It happens in most countries with regional accents. I don’t think it in itself is a huge issue & I speak as someone with a very broad accent. But it just forms as part of British classism which very much is a problem across society.
>“On the other hand, people in the south are thought to be more ambitious, more intelligent
Lol ask people further north what they think of southerners those won’t be the words you get
Look at politics to see that easily. Angela Rayner is called an idiot quite frequently because of her accent. It’s discrimination that should be called out on.
Isn’t this more an issue of comprehension? Classic, posh, ‘plums in mouth’ accent may make you out to sound like an upper class twat but I’d wager everyone in the country can easily comprehend and understand what they are saying. I’m not going to lie and say that I’ve had conversations with people from the far north of the uk and I’ve understood every word, in response I’ve been asked by others to repeat what I’ve said, presumably for the same reason.
I sometimes think the Guardian just can’t help itself. Its assertions become more bizarre by the day.
As someone with a Liverpool accent, it’s been more of a poke in the ribs than full discrimination (in my experience). But then again I’ve never lived outside of Liverpool.
I’ve got a reasonably broad Yorkshire accent. I stick out like a sore thumb whenever I speak in the town in the North East I now live in… Because a huge chunk speak with Scottish or Mancunian accent.
I make a point of not hiding it too much, even in official uses. I tone it down, sure, but I don’t retreat into total neutrality. I’ve used it to my advantage when I still lived in Peterborough.
If it sounds like Johnson or Cameron I start checking for my wallet.
I’m in Kent so if I go any further south I’ll be drowning and I can tell you now southerners are not any more ambitious than my people from Yorkshire the only difference is I’m 40 ish minutes from London.
Due to being educated at Winchester and then Cambridge (or I should say, having that education foisted on me from a young age) I now instinctively speak with a ghastly RP accent. It makes it especially hard to get through to anyone when I give my lectures on anarcho-communism in the North or Scotland, or East London for that matter. That said I can’t blame people for hating my guts based on how I sound. I’ve taken elocution lessons from a man in Hull to try and tamp it down but to no avail. It’s something I have to live with.
I think a lot of the ‘discrimnation’ is sub-concious and based on stereotypes. My family are all Londoners (grandparents were from Hammersmith & Hackney, me mum and dad were brought up in Enfield & Queensbury, a lot of my extended family grew up in Bow) so I’ve been brought up around people that talk a certain way which has at times got me labelled as ‘common’.
I was very conscious when I started my first office job because I was seemingly surrounded by what I perceived to be very posh sounding people and I didn’t think they’d take me seriously. Luckily it doesn’t seem to have effected my career.
Considering how much accent is related to class in the UK, this isn’t remotely surprising
We need to stop all this bullshit, we’re all literally hours away from each other on a tiny island. It’s ridiculous.
My brother goes to Cambridge and has probably the strongest northern accent in his college, and he often gets treated like he’s thick. He’s had to re record things he’s submitted too because people couldn’t understand him, even though his accent is objectively pretty “soft” for our area (we’re from Yorkshire.)
Lovely image choice of Phillips by the Guardian
The survey is quite obviously about regional discrimination, it seems to focus on the north. But I wonder too how much discrimination there is against people who don’t have the ‘right kind’ of southern accent and sound lower-class.
I have an unsupported theory that if you go south and east of Oxford(ish), you see more variation in accent *within* a town than you will between different towns. It seems to be a characteristic that’s unique to the southeast of England, and sets it apart from the north, the midlands and also the southwest
You should always be wary whenever you hear a scouser, even in Liverpool
I can believe it to be honest.
I have a Scottish accent and went to Uni in Sheffield. The locals were decent, but I occasionally had other students with Southern accents dumbing things down and defining words for me. It was very indirect and perhaps unconscious but really noticeable, especially when people had a drink or two in them.
This annoyed me more than the constant “Do a shrek impression”…
I’m a thick cockney accented male. I came across this all the time during my time at drama school, so this isn’t surprising.
It’s basically southerners thinking they are better than everyone else because they say BARTH instead of Bath.
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It happens in most countries with regional accents. I don’t think it in itself is a huge issue & I speak as someone with a very broad accent. But it just forms as part of British classism which very much is a problem across society.
>“On the other hand, people in the south are thought to be more ambitious, more intelligent
Lol ask people further north what they think of southerners those won’t be the words you get
Look at politics to see that easily. Angela Rayner is called an idiot quite frequently because of her accent. It’s discrimination that should be called out on.
Isn’t this more an issue of comprehension? Classic, posh, ‘plums in mouth’ accent may make you out to sound like an upper class twat but I’d wager everyone in the country can easily comprehend and understand what they are saying. I’m not going to lie and say that I’ve had conversations with people from the far north of the uk and I’ve understood every word, in response I’ve been asked by others to repeat what I’ve said, presumably for the same reason.
I sometimes think the Guardian just can’t help itself. Its assertions become more bizarre by the day.
As someone with a Liverpool accent, it’s been more of a poke in the ribs than full discrimination (in my experience). But then again I’ve never lived outside of Liverpool.
I’ve got a reasonably broad Yorkshire accent. I stick out like a sore thumb whenever I speak in the town in the North East I now live in… Because a huge chunk speak with Scottish or Mancunian accent.
I make a point of not hiding it too much, even in official uses. I tone it down, sure, but I don’t retreat into total neutrality. I’ve used it to my advantage when I still lived in Peterborough.
If it sounds like Johnson or Cameron I start checking for my wallet.
I’m in Kent so if I go any further south I’ll be drowning and I can tell you now southerners are not any more ambitious than my people from Yorkshire the only difference is I’m 40 ish minutes from London.
Due to being educated at Winchester and then Cambridge (or I should say, having that education foisted on me from a young age) I now instinctively speak with a ghastly RP accent. It makes it especially hard to get through to anyone when I give my lectures on anarcho-communism in the North or Scotland, or East London for that matter. That said I can’t blame people for hating my guts based on how I sound. I’ve taken elocution lessons from a man in Hull to try and tamp it down but to no avail. It’s something I have to live with.
I think a lot of the ‘discrimnation’ is sub-concious and based on stereotypes. My family are all Londoners (grandparents were from Hammersmith & Hackney, me mum and dad were brought up in Enfield & Queensbury, a lot of my extended family grew up in Bow) so I’ve been brought up around people that talk a certain way which has at times got me labelled as ‘common’.
I was very conscious when I started my first office job because I was seemingly surrounded by what I perceived to be very posh sounding people and I didn’t think they’d take me seriously. Luckily it doesn’t seem to have effected my career.
Considering how much accent is related to class in the UK, this isn’t remotely surprising
We need to stop all this bullshit, we’re all literally hours away from each other on a tiny island. It’s ridiculous.
My brother goes to Cambridge and has probably the strongest northern accent in his college, and he often gets treated like he’s thick. He’s had to re record things he’s submitted too because people couldn’t understand him, even though his accent is objectively pretty “soft” for our area (we’re from Yorkshire.)
Lovely image choice of Phillips by the Guardian
The survey is quite obviously about regional discrimination, it seems to focus on the north. But I wonder too how much discrimination there is against people who don’t have the ‘right kind’ of southern accent and sound lower-class.
I have an unsupported theory that if you go south and east of Oxford(ish), you see more variation in accent *within* a town than you will between different towns. It seems to be a characteristic that’s unique to the southeast of England, and sets it apart from the north, the midlands and also the southwest
You should always be wary whenever you hear a scouser, even in Liverpool
I can believe it to be honest.
I have a Scottish accent and went to Uni in Sheffield. The locals were decent, but I occasionally had other students with Southern accents dumbing things down and defining words for me. It was very indirect and perhaps unconscious but really noticeable, especially when people had a drink or two in them.
This annoyed me more than the constant “Do a shrek impression”…
I’m a thick cockney accented male. I came across this all the time during my time at drama school, so this isn’t surprising.
It’s basically southerners thinking they are better than everyone else because they say BARTH instead of Bath.