Accents and dialects

[touchingcloth]

My partner's from the Marches, and not coming from farming stock has a very mild accent that I've always heard as essentially neutral.

However, a guy started at work recently and after a while of chatting to him I asked whether he was from the Borders and he went "Yes! Ross-on-Wye!"

Probably literally my proudest achievement.

[popcorn]

I don't have an accent.

[prelektric]

Teessiders will bristle at being called Geordies

Oof, yeah, that's not advisable!

It's even more specific from the Geordie perspective.

People that define themselves as "true" Geordies will insist that you have to be from North Tyneside to be a proper Geordie. People from South Tyneside, were deemed as "Sand Dancers". Moving south to Wearside and Sunderland - "Mackems". People from Teeside were generally, and disparagingly defined as "smoggies".

[touchingcloth]

Accents are always constantly changing though, best not to get too attached to them identity wise.

This has made me think, did the Beatles have an affected way of speaking? I've known plenty of people from Liverpool, but none who've spoken quite like them. Is it a hyper-local accent, or just how Scouse goes when you're habitually used to speaking in a slow, too-cool-for-school way?

Oof, yeah, that's not advisable!

It's even more specific from the Geordie perspective.

People that define themselves as "true" Geordies will insist that you have to be from North Tyneside to be a proper Geordie. People from South Tyneside, were deemed as "Sand Dancers". Moving south to Wearside and Sunderland - "Mackems". People from Teeside were generally, and disparagingly defined as "smoggies".

I know enough to not use the word for someone without knowing specifically where they're from, but I can't tell the difference between the accents. It's not like Brummie and Black Country, which are to me pretty much alien to one another and it amazes me when people can't distinguish them, but closer to the way that you need to hear someone speak the right words or for a long enough sentence to work out whether they're Liverpool or St Helens, or Australian/Kiwi/South African.

[Steve Faeces]

I used to speak like my family with a pre-gentrification South East London accent which I think shares some traits with an identifiably North Kent accent too, but I deliberately softened it some years ago to get taken more seriously in academic circles. I slip back into it at Christmas or other spells of prolonged family time. I don't exactly speak with RP now but if you compared myself and my parents you'd struggle to identify us as family I think from our voices. My partner is from Gwynedd which is a pretty distinct accent.

[The Mollusk]

I'm from the West Mids and always had a pretty distinct Brummie-adjacent accent. Then I spent a decade living in London, and when I went back home and reconnected with a couple of old friends last year they were splitting their sides laughing at how posh I sounded. I have completely lost my home town twang and I am deeply ashamed. I don't even say "mom" and more!

[touchingcloth]

High nigh, brine Kai?

[FredNurke]

This has made me think, did the Beatles have an affected way of speaking? I've known plenty of people from Liverpool, but none who've spoken quite like them. Is it a hyper-local accent, or just how Scouse goes when you're habitually used to speaking in a slow, too-cool-for-school way?

The Beatles didn't have one way of speaking: my grandmother (born and brought up in Liverpool) immediately sorted them (correctly) by class / region when she first heard them.

[jamiefairlie]

I lived all over London since the mid-eighties and have rarely heard proper Cockney accents or a 'Landahan' accent. Well, certainly not in the last thirty years.  My Nan was a genuine Cockney and I loved her accent.

You're more likely to hear the cliched accent in Essex, Kent etc

Roy Hodgson sounds, and to be fair looks, like he should be a horse drawn cab driver summonsed by Sherlock Holmes.

[jamiefairlie]

I don't have an accent.

Hey, an American!

[buttgammon]

It's mad how your accent can change unnoticed. People back home have being saying 'you have an Irish twang' for years (largely because of certain turns of phrase I've picked up) but after nine years in Dublin, I'm after developing an accent that increasingly makes locals think I'm from round here, especially over the phone apparently.

[jamiefairlie]

The Beatles didn't have one way of speaking: my grandmother (born and brought up in Liverpool) immediately sorted them (correctly) by class / region when she first heard them.

Yeah four very different accents there. You could probably identify religion too at that time.

[jamiefairlie]

It's interesting about how the mindset affects your tendency to mirror accents.

I have a mid-strength industrial (rural parts are far different, possibly due to incoming miners from Ireland) Lanarkshire accent.

I first became aware of it when I started to work in Glasgow (just 12 miles away) in my early 20s. They immediately knew I wasn't from Glasgow and apparently my pronunciation of "three" was specifically noticeable (it sounded like 'sreee' to them).

I've been in Canada for over 20 years and still have to consciously speak slower and clearer to be understood, especially in drive through. When I go back home it's an amazing relief to realise I can mumble and speak really fast as still be understood.

My first wife who came over the same time as me now has a completely Canadian accent which she can't remove. She's a bit younger than me so maybe she was more Susceptible to change?

I think personality has a lot do with it though. I have a insanely strong desire to not be forced into conformity so I reckon that plays into it too.

[TrenterPercenter]

Brummie might be the most misunderstood and conflated accent in the country.

It's always conflated with the Black Contraay when most Brummies don't speak like (loike) that.  Most Brummies have just the subtles as you say around a few words coin is a good one foive another. 

More dialect but Brummies are weird though for calling their Mum's, Mom for some reason but it's better for the ya Momma jokes.  Your Moms so Brummie she broke her leg and HP sauce came out (yes it's made in the Nederlands now)

[TrenterPercenter]

I first became aware of it when I started to work in Glasgow (just 12 miles away) in my early 20s. They immediately knew I wasn't from Glasgow and apparently my pronunciation of "three" was specifically noticeable (it sounded like 'sreee' to them).

My nan was from Glasgow and became noticeable more Glaswegian around the family from there.  There is also a claim by her kids (one of them being my Dad) that she lost her Glasgow accent long before I was born and was only putting it on when we were about which seems completely wild but I wouldn't put it past her.

I always remember her when I was about 8 her saying to me;

"Yae know what ah don't get is who first looked at a coo and went awright, yer a coo, aye an you're a pig, you'll be called a pig, this yin's a sheep and that yin's a donkey."

I can actually remember just staring into space going, she's not right is she.

[touchingcloth]

It's always conflated with the Black Contraay when most Brummies don't speak like (loike) that.  Most Brummies have just the subtles as you say around a few words coin is a good one foive another. 

Jasper Carrot and John Oliver have pretty standard Brummie accents, though quite different from one another. A lot of people would group them with Frank Skinner and Noddy Holder (again, fairly different from one another), which just baffles me.

[ersatz99]

You don't usually hear the accents in football chants around English grounds but at Villa Park there's a song that features '1982' and it sounds glorious.

[TrenterPercenter]

Jasper Carrot and John Oliver have pretty standard Brummie accents, though quite different from one another. A lot of people would group them with Frank Skinner and Noddy Holder (again, fairly different from one another), which just baffles me.

I heard something about this that if you are unfamiliar with the spectrum of particular accents your brain kind of only equates it into one type but if you hear a different one everyday you get the nuances.

Carrot I still quite a strong one for where he's from (Acocks Green) he does play on it a bit for instance Lycett is also from there for comparison. Always makes me laugh that John Oliver is from Erdington.  I wish I had more of a Brummie accent as I absolutely love it but due to my folks being immigrant fodder they  never developed strong ones themselves so I never did either. 

I love how Brummies and especially Black Country folk are so literal and vague at the same time "put wud in ole" had me stumped for ages until I realised it's just how a chimp that had learned how to speak might describe closing a door.  Someone offered me a joint the other day and I asked what is it? expecting some details like hash? sinsemilla? skunk? at least but no of course just "droogs", so anything from weed to crack cocaine then, gawd bless 'em - I'm not sure what that does for our reputation as thickos but we'll own it whatever it might be.

[touchingcloth]

I love how Brummies and especially Black Country folk are so literal and vague at the same time "put wud in ole" had me stumped for ages until I realised it just how a chimp that had learned how to speak might describe closing a door

One time when my brother and his (American) partner were over with my family, we heard an enormous peal of laughter from my brother as we were discussing some recently deceased family friend.

When we asked what was so funny, he told us that his partner had just leant over to ask in a whisper "why did they kick a bucket?"

[TrenterPercenter]

One time when my brother and his (American) partner were over with my family, we heard an enormous peal of laughter from my brother as we were discussing some recently deceased family friend.

When we asked what was so funny, he told us that his partner had just leant over to ask in a whisper "why did they kick a bucket?"

yep sounds about right.  those kind of things kill me.

[gib]

bloke at work says 'driv' instead of 'drove'

he also says 'yourn' and 'ourn' instead of 'yours' and 'ours'

would any of you care to guess what his accent/dialect is?

[Endicott]

One time when my brother and his (American) partner were over with my family, we heard an enormous peal of laughter from my brother as we were discussing some recently deceased family friend.

When we asked what was so funny, he told us that his partner had just leant over to ask in a whisper "why did they kick a bucket?"

That's a good one. More generational than country specific?

[touchingcloth]

That's a good one. More generational than country specific?

Yeah, or regional. There's pretty massive variation in US dialects.

[Durance Vile]

bloke at work says 'driv' instead of 'drove'

he also says 'yourn' and 'ourn' instead of 'yours' and 'ours'

would any of you care to guess what his accent/dialect is?

My grandparents definitely used to say 'yourn' and may have said 'ourn' but I can't remember it, and they were from Gillingham, so Kentish, but 'driv' has thrown me off a bit, so it could well be something else. East Anglian maybe?

[The Culture Bunker]

I think it was mentioned in the discussion on the other thread about this crossover, but my oldest friend who, like me, grew up in West Cumbria went on to marry a Swedish woman after meeting during fresher's week at uni. She later told him that when they first met, her best guess based on the accent was that he was from some remote part of Norway.

[FeederFan500]

Carrot I still quite a strong one for where he's from (Acocks Green) he does play on it a bit for instance Lycett is also from there for comparison. Always makes me laugh that John Oliver is from Erdington.  I wish I had more of a Brummie accent as I absolutely love it but due to my folks being immigrant fodder they  never developed strong ones themselves so I never did either. 

Lycett is from Hall Green I think, although "Hall Green" is very vague as it has tree lined suburban roads and less glamorous ones at the other end. John Oliver almost seems like a parody of a Brummie accent to me, I thought he was gay when I first became aware of him because there's something that doesn't sound quite right.

The accent can still stump me though, when asked in Greggs if I wanted "red or brow-wun?" I hadn't got a fucking clue what she was on about.


Accents that I find just generally odd include South African, where every vowel sound seems to be shortened as much as possible and yet "off" is pronounced "orf" like the gentry. I can't quite get a handle on Danish people speaking English either, the accent seems to vary quite a bit, one guy in Borgen sounded like he'd learnt English in Liverpool, the main actress has an accent I don't think I've heard before or since doing her English lines and some of them sound generic Scandi.

The footballer Son has a great accent, you can hear both the East Asian and German when he speaks English.

[FredNurke]

Danes speaking English sometimes register with me as 'speaker of a regional English accent I haven't heard before' rather than 'non-native speaker'.

[ros vulgaris]

Oof, yeah, that's not advisable!

It's even more specific from the Geordie perspective.

People that define themselves as "true" Geordies will insist that you have to be from North Tyneside to be a proper Geordie. People from South Tyneside, were deemed as "Sand Dancers". Moving south to Wearside and Sunderland - "Mackems". People from Teeside were generally, and disparagingly defined as "smoggies".

And then heading into the sticks, in the small mining towns you'll get 'pitmatic' / 'pit yakker', which harks back to an older rural tongue as communities moved into the pits. Jack Charlton's Ashington tongue is probably the closest to it in popular culture.

'Mackem' is a relatively new term, deriving from a shipyard joke ("mack'em & tack'em" = "make them and take them"). It wasn't more widely accepted as a 'person from Sunderland' until the 90s, largely as a reaction against Newcastle's geordie chauvinism. I wouldn't expect outsiders to be able to differentiate between the two tongues. Sunderland's is a little faster and higher pitched with the vowel intonation (eg "Ha'way" instead of "Horweayh")

Purists wouldn't even call Middlesbrough as the North East (i.e. Northumberland & Durham). It's a Yorkshire town.

[Kankurette]

My synagogue had a trainee rabbi from South Africa. He had a very weird Hebrew pronunciation. Like Aussie meets Cybermen.

[dr beat]

Listening to people like Paul O'Grady or Nigel Blackwell, the Birkenhead(Wirral?) accent is distinctively nasal compared to other nearby accents.