Free firty (3:30) - is this an accent or ignorant speak?

Correction: some classify others by their speech.

I think its perfectly possible to speak properly (in any accent) without the need to speak in that false, plum in the mouth "posh" accent.

I agree that we judge people by accents (I am guilty of this myself...see above) but feel that people with regional accents such as (my own) Geordie, Birmingham, Yorkshire (and many others too) are often very wrongly judged as being of a lower class, or not very intelligent just because they are proud of where they come from and have no desire to change their accent.

I remember posting about the announcement of Corbyns leadership election results, with such pronunciations as "free hundred and firty fousand votes" etc and being severely told off on here!

I grew up in Furrock in Essex where that is not uncommon, it's estuary accent found in Essex and Kent. Not a speech impediment and not lazy. Why does everyone assume that but not about a Devon, Welsh or any other regional accent!

I think it is lazy and when it persisists it and becomes increasingly incoherent, Consonants make the main sounds in speech and without them it is much harder to hear.

I am sure people with less than prefect hearing will find this lack of clear comunication difficult. You can talk in any accent you like but make your consonants resonate.
I have had trouble speaking to the people in Post Office Money based in Ireland here there were a of people employees with soft Irish accents we are not attuned to. When your business is comunication maybe staff should be properly briefed on this .

My father was a Kerryman and just couldn't hear the difference between 'three' and 'tree' no matter how many times we tried to convince him that there was a difference.

He also couldn't say the word 'zoo', to him it was an 'azoo'.

My grandfather, another Kerryman, used always to say 'fer foht' he remained unable to say 'for what' his entire life.

It is said that the purest English is spoken in Inverness!

Always amazes me how so many people denigrate the way we Londoners , especially 'Saarf' Londoners like me as lazy or uneducated for our accents in a way they wouldn't dream of saying of someone from Liverpool or Swansea etc!

I think it's so sad to hear, generally younger people, mispronounce words like model and handle. It seems the new pronunciation is "modoo" and "handoo" for words that end like this!

I'm wearing my sandoos!

Never heard of that Instagran.
I think regional accounts are fine but also think people on television etc should modify them and enunciate properly!
Like wot I do(not)

My pet peeve is "wanna" instead of "want to". That is just lazy speech, not an accent. I find most accents quite charming.

I can remember having to go to a lecture years ago, the high brow lecturer making the boring speech dropped every "h" , kept me awake counting them.

Want to say Yes like Prince Charles?

Just say Ears, without enunciating the 'r'. Got it?

On another thread someone claimed to be accent-less. There's no such thing.

Other languages have regional differences, why should English speakers be expected to all sound the same?

Well said nemosMum ????????????

Crikey, I had to go back a long way to see what NemosMum had said well. I do so agree. There seems to be a lot of snobbery surrounding accents and as someone said, this is often directed at London speak, whether grammar or accent. For example nobody would criticise a regional "when I were a lad", but would baulk at "was you"? The dropped aitches, the glottal stops, etc all form part of a way of speaking inherited from parents, used among friends. If someone is comfortable in the way S/he speaks, why alter it?
Bad grammar by presenters on television is another matter and while "different to" is commonplace, I still don't like to hear it. As for accents, leave them alone.

Yes although I am a pedant I agree we should embrace the variety of dialect etc there is in this country. I deplore lazy speech. There have been elements of snobbery on this thread.
Well said NemosMum

Absolutely agree with you Teetime. Fed up of people trying to justify using the F word all the time.

sue421
I moved to Bristol when I was eight, there were a lot of my class mates who were sent to elocution classes to get rid of their Bristolian accents.
I came there from Leicestershire and Northamptonshire and I was accused of being posh because of my accent.

Can't win came to mind. I never did get a Bristolian accent maybe I was too old by then.

The difficulty comes when children who only hear 'th' pronounced as 'f' don't spell words correctly when they write them down. I once asked a class of 12 year olds to describe a science experiment using yeast and sugar solution. Many described it as 'froffy', others wrote 'throthy' and most struggled to pronounce 'frothy' when corrected.
My personal bugbear is 'gonna' for 'going to'. Also my OH can't say 'crisps'- he has a packet of 'crisp' or 'crips'! But he is Bristolian.

I think it is important to correct a child if they are using bad grammar, or mispronouncing words. At the moment I'm trying to get my (not quite 3 year old ) grandaughter to say little instead of likkle. I keep saying" ttttt". I think I sound like a twit!
I had to bite my tongue the other day whilst out shopping when I heard a child say to her grandmother,"I want them ones", and the grandmother replied " Why don't you have them ones there"
If children are not encouraged to use the language grammatically, what hope have they got in school ?
I have a strong Welsh accent, but my language has always been grammatically correct

I think it is important to correct a child if they are using bad grammar, or mispronouncing words. At the moment I'm trying to get my (not quite 3 year old ) grandaughter to say little instead of likkle. I keep saying" ttttt". I think I sound like a twit!
I had to bite my tongue the other day whilst out shopping when I heard a child say to her grandmother,"I want them ones", and the grandmother replied " Why don't you have them ones there"
If children are not encouraged to use the language grammatically, what hope have they got in school ?
I have a strong Welsh accent, but my language has always been grammatically correct

I think it is important to correct a child if they are using bad grammar, or mispronouncing words. At the moment I'm trying to get my (not quite 3 year old ) grandaughter to say little instead of likkle. I keep saying" ttttt". I think I sound like a twit!
I had to bite my tongue the other day whilst out shopping when I heard a child say to her grandmother,"I want them ones", and the grandmother replied " Why don't you have them ones there"
If children are not encouraged to use the language grammatically, what hope have they got in school ?
I have a strong Welsh accent, but my language has always been grammatically correct

I think it is important to correct a child if they are using bad grammar, or mispronouncing words. At the moment I'm trying to get my (not quite 3 year old ) grandaughter to say little instead of likkle. I keep saying" ttttt". I think I sound like a twit!
I had to bite my tongue the other day whilst out shopping when I heard a child say to her grandmother,"I want them ones", and the grandmother replied " Why don't you have them ones there"
If children are not encouraged to use the language grammatically, what hope have they got in school ?
I have a strong Welsh accent, but my language has always been grammatically correct

I think it is important to correct a child if they are using bad grammar, or mispronouncing words. At the moment I'm trying to get my (not quite 3 year old ) grandaughter to say little instead of likkle. I keep saying" ttttt". I think I sound like a twit!
I had to bite my tongue the other day whilst out shopping when I heard a child say to her grandmother,"I want them ones", and the grandmother replied " Why don't you have them ones there"
If children are not encouraged to use the language grammatically, what hope have they got in school ?
I have a strong Welsh accent, but my language has always been grammatically correct