Question about British accents

I am a Liverpudlian but left the city at 14 and went to Australia. Now people ask me what part of Australia I come from. But every time I returned to Knotty Ash and Huyton, I find I can slip back into speaking Scouse quite easily. I still love my home city and belong to various Liverpool groups on FB. Needless to say I love that accent and am sorry some people dislike it…but I understand.

gran5up

What a fascinating thread,Canada Gran, many thanks.

Listening to a radio programme I heard that Liverpool's the only accent where male and female speak differently: a man would pull his lips stretched wide and say "weark",for "work" while a woman would a woman would purse her lips, pushing the lower one down a little to make a sound more like the standard,"work".
Older Grans may remember the girls in,"The Liver Birds" their accent is different from the Beatles.

I've discovered from TV shows that a long "O", as in "down" or "out" can help tell a Canadian from an American, Canadian says it like an Ulsterman with the "0" like in "flown"

The actresses in The Liver Birds were not Liverpudlians, and it showed. They couldn’t really do the accent.

There are! I'm from Liverpool and live on the south coast. No one has any idea I'm a 'Pudlian. (Middle class RP). Even among the much recorded Beatles - Ringo and George were quite 'common' (heavy accent) Paul - middlish and John had to put his on - he was really pretty middle class. Recently the accent seems to have diverged and people from poorer areas have VERY thick accents. Same as 'very' Londoners or Brummies have heavier accents.

I think the mills were mentioned, Gabrielle! I can’t remember all of the article and can’t find it again - typical.

I find regional accents interesting. On moving from the coast to central Lancashire , a pupil said " Don't you talk posh. Miss"
I could recognise anyone from the Wigan/ Leigh area as they would say. " I'm going out tonight Me"
A relative working in Corby, Nothants had to get used to the Glasgow accent which was prevalent there.
Down south I have been asked if I am a scouser by people who sound Cockney to me.
Please everybody, stop sounding "th" as an F

Don't watch bakeoff, but I find accents difficult as I am deaf.

On TV.
If accents are Irish, Scottish or Welsh, or occasionally scouse, the subtitles go on.
It maybe something to do with my hearing, but I ‘canna’ understand a word they say.
,

Mayisay, yes I am fascinated by all the accents! I don't come across many that I can't understand, but to me it seems like some of the very rural country accents are stronger. I once worked with a man from Yorkshire that I had to really pay attention to in order to catch everything. My DH and I had a laugh when we were watching a show about treasure hunters, where a man had found a stash of roman coins in a farm; he was easy to understand, but the farmer was very hard to understand!

And Canadians in general all sound the same, except in the Maritime provinces and Quebec. Even native English speakers from Quebec will sometimes have a slightly French accent. Across provinces there may be some different word usages or colloquial phrases, but not noticeable to outsiders.

Welsh? Not a fan.

I've said this before on GN:

There is not just one Welsh accent. It is like saying there is one English accent.

Someone from Newport may sound completely different from a person from mid-Wales, West Wales or even the Valleys and completely different from North Wales.

Please everybody, stop sounding "th" as an F
***********************************
so far this discussion has been good-humoured, mostly.
but i find the presumption in the above dictat objectionable.

CanadianGran

Thanks all; I'm sure there are lots of fans of the Baking Show here, so perhaps you remember who I mean. She is very cheerful and jokey, with hair half natural and half bright orange. I enjoy her on the show, but can't catch half of what she's saying!

It's all good fun. I'm fine with most accents, but I have a hard time with hers. My mum was from Jersey, so I'm sure I must have had a bit of an accent myself as a toddler before school.

Put on the subtitles! Works for us....

Sue Donim I dont know anyone who thinks they have an accent ,but then if they hear their voice recorded they see that they do.Its just different to those around them but an accent just the same .
We were raised in Glasgow yet when we moved when I was 12 the teachers at our new school thought our accents weren't Glaswegian...just a different side of Glasgow than she was used to.There are likely 30 different accents between Glasgow and Edinburgh

White settler was often used decades ago in the same way Ex pat is when people from the UK go to live abroad.Its rarely an insult ,just a remark that you've moved from south of the border .Then theres incomer ,thats what we were and we only moved 20 miles .

It’s a pleasure to watch films from around the 40s or 50s. Yes the cut glass diction (apart from the caricatured working classes) can sound affected and dated now, but there’s no problem understanding the actors.
Many came straight from the stage tradition of projecting the speaking voice clearly.
Nowadays, even my son has the subtitles on for a film.

Don’t patronise me, Paddyanne. You know fine that ‘white settler’ is not a welcoming pleasantry with which to greet someone, it’s a pejorative term.

If you listen to ANYONE who's NOT from Birmingham or the surrounding areas, they'll tell you that the accent which is actually from the Black Country (Dudley, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Wednesbury etc) is a Birmingham accent WHICH IT MOST CERTAINLY IS NOT, a true Birmingham (Brummie) accent is VERY different.

There may only be a few miles between these towns/cities but our ascents are poles apart, just ask a Brummie!

My daughter has quite a 'well spoken' London accent (no idea why, we are all cockneys ) but judging by the amount of people who think she is Australian I wonder if there is a 'posh' Australian speaking area.

When I was a child we moved from Hull to a small town in North Yorkshire, I went to the local school and was told that "you sound like the BBC!" Would describe myself as middle class and my speech as RP.

I stayed in Aintree for work once and my boss who was with me gave up trying to understand the accent and left it to me! I am fascinated by accents, having a Wiltshire one myself, could I detect Irish in the Aintree one? I know I ended up using a sort of sign language in a supermarket. We had to do a medical workshop at the hospital and were a bit worried but found that was such a mix of international accents, it was fine.

JdotJ

My daughter has quite a 'well spoken' London accent (no idea why, we are all cockneys ) but judging by the amount of people who think she is Australian I wonder if there is a 'posh' Australian speaking area.

A cultivated Australian accent ?

We moved from a 'nice' London suburb to Wales and my children were teased at school for their Cockney accents!

A bit off topic, but Bake Off’s Lizzie was at our Food Festival this weekend!

Lizzie

HarmonyPuss I think that it’s only Black Country folk and Brummies who can the tell the difference.
The accents really aren’t that different, and certainly not poles apart.

I like accents, providing I can understand what is being said.
I'm thoroughly Devonshire, and it differs from the Cornish accent, and even Plymouth and Bristol have their own accents.

henetha

I like accents, providing I can understand what is being said.
I'm thoroughly Devonshire, and it differs from the Cornish accent, and even Plymouth and Bristol have their own accents.

There is, apparently, a Janner dictionary, henetha.

FannyCornforth

HarmonyPuss I think that it’s only Black Country folk and Brummies who can the tell the difference.
The accents really aren’t that different, and certainly not poles apart.

Birmingham is an accent, Black Country is a dialect. Different vocabulary and syntax.