I Say, You Say... (Accents and quirks)

[Who's Wee Dug]

It was a lot better in the 70's or at least cleaner.

[chillicamper]

I've been told I have a strong Hampshire accent and sound like a farmer I always though that was the Somerset accent

[AuntyVague]

Depends on which part of Scotland. I find the Glasgow accent a little coarse, but Edinburgh more refined. Dundee is okay as is Inverness and only so much Aberdeen will do. As for Ireland, Southern is nice, Belfast tolerable.

Now, my partner is from Derry, Ireland so I get to hear that lots which is nice as I'm a sucker for an Irish accent. She used to live in Aberdeen (and me in Elgin) so I got used to those accents. I now live in Wales and could listen to some young Welsh ladies talk all day long.

Used to work with a lady from Romania....sigh.....it didn't help that she was stunning either...

Nice to hear you've found a nice accent to settle down with Bikkie...at least I think you have...it's always so hard to tell

My Dad is from Dundee and it always surprises me when people say he has a broad accent. Apparently when Mum met him she couldn't understand him and thought he was German

[Tonyblack]

I've had a lot of American ask me if I'm "from back east" and have thought I was a New Englander.

Actually, that phrase "back east" seems to be distictly American. The opposite seems to be "out west".

[Bickaxe]

Depends on which part of Scotland. I find the Glasgow accent a little coarse, but Edinburgh more refined. Dundee is okay as is Inverness and only so much Aberdeen will do. As for Ireland, Southern is nice, Belfast tolerable.

Now, my partner is from Derry, Ireland so I get to hear that lots which is nice as I'm a sucker for an Irish accent. She used to live in Aberdeen (and me in Elgin) so I got used to those accents. I now live in Wales and could listen to some young Welsh ladies talk all day long.

Used to work with a lady from Romania....sigh.....it didn't help that she was stunning either...

Nice to hear you've found a nice accent to settle down with Bikkie...at least I think you have...it's always so hard to tell

Ha! Thinking about Australia next ....

[Will of Lancre]

I've been told I have a strong Hampshire accent and sound like a farmer I always though that was the Somerset accent

The "oo-aarh" accents start as soon as you get away from the London influence going west. I come from South Oxfordshire and the local agricultural types had a distinctive western burr. Even Reading was a western-sounding accent in my childhood in the 60s, though it now sounds more like debased Cockney.

My cousins grew up in Hampshire and I remember them coming back from school with a rhyme which started "Oi comes from Aampshire" and ended "Oi caan't read an Oi caan't write, but Oi can droive a traactor"

[chillicamper]

My cousins grew up in Hampshire and I remember them coming back from school with a rhyme which started "Oi comes from Aampshire" and ended "Oi caan't read an Oi caan't write, but Oi can droive a traactor"

That sounds about right. I don't hear it myself, but I do hear some accent in my kids funnily enough - mainly I becoming Oi and my becoming Moi.

At least I am well qualified to be able to say 'Get orrfff moi laaaaand' properly

[Bickaxe]

I've been told I have a strong Hampshire accent and sound like a farmer I always though that was the Somerset accent

The "oo-aarh" accents start as soon as you get away from the London influence going west. I come from South Oxfordshire and the local agricultural types had a distinctive western burr. Even Reading was a western-sounding accent in my childhood in the 60s, though it now sounds more like debased Cockney.

Whereabouts in Sarf Oxfudshuh Will? I'm from Didcot and the accents I grew up with, well, nobody had one really. Its all changed now though, too many people moved in to commute to London.
When I was a kid, I did notice the difference when my Gran took me to Swindon and Reading. Wantage had an accent I guess, Abingdon and Oxford didn't.

[AuntyVague]

Depends on which part of Scotland. I find the Glasgow accent a little coarse, but Edinburgh more refined. Dundee is okay as is Inverness and only so much Aberdeen will do. As for Ireland, Southern is nice, Belfast tolerable.

Now, my partner is from Derry, Ireland so I get to hear that lots which is nice as I'm a sucker for an Irish accent. She used to live in Aberdeen (and me in Elgin) so I got used to those accents. I now live in Wales and could listen to some young Welsh ladies talk all day long.

Used to work with a lady from Romania....sigh.....it didn't help that she was stunning either...

Nice to hear you've found a nice accent to settle down with Bikkie...at least I think you have...it's always so hard to tell

Ha! Thinking about Australia next ....

You don't fool me for a second young man! If memory serves, you've already been to Australia, found the accents were all much the same, became bored and hightailed back home again

[Will of Lancre]

Whereabouts in Sarf Oxfudshuh Will? I'm from Didcot and the accents I grew up with, well, nobody had one really. Its all changed now though, too many people moved in to commute to London.
When I was a kid, I did notice the difference when my Gran took me to Swindon and Reading. Wantage had an accent I guess, Abingdon and Oxford didn't.

A little place called Checkendon, in the bend of the Thames, roughly equidistant from Henley, Wallingford and Reading. My Dad was a farmer. He was originally from Devon so he didn't have the local accent, but a lot of his fellow-farmers did.

On that subject, my Grandma naturally had a Devon accent, which I didn't notice as that was just how Grandma spoke. But I noticed her siblings' (my great-aunts and great-uncles') accents when we went to Devon on holiday.

I am not surprised there wasn't much of an accent in Didcot, seeing how many people must have moved there from other places to work on the railways and then at the power station. A bit of a melting-pot. \

I don't know about Oxford nowadays. Of course the University talks posh , but the Town people used to have a Western-sounding accent. Just think of Ronnie Barker playing a rustic - he was from Oxford.

[raptornx01]

Neighbor of a friend of mine grew up in london, but has been in the states for 20 years (in his 70's now). I would say he has no accent, or more to the point has a perfect american accent. whichever. that is, untill he starts talking about when he lived in London. then it starts to peak through

[Conforumist]

I'm starting to wonder if people around here are turning French all of a sudden??

I here so many people ending their sentences with "there" now a days.

Like,
What can I get you there?
Is there everything else there?
That will be $15 there.

People also put "last year" together, to make "lasheer".

[Will of Lancre]

Although this doesn't quite count as accent, has anyone noticed that (UK) people, when replying to questions, tend to begin with "So..." when a few years ago it would have been "Well..." (On TV you get things like: Interviewer: "And what does this latest discovery about asteroids tell us about the history of the solar system?", Expert: "So, asteroids were formed x billion years ago...").

Another thing I frequently hear is the pronunciation of "the" as "thuh" even before a vowel, where in the past it was always pronouned "thee" - as in thuh asteroid, thuh ocean, thuh Alps.

As a linguist I know that this is just language changing over time, as it does, but as a fifty-something human being it feels as if the end of the world is imminent.

[Ghost]

I can't find the QI explanation on this
Chinglish

[Dotsie]

Although this doesn't quite count as accent, has anyone noticed that (UK) people, when replying to questions, tend to begin with "So..." when a few years ago it would have been "Well..." (On TV you get things like: Interviewer: "And what does this latest discovery about asteroids tell us about the history of the solar system?", Expert: "So, asteroids were formed x billion years ago...").

Another thing I frequently hear is the pronunciation of "the" as "thuh" even before a vowel, where in the past it was always pronouned "thee" - as in thuh asteroid, thuh ocean, thuh Alps.

As a linguist I know that this is just language changing over time, as it does, but as a fifty-something human being it feels as if the end of the world is imminent.

I blame Brian Cox for this. They never used to let northerners on the telly, now he's our expert on everything sciencey. Maybe not changing language so much as changing BBC attitudes to regional accents.