bettering oneself

Falconbird I agree that it is nonsense that anyone should be judged by their accent. However, unfortunately I don't think you're right in assuming that these prejudices don't still exist.

This is part of report in The Guardian:

" ....... Just last week a teacher from Cumbria was given an official target to "sound less Cumbrian" ......

"....... According to recent surveys eight in 10 employers admit to making discriminating decisions based on regional accents, according to research from law firm Peninsula ....

"Accents also have hugely varying degrees of impact on prospective employers and different dialects demonstrate different qualities and drawbacks. The Liverpool, Cockney and Brummie accents come off badly, whereas received pronunciation (RP) or the "Queen's English" fare better ...."

I didn't sit the scholarship for grammar school. Mother said they were all too posh..... a reflection of her own self worth. I did an extra two years at school to learn shorthand, typing, bookkeeping.....So I could work in an office and not be a factory worker. Oh, but I envied the girls who left school and went to work in the factory.
The idea of uni did not exist in our family.

My DH was very highly placed in the scholarship exams. He did not go to grammar school. 7 brothers and sisters, no money for rugby gear, etc.
DH joined the Royal Navy at aged15, didn't have all the items as per the provided list. His father left him to the boat for England and gave him 10/-. At 15 he made his way alone to Plymouth.

All of our 4 boys have professions....3 work hard, 1(the youngest) tries to coast along and thus is unlikely to make the most of possible opportunities.

I think education broadens the scope and is enhanced by a good attitude and work ethos. Perhaps our youngest got it rather much easier than the others !!

In a phone conversation with my 75 year old dad the other day, he said "you've not changed you, have you?" Which I am really glad of. I was brought up with no-one is better than you and no-one is worse than you, which is how I brought up my children, or so I thought.

My DD now looks down her nose at as many people as she can possibly do, from the very high pedestal she seems to have put herself upon. Me included.

I've only just looked at this thread and my response has to be "How could anyone improve on perfection?"

I grew up in a council house. My father worked hard all his life and was thrilled to buy his own house just after I married. I never felt anyone was better than me where we lived, we all lived in council houses they were all newly built. However I went to the local secondary modern, didn't pass my eleven plus and spent my school years hearing teachers tell me I'd never amount to anything. This made me really angry, my father always told me no one is any better than anyone else and it actually spurred me on to prove them wrong. I now am actually better qualified than the teachers who scorned me but I would not think I am better than people without qualifications, but I don't think I'm any worse than anyone either. We are all our own person and equal.

Hi Rosequartz,

Yes we used to think that Latin would sound more like Italian than anything else and used to have fun trying it out. My DH was given a detention at Grammar School when he was 12 because he didn't know the Creed. He came from a working class non religious home so how would he have known it? I did but only because I was raised RC.

After the poetry reading incident I calmed my accent down a lot but like NotTooOld it does come back during times of stress. I find myself saying Blimey (West Country) and "where's me purse."

In later years I taught adults job seeking skills and pointed out that an accent was fine but to use correct grammar.

Going back a long, long way, my cousin who was a Health Visitor up north during the 30s suffered a lot of snobbery from Consultants because she had a local accent. She spent a lot of time ironing it out when she was around the big wigs, but her accent helped her enormously when visiting the local folk. My mum who was Irish had a telephone voice when she used to try and sound English. It used to upset me to be honest because I liked her voice just as it was.

My English teacher taught us two languages (he said), Norfolk and English. He used the Norfolk to teach English grammar, emphasising the differences. I'm constantly surprised when I have to speak proper when incomers can't understand me.

It really was, and still is, important to understand what is appropriate. You may then choose to behave or talk in an inappropriate manner but you do need to know.

I was taught in two languages too. Our teachers said that there was nothing wrong with speaking Hull as long as you were in Hull but that we had to learn to speak English too so that the rest of the world could understand us

My mother in law, who had absolutely nothing, the family always depended on relatives' spare rooms for accommodation, used to make my father in law walk a few steps behind her she thought she was so above him! rubylady - I think my DD is on that pedestal with yours.

My cousin is like your DD, rubylady. She grew up on a council estate but hates to be reminded of it.

It went the other way for me. Fairly newly qualified in the area of Horticulture, I went to work for a large tree and shrub nursery in Lincolnshire as a propagator. My boss was a lovely local man with a very strong Lincs accent (a sort of mild Yorkshire with added extras really). After two weeks of my RP he could bear it no longer and said that I had to flatten my Arse like everyone else! It took a lot of laughter from the others and explanations, before I realised that I now had to say 'watter' those plants to the casuals, not 'waughter'.

True Hull or should I say 'Ull speak rarely uses 't' in the middle or end of a word or 'h' at the beginning of a word. We have a very nasally 'o' sound and a very enlongated 'er' sound in the middle of words. Sometimes we also use the 'er' sound instead of the long 'o' sound. 'There' and 'they' are pronounced the same.

Someone once produced a English/Hull dictionary called

Learn To Speak Hull......Leeern t' speak 'Ull

It had many gems including:

fern curls.....phone calls
curdless ferns.....cordless phones
Pearls.....Poles
The Perp...the Pope

and my favourite

ner smirkin'.......no smoking

Oh heck, I wouldn't last 5 minutes in Hull !

Do you mean 'Oh 'eck' lol

Yer munna say wunna it inna polie, duck

Jus catchin the buzz down town, d'yer wan anythin?

As they say where I come from.

i am no better or worse than anyone else.
I have lived my life accordingly and although of humble background leaving school without qualifications I never felt out of place with academics and was always accepted for the person I am.

Surely 'betterment' is an old word for the modern 'aspirational'. If it means working hard and taking opportunities to widen the range of careers on offer and being able to choose those which offer one the best chances of economic advantage, why not?

If it is all about acquiring social graces, Hyacinth Bucket syndrome, and looking down or up to those who do things the 'right' or 'wrong way. That's daft.

I do look up and down on people and I will give an example, I know a lady who is really posh, she is very nice but I tend to be extra polite to her, I would never use slang and would try to speak more clearly, lose the accent a bit and I would dress up a bit if I was to visit her. I think that many people would be offended if visitors turn up in scruffy clothes etc.

However I do look down on people who I regard as socially inferior, the benefit scroungers, those who are socially inept and before I get angry replies, I do not refer to those who have lost their job and are struggling to find another or who are like me just been diagnosed with a serious illness, I mean those who are long term unemployed and who couldn't hold down a job it they tried and obviously don't want to.

In my job I mix with all levels of society and often I find people who just cant speak in an educated manner, they irritate me. People who say 'eh' or those that just shrug their shoulders and look blank . How difficult is it to say something like, 'Im really busy, cant stop to talk' or similar.

I also cant stand and look down on people who go out in baggy jogging pants and scruffy worn clothing, I often wear old things but they are clean. Also people who wear jamas at the shops, rollers in their hair etc
That's my rant for today but I really will not mix with people who have lower standards than me.

Oh right then ethelbags- does that mean you believe all the gransnetters here have the same, or higher standards than you ?

Iam 64
probably, I cant imagine anyone being interested enough to go on a site like this one which is supportive and has kind hearted members, if they are self centred, greedy or just thick.

Iam 64
probably, I cant imagine anyone being interested enough to go on a site like this one which is supportive and has kind hearted members, if they are self centred, greedy or just thick.

What if they are indeed lovely people, not greedy, self-centred or thick, and are replying with sympathy and concern to your posts about your fears about cancer - but they are on benefits, can't hold down a job, and spend the day sitting at their laptop in their scruffy jogging pants with rollers in their hair.

There are standards in other directions than appearance or education.