Judging People by How They Speak…?

Funny that you mention AWP, Richmond, I was thinking of that myself.
Tim Spall’s Barry did Brum no favours!

It's strange isn't it? My parents were from Southern Ireland and lived in Birmingham from their early 20s until they died -mother aged 58, father aged 69. They never lost their strong Irish accents.

I agree re Tim Spall. The worst was Richard Beckinsale (bless him) in Porridge. Dear me.

I’m sure I’ve heard Alexander Armstrong do a genuine Northumbrian accent - different from Geordie. He also went to Durham School, but as he was born ‘quite posh’ so I suspect his speech is natural. DD1 is quite well spoken, but DGS1 has picked up a lot of Geordie from his day care workers - Mummy is now Mammy and lots of words end with an A rather than ER. The dog is now Baxta!!
I love a regional accent, as long as it’s grammatically correct. I’m a bit like Redhead.
Can you remember when people used to adopt a telephone voice?

Kevin Whatley went to an independent school, but is still definitely a Geordie.

Yes, Kevin has a beautiful voice.
(And Beckinsale a beautiful face.)

I don’t think it’s just accents, even in the same area you’ll have people who talk ‘posh’, and those who do not. I think this is where a person is judged more than the regional accent, think Mrs Bucket’s telephone voice! I like when people ask foreign sounding individuals where are they from and get “London” or whatever. On the other hand there are all sorts of accents now on tv and radio, not just (thankfully) RP!

Septimia

I think regional accents make English more interesting.

However, I also think it is courteous to moderate an accent (and dialect) when speaking to someone who isn’t accustomed to it. You want them to understand what you’re saying after all. I don’t mean that everyone should use RP - heaven forefend!

I would strongly agree with Septimia and Fanny who knows how I feel, good for you for bringing it up..
You do have to moderate your accent for people to understand you, in certain situations, it can appear that you are unintelligent because you are quickly changing pronunciation and words in your head before you answer.
We joke and say we are trilingual, we can speak the Queens English "When one wants or has to", we speak to our neighbours using a mild local accent and at home, we are just our normal selves.
Having moved around the country a lot with DH's job and being a teacher I have had to learn to speak so that people understood me.
It can hold you back I knew someone when I was young who would not take the Oxbridge exams and even someone who is not applying now because they think their accent will be against them even with three A's .
I like accents and am interested in them, I think we should all preserve them they are our cultural history, though I still would not go into a shop in London and speak in my own "Broad accent"i.e. Who do marra?
Quite a few well-known public figures went to public school in my county though you would never guess.
I think you have to learn to moderate the accent for the occasion and prove that you are not unintelligent an uphill struggle all your life.

If living in England you have regional accents, if living in Wales
you have a Welsh accent, so wrong, we have regional accents in
Wales.

I can never hear the words 'West Bromwich' without thinking of Barry's building society and when I hear Bomber's, 'Alright my dear' gently rolling around like Bristol hills I am instantly transported home.

Excellent post Yammy. I'm a London girl, not quite cockney or gangster speak, but not far off.
The trick is to adapt your accent for the occasion, so I can be a teacher at a posh independent school at the same time as shopping down Walthamstow Market. I love different accents and often imitate them, although not in a mocking way. (Maybe being bilingual from birth started me off).
Far more important is what people say than how they say it, so no I don't judge people by how they speak.

I think you have to learn to moderate the accent for the occasion and prove that you are not unintelligent an uphill struggle all your life.

That's interesting. I've never felt the need to moderate my accent and am sure I couldn't do so convincingly. People not in the know don't care and people in the know would see through it.

A certain sort of person might judge or joke about accents, but in my professional life I was never made to feel that my intelligence was linked to my accent and never saw any evidence of that.

People always want to fit in and will adapt their speech to do so. I have two grandchildren, one who went to Oxbridge and now only speaks RP, his brother is still speaks broad Lancs. I am sure everyone assumes the Oxbridge one is more intelligent but that is not the case.

Grandma70s

The problem is that in England speech is associated with social status and education, like it or not. RP (Received Pronunciation, standard English) is the same all over the country.

I am trying to think of examples…..Alexander Armstrong, for instance, comes from the north east. Not a hint of that in his speech. I’m sure there are many others.

When I was young, if you had a local accent you tried to alter it, to speak with an RP accent. Now, people don’t do that so much. I think the change came, like so many other social changes, in the 1960s. The Beatles were partly responsible. They kept their Scouse accents and were not ashamed of them. Their accents are quite mild - I have encountered incomprehensible scouse accents. It’s really embarrassing when you can’t understand peoples speech.

Communication is a two-way process. It consists of a receiver as well as a broadcaster. If the receiver puts up barriers from the outset ("Oh no - a Glaswegian accent! I'll never be able to understand this!"), the process is hindered. If you are open-minded enough to listen properly, you will understand.
BTW, RP is not the same as Standard English. The first is an accent, the second a dialect. Also Scots RP differs from English RP, although for both accents, Standard English is broadly the same (with a few minor exceptions). Standard Scots is another story altogether!

RichmondPark

*I think you have to learn to moderate the accent for the occasion and prove that you are not unintelligent an uphill struggle all your life.*

That's interesting. I've never felt the need to moderate my accent and am sure I couldn't do so convincingly. People not in the know don't care and people in the know would see through it.

A certain sort of person might judge or joke about accents, but in my professional life I was never made to feel that my intelligence was linked to my accent and never saw any evidence of that.

Maybe your accent is not as strong as some of us have you are very lucky. If I chose not to change it I often would not be understood.
It's not just the way I say them the words are completely different. When shopping with a friend from the same area but in a different part of the country we were asked on two occasions if we were" Scandi" a derogatory term in it's self.
The Birmingham accent is difficult to loose and the Geordie easy to pick up. My children born in the North East called me mammy ,they also called each other man. Within a month of moving and being laughed at they had changed to mummy and using each others names.
We were given election lessons at Grammar school before we went on interview for further education. The list is endless ,sniggers for the A's at A level which were heard as three E's. Never volunteering to answer a question in lectures sitting in the middle to be anonymous.
Some would say we have a chip on our shoulders and if we have it is because like Fanny says we are made to feel like that

I love the way Alexander Armstrong speaks. It's just so rich and melodious. I'm also incredibly fond of the American accent, especially the way the people from the South speak. Not so keen on British accents, but I would never judge someone's intelligence based on their accent.

I can do a lot of accents and sometimes I do a posh British accent just for fun. People here laugh at that one, it’s associated with snobby twits. Funny because they love my Yorkshire one .

We were given election lessons at Grammar school before we went on interview for further education.
Love it Yammy, what an enterprising school! Were pupils judged by their party colours? Sorry!

blutz

We have many regional accents in the U.S. I sometimes have a difficult time understanding people from the southern states of the U.S. Somtimes I'm told I have a "Chicago accent." It varies across the U.S. When I'm watching a program where people have southern accents, I sometimes wish there were subtitles. The closed captions bother me.

About 15 years' ago I was in the Whistle Stop Cafe (as in Fried Green Tomatoes) Juliette, Georgia - our waitress had such a strong accent that we could barely understand what she was saying.

The experience was mutual as she got very irritated with me and snarled that she couldn't make out what I was saying!

But we did enjoy our fried green tomatoes, deep-fried okra and iced tea in a chipped jam jar!

My previous FIL decided he didn't like me based on how I speak.He thought I was posh! So it can work both ways.

We were given election lessons at Grammar school
So were we, but in our first couple of years at High School. ?

Someone recently started taking the Micky out of what they thought might be my relative's accent when I said I was visiting him in a town near where they live.
(He has no more of an accent than they do)

in a town near where they live
In the Midlands!

I like the northern accents that are more phonetically correct.

Aa a southerner I can't help thinking about this every time I tell a child, oo as in book is also oo as in choose.. Also anything to do with a

It is very annoying...

My DH born in Small Heath a real brummie got called posh when he went into hospital in the Black country.

The concept of a superior mode of speaking is not confined to the UK. My French professeure told me that the best French is spoken by farmers in the Loire valley. I think she meant the sound rather than their grammatical exactitude!