YORKSHIRE (and by extension the north)

[damp squib]

3 hours ago, Trojan said:

I've read somewhere that Swedes and Norwegians mock the way Danes speak.  Apparently all three languages are mutually intelligible, but as you say dialects with armies.

Certainly if you formalised Geordie and the way the people of Cornwall  (not Cornish) speak and wrote it down they wouldn't look like the same language.  Related perhaps like Spanish and Portuguese, but not the same language.

And yet a Geordie or Cornwallian (?) looking for a professional job in Newcastle or Cornwall would be penalised for not speaking more like someone from the posher parts of London!

Scotland is a great example of how languages become politicised. The nobility was originally Gaelic speaking and Gaelic was known to Scottish and English "Inglis" speakers as "Scotis". Then as "Inglis" became the dominant language of the nobility it appropriated the name "Scotis" as it carried the political weight of being named after the country. Finally after the act of Union with power moving south of the border, RP English replaced Scotis which was then relegated to the second class language of "Scots", while poor Gaelic was renamed "Erse" or Irish to mark at as foreign and barbaric in the era of the Jacobite rebellions (an attitude that persists to this day).

[damp squib]

1 hour ago, Wiltshire Warrior Dragon said:

As others (eg Wiltshire Rhino) have pointed out, this isn't a north -v- south linguistic issue; it is London and the Home Counties -v- the provinces.

I think it's more likely upper classes vs the rest. There are plenty of accents and dialects in London and the home counties that are considered to be "not speaking properly" i.e. working class and ethnic minority accents, and yet no matter where they are in the country the upper classes all have the same plummy accent.

[Clogiron]

Glasgow is the only place where I've heard them fit 2 swear words into 1 ordinary word

[deluded pom?]

2 hours ago, Wiltshire Warrior Dragon said:

I would have thought Americanisms are more of an issue for all parts of the country: I regularly see reference to 'programs'; my daughter routinely calls the toilet the bathroom, even, for instance, in pubs where no bath will be present; for a medical appointment at a clinic in Salisbury on Monday, I received an email (from, it transpires, a locally born and raised person) with directions telling me to 'take a left', whereas I would just say 'turn left'.

How many blocks was it? Seriously, I hate Americanisms. Even the alleged custodian of the English language, the BBC, constantly refer to films as movies. Even in this thread there are people using a z where an s should be. 

[Marauder]

5 hours ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

And the Wakey / Cas fans say snap instead of food which I always like

We call it snap as well in Doncaster.

[Damien]

2 hours ago, damp squib said:

I think it's more likely upper classes vs the rest. There are plenty of accents and dialects in London and the home counties that are considered to be "not speaking properly" i.e. working class and ethnic minority accents, and yet no matter where they are in the country the upper classes all have the same plummy accent.

One thing I noticed at University was all those that went to Public schools all sounded pretty much the same. They could be from the North East, Cumbria, Yorkshire or wherever and they all had this generic accent. This is much evident when listening to RU players being interviewed who went to such schools. 

[Padge]

2 hours ago, Damien said:

One thing I noticed at University was all those that went to Public schools all sounded pretty much the same. They could be from the North East, Cumbria, Yorkshire or wherever and they all had this generic accent. This is much evident when listening to RU players being interviewed who went to such schools. 

Even jason robinson started to sound the same.

[damp squib]

14 hours ago, Damien said:

One thing I noticed at University was all those that went to Public schools all sounded pretty much the same. They could be from the North East, Cumbria, Yorkshire or wherever and they all had this generic accent. This is much evident when listening to RU players being interviewed who went to such schools. 

You'd wonder about the small number of kids from deprived backgrounds who go to those schools on scholarships. They must be under tremendous pressure to change their accents.

[Tommygilf]

18 minutes ago, damp squib said:

You'd wonder about the small number of kids from deprived backgrounds who go to those schools on scholarships. They must be under tremendous pressure to change their accents.

I went from an inner city Leeds catholic primary school where most of us lived on ex council estates and those that didn't still lived in council houses. Thinking about it half the class we're not british or irish origin and those that were almost always had a celtic heritage or otherwise European as a rule. In a class of 30 two of my best mates were from the Philippines and Cameroon. It really was an inner city united nations.

Safe to say going to an all boys private school on a scholarship was a shock to the system! Fortunately, it wasn't  like going to Stowe or Eton (as I've now confirmed at Uni), it was more a paid for Grammar school where sounding too posh was still ridiculed but even still very few ever spoke with as broad an accent as me. I wouldn't be surprised if some much posher schools were worse judging by how everyone at uni I've met from those places have that really annoying generic bland accent.

[Steve May]

14 hours ago, Damien said:

One thing I noticed at University was all those that went to Public schools all sounded pretty much the same. They could be from the North East, Cumbria, Yorkshire or wherever and they all had this generic accent. This is much evident when listening to RU players being interviewed who went to such schools. 

It gets everywhere. 

I know someone who played cricket for Ireland who had that generic, posh Southerner accent.  

And more more than one Scotsman has muttered darkly to me over a beer that you should never trust a Scotsman with an English accent.

 

[Tommygilf]

There is nothing wrong with speaking with a strong accent and being proud of where you are from. However that shouldn't be confused with being too stubborn about it so that you can't be understood. 

[gingerjon]

14 hours ago, Damien said:

One thing I noticed at University was all those that went to Public schools all sounded pretty much the same. They could be from the North East, Cumbria, Yorkshire or wherever and they all had this generic accent. This is much evident when listening to RU players being interviewed who went to such schools. 

I moved from Yorkshire to Lancashire to Cumbria as I was growing up. My accent was a rather curious hodge-podge of all these places.

I then went to university. It was in mid Wales but everyone I met was either from southeast England or public school.

My accent, as it had been, lasted about six weeks. The only giveaway now is that I still viciously clip the 'a' in bath, path, fast etc.

[gingerjon]

16 hours ago, deluded pom? said:

Even in this thread there are people using a z where an s should be. 

As per the approved Oxford spelling that's been part of British English for centuries?

[Steve May]

You lot should all try working in a room with a bunch of Germans for a few months. 

It didn’t change my accent, but I found myself coming out with very odd sentences.  

Difficult to explain, but things like the sentence “I changed three things” would come out as “I did change three things” or “Now we will take a break for lunch” became “Now we are taking a break for lunch”

The sooner we are doing Brexit and are having no more working with the Germans the more really cool everything will be.

 

[deluded pom?]

1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

As per the approved Oxford spelling that's been part of British English for centuries?

Did you use that spelling when you were at school and what did your English teacher say if you did?

[gingerjon]

2 minutes ago, deluded pom? said:

Did you use that spelling when you were at school and what did your English teacher say if you did?

I can remember having school textbooks - that would have been published in the 1970s - that had the -ize spellings in. We were taught the -ise spellings, obviously, but not that -ize was wrong, just that it wasn't really used.

Genuinely, both are acceptable in British English even if the -ise is the one everyone uses. It's like people thinking soccer is an American word when it was so British that it's what Roy of the Rovers called the sport he was playing.

[deluded pom?]

1 minute ago, gingerjon said:

I can remember having school textbooks - that would have been published in the 1970s - that had the -ize spellings in. We were taught the -ise spellings, obviously, but not that -ize was wrong, just that it wasn't really used.

Genuinely, both are acceptable in British English even if the -ise is the one everyone uses. It's like people thinking soccer is an American word when it was so British that it's what Roy of the Rovers called the sport he was playing.

Does that mean I could have gone though school writing like I was a character from the Canterbury Tales and it would have been totally acceptable? I never, ever, ever, ever saw ize spellings in a British text book. Are you sure they weren't American books that the USA had kindly donated to a destitute educational system?

[gingerjon]

5 minutes ago, deluded pom? said:

Does that mean I could have gone though school writing like I was a character from the Canterbury Tales and it would have been totally acceptable? I never, ever, ever, ever saw ize spellings in a British text book. Are you sure they weren't American books that the USA had kindly donated to a destitute educational system?

Balls, I replied to this and then it vanished.

Anyway, to go again. Genuinely, they were British textbooks, but old. So, for a time, I associated the -ize spellings with being old fashioned rather than American.

If your Chaucerian English is in the OED and not marked as 'archaic' or similar then your teacher might get very cross, and you might get called a so and so, but you wouldn't be wrong.

And I've just checked and 'organize' at least is listed as acceptable in the OED. I'm not going to check the rest.

(I wouldn't use it, and I'd 'correct' any writing I saw that had it, but it isn't technically wrong.)

[deluded pom?]

Just now, gingerjon said:

Balls, I replied to this and then it vanished.

Anyway, to go again. Genuinely, they were British textbooks, but old. So, for a time, I associated the -ize spellings with being old fashioned rather than American.

If your Chaucerian English is in the OED and not marked as 'archaic' or similar then your teacher might get very cross, and you might get called a so and so, but you wouldn't be wrong.

And I've just checked and 'organize' at least is listed as acceptable in the OED. I'm not going to check the rest.

(I wouldn't use it, and I'd 'correct' any writing I saw that had it, but it isn't technically wrong.)

I also find it curious that a country which has an educational system brought over by the British i.e Australia has all but abandoned the normal (for want of a better word) British spelling of words in favour of the American spelling yet New Zealand still uses the same spellings we do. How does that happen? Is it an overnight thing? Are words used and nobody challenges them so they become the norm?

[GUBRATS]

After emigrating to NZ in the 70s my dad and myself ended up both working as civilians at Trentham army camp just north of Wellington , so obviously working with mostly Kiwi's our accents softened to be understood , until of course I would end up speaking on the phone to my dad , whereupon putting the phone down the other workers around me would declare " we haven't a clue what you have just said on the phone " as I had dropped back into ' Leyth ' for the duration of my phone conversation

[gingerjon]

3 minutes ago, deluded pom? said:

I also find it curious that a country which has an educational system brought over by the British i.e Australia has all but abandoned the normal (for want of a better word) British spelling of words in favour of the American spelling yet New Zealand still uses the same spellings we do. How does that happen? Is it an overnight thing? Are words used and nobody challenges them so they become the norm?

I got an AFL guidebook in, I think, 1991 and half the teams were listed as having 'colours' and the other half as having 'colors'. Strange bunch, the Australians.

[deluded pom?]

Just now, gingerjon said:

I got an AFL guidebook in, I think, 1991 and half the teams were listed as having 'colours' and the other half as having 'colors'. Strange bunch, the Australians.

Always have been, always will be.

[GUBRATS]

Just now, deluded pom? said:

Always have been, always will be.

That's the problem with Australia , it's full of them