Author Topic: Do you have a British accent?  (Read 6642 times)

Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #75 on: 11 May, 2021, 04:34:47 pm »
Don't people read the posts in this thread?  ::-)

The the test is using the result of "West London, Kate Winslet" to mean received pronunciation (RP), or near-RP, ie southern England educated middle class speech, so-called BBC English, not that you're actually from West London or have a "West London" accent. Does Roger Daltrey sound like Kate Winslet?

I'd guess:
Sunderland for NE England
East London for SE England working class.
Of course real West Londoners speak rather differently.  The subtleties of the various London accents & how much some of them have changed over the last 150yrs would make an interesting study.

Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #76 on: 11 May, 2021, 05:18:49 pm »
Would a 700 year period be too long for you?

https://youtu.be/3lXv3Tt4x20

Mr Larrington

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Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #77 on: 11 May, 2021, 06:47:04 pm »
Friend who is originally from Australia but has lived in Furryboottoon for about twenty-five years.  To my ear she still sounds like an Aussie but other people claim she sounds like a Scot.
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Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #78 on: 11 May, 2021, 08:19:58 pm »
Would a 700 year period be too long for you?

https://youtu.be/3lXv3Tt4x20

Interesting. Thanks.

Zipperhead

  • The cyclist formerly known as Big Helga
Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #79 on: 11 May, 2021, 08:40:51 pm »
What's with the "Kate Winslet West London" shiz? She's from Reading - I learnt that years ago from Scaryduck.
Won't somebody think of the hamsters!

Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #80 on: 11 May, 2021, 09:13:30 pm »
What's with the "Kate Winslet West London" shiz? She's from Reading - I learnt that years ago from Scaryduck.

The old Reading accent is properly rhotic.  Surprisingly different just 30 odd miles from Midd'x.

Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #81 on: 13 May, 2021, 12:25:28 am »
Err... What's wrong with Sunderland like?

Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #82 on: 13 May, 2021, 07:54:55 am »
Err... What's wrong with Sunderland like?

They haven’t really achieved much since they invented the flying boat.
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citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #83 on: 13 May, 2021, 08:28:00 am »
No one is ever from the East Midlands, we're elided (for good reason) from dialect history, as every DH Lawrence adaptation demonstrates.

Gary Oldman's attempt at a Leicester accent in Prick Up Your Ears is something to behold. I think Dick van Dyke would have done a better job.

Line of Duty has some pretty genuine-sounding Nottingham accents, at least to me (Kate obvs, but also that skinny police officer who always ends up having to organise digging up the concrete to reveal the strongbox of incriminating weapons / body parts)

Perry Fitzpatrick who plays Chris Lomax is actually from Nottingham.

What’s slightly more remarkable is that Craig Parkinson who played Dot is not from the East Midlands at all but Blackpool. I always thought his accent was pretty convincing and never realised it was put on until I heard him doing the LoD podcast.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #84 on: 13 May, 2021, 08:54:27 am »
Has me down as West London when I’m from just to the south of Manchester

ian

Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #85 on: 13 May, 2021, 09:35:49 am »
No one is ever from the East Midlands, we're elided (for good reason) from dialect history, as every DH Lawrence adaptation demonstrates.

Gary Oldman's attempt at a Leicester accent in Prick Up Your Ears is something to behold. I think Dick van Dyke would have done a better job.

Line of Duty has some pretty genuine-sounding Nottingham accents, at least to me (Kate obvs, but also that skinny police officer who always ends up having to organise digging up the concrete to reveal the strongbox of incriminating weapons / body parts)

Perry Fitzpatrick who plays Chris Lomax is actually from Nottingham.

What’s slightly more remarkable is that Craig Parkinson who played Dot is not from the East Midlands at all but Blackpool. I always thought his accent was pretty convincing and never realised it was put on until I heard him doing the LoD podcast.

I've never seen LoD, so I can't comment on any 'down Nottingham' accents – it was always 'down Nottingham' and 'up Derby' when I was growing up, even though, to my knowledge, there were no appreciable hills involved in either direction. We only went 'down Nottingham' once a year and never to my knowledge did 'up Derby' ever transgress from being a mere theoretical concept. I don't think I've ever been to Derby other than change trains. The most exotic places I went as a child were Cleethorpes, Skegnessm and Castle Donnington, all implausibly far away, and – on one notable occasion – a trip to the Birmingham Bullring Centre.

Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #86 on: 13 May, 2021, 11:03:04 am »
I’d some work done on a bike in Derby.

Mercians did it.
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Kim

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Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #87 on: 13 May, 2021, 01:18:40 pm »
it was always 'down Nottingham' and 'up Derby' when I was growing up, even though, to my knowledge, there were no appreciable hills involved in either direction.

Sounds like the railway convention.

Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #88 on: 14 May, 2021, 07:48:25 am »
it was always 'down Nottingham' and 'up Derby' when I was growing up, even though, to my knowledge, there were no appreciable hills involved in either direction.

Sounds like the railway convention.

And to explain that. On the UK railway system UP is towards London and DOWN is away from London. So on on tow track line you have an up and a down line. On some lines its a bit more random because they don't in any sense go towards or away from London in which case its defined from some historical reason such as where the main terminus station or the headquarters of the railway company that built the line was originally. My dad used to work on the track and my uncle was head of permanent way (ie track and bridges etc) for the East Coast main line (London to Edinburg via York).
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

ian

Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #89 on: 14 May, 2021, 09:58:10 am »
But both Derby (our occident) and Nottingham (our orient) were a little bit south of us (as the Erewash, our East Midlands Congo River, flows between them) and there wasn't a train line anyway, because that would be fancy. We had a bus whose extremities were the fabled Nottingham or Derby, or for those less inclined to exoticism, Ripley and Alfreton.

Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #90 on: 14 May, 2021, 12:24:30 pm »
I'm pretty sure there's an old football type game played in some Derbyshire town where the two teams are the Upards and the Downards or something like that. No idea if that's relevant - I just remember Simon Groom playing it in an eposide of Blue Peter about 40 years ago!

Edit: It would appear to be the Royal Shrovetide Football Match in Ashbourne. I have no idea why that stuck in my memory!
Those wonderful norks are never far from my thoughts, oh yeah!

ian

Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #91 on: 14 May, 2021, 12:28:53 pm »
That's Ashbourne, a far better appointed bit of Derbyshire, and their annual mostly rule-less Shrovetide football match. We had lower aspiration, mostly the Friday night town fight (sponsored by the twenty-two pubs that used to exist).

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #92 on: 14 May, 2021, 12:33:07 pm »
I just remember Simon Groom playing it in an eposide of Blue Peter about 40 years ago!

I remember that too!

He was from round that way as well - he often mentioned the family farm in Dethick, which <googles> is less than 20 miles from Ashbourne.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Steph

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Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #93 on: 14 May, 2021, 12:46:57 pm »
Sunderland here as well


Bollocks to that!
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Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #94 on: 14 May, 2021, 04:22:10 pm »
Sunderland here as well


Bollocks to that!


Why?
 
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Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #95 on: 14 May, 2021, 06:37:34 pm »
There is an age old 'rivalry' between the Tyne and the Wear.

I say rivalry, but really, Sunderland is a boil on the arse of the northeast. In my teenage dialect, 'Mackem' was always followed by 'scum'.

CommuteTooFar

  • Inadequate Randonneur
Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #96 on: 14 May, 2021, 07:53:30 pm »
A number of times when I was younger.  First time in a pub (18) I was asked where I was from I replied Radyr. He replied no you are  not, you are not from Cardiff or Wales. When I was at university (Brunel) Uxbridge people said I did not sound welsh.   

I met a post man while doing Christmas sorting. He was very exact at accents. He could identify the other casual workers which part of Cardiff they were from. We thought possibly he had read the application forms and connected the names. That was not the case. When he listened to me he said I do not know where you are from it could be Lisvane or Radyr one of those funny northern Cardiff areas. Your parents are from the Rhondda Fach. Close. Mum was from Wattstown (in the Rhondda Fach) but dad was from Ynysybwl (The next door valley).

I think my accent would of changed a little now. More obviously Welsh.

Davef

Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #97 on: 14 May, 2021, 08:22:33 pm »
“You speak very good English, you must be Scandinavian”.
I regret not responding “in contrast, you must be American” to the US ambassador to Nepal.

Re: Do you have a British accent?
« Reply #98 on: 15 May, 2021, 11:50:14 pm »
The Beeb reckons I'm from Yorkshire - very kind of them.  Their system doesn't account that I wanted more than one answer to some questions.

I was recently asked by an Irish colleague where my accent was from, I told him I was foreign, to which he said, "Yes, I know you're from Southern Ireland" ... not remotely.
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