.

Pretty much everyone in North Oxfordshire (Banbury, Bicester et al) speaks with a yokel accent and we regularly borrow bits of East Midlands dialect ("me duck" being a common greeting).

The only reason people think places like Chipping Norton are posh is because of all the Eton-educated twats associated with it (and they don't even live in the town). Oh...and also because houses go for about £3 million each.

[Konki]

Charlie Hunnam's accent confuses the fuck out of me. And I'm talking about his real, current accent, not that fucking monstrosity he put on in Green Street (which, as a Hammer myself, is unforgivable).

http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/what-charlie-hunnams-accent-geordie-9838200

[Brundle-Fly]

The Steptoe's accent is my most favourite accent in the world. What the fuck is it? Nobody before or since has had this accent. Especially Harold's.

Dot Cotton being the sole exception.

Have to say, McGowan mimicry is incredible in this over written sketch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP5YWayeYc4

[Steven]

The Steptoe's accent is my most favourite accent in the world. What the fuck is it? Nobody before or since has had this accent. Especially Harold's.

Oh yeah?

[doppelkorn]

His accent is proper cockney. You can hear bits of it in Mickey Flanagan.

[NoSleep]

The Steptoe's accent is my most favourite accent in the world. What the fuck is it? Nobody before or since has had this accent. Especially Harold's.

Dot Cotton being the sole exception.

Have to say, McGowan mimicry is incredible in this over written sketch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP5YWayeYc4

Nah, my Nan (b.1890) had the same accent as Albert (who had probably picked it up from people her age). One of the things I love about Steptoe is hearing that accent. Accents have changed at lot over the generations and still do. It makes much less sense for Dot Cotton to have that accent.

[Ambient Sheep]

Have to say, McGowan mimicry is incredible in this over written sketch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP5YWayeYc4

That is amazing!

Also, the effort and expense that must have gone into dressing that set just for that one-off sketch.

(It was a one-off, wasn't it?  Please don't tell me he did one of those every week or something.)

[Sebastian Cobb]

I grew up in a town in between Brum and Worcester then lived in North-East Scotland for 11 years.

The Scots say I'm a brummy and then impersonate a black country accent, my mates from my hometown say I speak jock and the cunts from Worcester say something a bit ignorant and bigoted.

[canadagoose]

Does a Dalkeith or Newtongrange accent sound different from a 'natural' (as opposed to braying public schoolboy) Edinburgh accent then?  Don't think I could pick such subtleties out - does it sound slightly Borders-y?  It's all just Limmy's 'that accent' over there in the east, is it not?

Of course, it's well known that all Ayrshire people sound like the late RMT leader Jimmy Knapp (complete with whistling dentures) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wu_8ZuWOq8

To my ears, it sounds a bit rougher around the edges, and just sounds a bit less familiar than the typical working-class Edinburgh one. Like, I feel like they say the vowel in "bit" and "tin" a bit more like "but" and "tun" compared to here. I could be talking nonsense, of course. I just remember people who come from there sounding that way. I wouldn't say recognisably Borders accents start to appear until you get down to Stow or Lauder or so, but they're still pretty mild.

Limmy's "that accent" gave me a good laugh when I heard it - it is a pretty good impersonation of an east-central Scot! I think it's supposed to be Kirkcaldy or Cowdenbeath or something like that. Not that I had any idea of the more subtle differences before I moved here.

[Brundle-Fly]

Nah, my Nan (b.1890) had the same accent as Albert (who had probably picked it up from people her age). One of the things I love about Steptoe is hearing that accent. Accents have changed at lot over the generations and still do. It makes much less sense for Dot Cotton to have that accent.

I was playing egg nog. My folks are that heady mix of 'clarse' from "Sarf Lundun'.