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Accents

(47 Posts)
Lumiere Sat 10-Jun-23 21:31:57

What do you feel about your accent? Do you like it, feel proud of it, not fussed?
Which celebrity mirrors your accent?
I'll drop by later with my celebrity soundylikey

Blossoming Sat 10-Jun-23 21:43:11

My accent is somewhat mixed up as au result of living in different places. I don’t think about it really and I don’t know of any sound alikes.

I love hearing different accents and regional sayings.

Siope Sat 10-Jun-23 22:03:28

Mine is southern English. Any regional accent I ever had was lost at university and through living abroad. I recall meeting someone in London once who exclaimed ‘but you’re posh. I didn’t think they had posh accents in Yorkshire…’

Coolgran65 Sat 10-Jun-23 22:10:01

I like my accent, think James Nesbitt.

swampy1961 Sat 10-Jun-23 22:12:13

A colleague once said to me that he was talking on the phone to a girl who had an accent exactly like mine. He said she was stunned into silence when he guessed where she hailed from!! Surrey borders!! But I shuffled north to Lancashire many years ago.

Lumiere Sat 10-Jun-23 22:12:57

So I also lived abroad but never lost my accent. I believe that mimicry of accents is a thing and absolutely normal, but not something that I ever did.
So my local accent celebrity is the lovely Grace Dent

Grandma70s Sat 10-Jun-23 22:20:12

Mine is so-called Received Pronunciation, standard English. This is the same all over the country. I suppose I sound rather like a BBC newsreader. I quite like it because it’s neutral, but I’m not proud of it. It isn’t an achievement, but just the way I’ve always spoken.

annodomini Sat 10-Jun-23 22:45:17

I'v lived much longer in England than in my birth country, Scotland but I am still recognisably Scots, except to my two English-born sons who claim that they can't hear my accent. My English Granny, on the other hand, spent all her married life in Scotland but never lost her Leicestershire accent - she always had trouble with lots of Scottish place names we would test her with Auchtermuchty and Ecclefechan.

Cabbie21 Sat 10-Jun-23 22:52:21

My parents spoke without any accent, RP but not posh, I suppose. I am sometimes the same but I am a chameleon in that I change how I speak according to circumstances. I lived more years of my life in Yorkshire than anywhere else so it is easy to slip into to some extent.
I don’t imitate accents. I could not do Scottish or Newcastle or Birmingham, for example.

Grandma70s Sat 10-Jun-23 22:55:57

Siope

Mine is southern English. Any regional accent I ever had was lost at university and through living abroad. I recall meeting someone in London once who exclaimed ‘but you’re posh. I didn’t think they had posh accents in Yorkshire…’

Southern English is a regional accent! Think of the accents of Kent, Essex or Hampshire, Perhaps you mean RP.

Kate1949 Sat 10-Jun-23 22:59:53

I'm a Brummie born and bred. I love my accent but lots of people hate it. My parents were from Southern Ireland so I have a smattering of their expressions. Birmingham has made me what I am and I love my accent. I understand why others don't like it but to me it's what it means not how it sounds.

Siope Sat 10-Jun-23 23:00:28

Grandma70s no, I mean I have a southern accent, which is a different accent to the one I grew up using.

NotTooOld Sat 10-Jun-23 23:06:00

My accent is my native London although I've not lived there for many years.

Sara1954 Sat 10-Jun-23 23:12:09

Mine is West Country, I don’t think it’s very strong, but people recognise it on the phone, and instantly think I’m completely thick, or spend all my waking hours drinking cider.

Grandma70s Sat 10-Jun-23 23:16:25

Siope

Grandma70s no, I mean I have a southern accent, which is a different accent to the one I grew up using.

Oh, I see.

Kate1949 Sat 10-Jun-23 23:23:58

Sara Thick is what the Brummie accent comes across as too. Shame really.

Bodach Sat 10-Jun-23 23:26:05

I was born and brought up in the far north west of Scotland, at a time when Gaelic was still very much in common usage there. Because I don't speak with most people's perception of a Scots accent (as in Billy Connolly/Harry Lauder), I am often taken as being Irish or Canadian.

henetha Sat 10-Jun-23 23:26:39

Devonshire born and bred, so my accent reflects that . I'm not keen on it.

Marydoll Sat 10-Jun-23 23:28:42

I have a strong Glasgow accent, but can switch to a posh Scottish one when necessary.
I was on a course at Lyons University, along with a colleague and teachers from all over Europe on a Commenius programne and we had to speak in French the whole time, even at mealtimes. ( It was not easy!)
One of my fellow students commented that she loved eavesdropping on our sneaky, Glaswegian conversations, but couldn't understand a single word we said, despite being fluent in English.

Oopsadaisy1 Sun 11-Jun-23 05:30:51

I have a Southern accent apparently, when we moved to Oxfordshire I was asked where I came from as I didn’t have an Oxfordshire accent ( although I couldn’t tell the difference at the time) but that was over 40 yrs ago.
I can usually spot a Southampton accent though.

MrsKen33 Sun 11-Jun-23 05:41:27

Mine is Home Counties. Although we live in
Wales now and hopefully we have a little of that. Fablus

grandMattie Sun 11-Jun-23 05:54:19

I wasn’t born or brought up in this country. People find it unplaceable. Because of my height and colouring, they think I’m German or Dutch. In fact, I was born and brought up in Mauritius and have more of an (French) intonation than an accent.
There is nothing I can do about it, I’m not a mimic and don’t do accents. I have to say I’m heartily sick of endlessly being asked where I’m from “originally”…

monk08 Sun 11-Jun-23 06:29:12

DH is a Brummie Kate1949 when we moved to the Black country he was told yum posh with an accent like wot yum got.

Oopsadaisy1 Sun 11-Jun-23 06:31:55

Someone I know comes from Yorkshire but now lives in Oxfordshire, to me she still had a broad Yorkshire accent, when she goes home they say she sounds like the Queen!

fancythat Sun 11-Jun-23 06:56:24

I never think about mine until I hear it audibly.
Then, oh dear oh dear. I am broad as they say. Does not sound great.