Accents

'middle-class' accent with overtones of Canadian as I lived there and in the US for many years.

Like Raggygranny, Northerners think Southern, Southerners think Nothern. I did spend my formative years in Wales tho, my English Gran lived with us (she was born in London but had lived in Liverpool and had a very strange way of speaking)
I therefore, and quite unintentionally, pick up the accent of the person I am speaking to, very .

Anobel..I love the thought of you having a Morningside accent ..no mistaking it !!
I am from Lancashire and up here in the Borders some people think I sound like Victoria Wood ..but family in Lancashire think I have a Scottish accent .

Isn't it funny how your accent changes depending who you are talking to.

I lapse right into 'Corrie' when I talk to my Auntie in Wigan ..but very Scottish when talking to pupils ( esp. when I was telling them off ).

My eldest daughter is very English (she was 4 when we moved here in 1977) the middle one is very 'Borders' but the youngest one is more English than Scottish and she was born here !! They all have Scotish Husbands.

Annobel I think I'm probably similar but like you have never heard of High Caledonian! Most people seem to think a scottish accent is the TV version of Glaswegian - and it really isn't. I've been asked where I come from and have been told I don't sound as if I come from Dundee. Have to say a really broad local accent isn't particularly attractive or easy to understand but would hate to have the Morningside drawl! So many different accents - Aberdeen, Fife, Borders - just as different as Yorkshire is from Liverpool, or Brummie from the dreaded 'estuary' or the new-fangled accent emerging amongst young folk in parts of London. Wouldn't it be fascinating to sit around sipping the wine and comparing the accents? A Gransnet version of the Tower of Babel!!

Janreb do I know you from another forum????

Faded Welsh accent that was not very strong in the first place. But i can still hear it myself at times. Others rarely pick up on it. I find if I hear someone else with a South Welsh accent I often don't hear it at first (what accent - that's not an accent) Then i pick up and start grilling them about their origins just so i can listen to them talk. Makes me feel at home. I met a man who was a volunteer in a NT house in the West Country who went to the same school as me (but earlier). And the DJ/MC in the cycling event in County Clare last sunday was also from very near where i grew up! Didn't accost him though as he was v busy. My DH came in 733rd in a field of over 1200 cyclists by the way so he was pleased with himself. I had a coffee. Wish my DH had a south Cork accent but he was moved away from there at a young age.... So he has a very faint W Midlands one - HonG KonG with hard Gs for instance.

GOW, you have made a point when you say that ones accent can change depending on who you are talking to. (or should I say "to whom one is speaking" I don't want to be made to sit on the naughty step in Pedants Corner, or whatever it is!)

I sometimes feel that I am an accent "sponge" and have been told by colleagues in the office that my voice or accent seems to change according to which client I'm speaking to.

It's a part of the non verbal matching that we do to build rapport isn't it.
When in NZ I picked up the habit of ending sentences with "ay" As in "It's a lovely day ay?" When I go back there it very rapidly returns. I've been told there I could be a "posh Kiwi".
I can be a "stickler" at times, but I think that this form of communication is informal and that we should cut each other some slack, and not worry to much. As long a meaning is clear. Pedants corner is for those who want to get together and complain about evil misuse of the language in the world outside, ain't it?