Regional accents- the last straw.

[Serial_Apologist]

Most regional accents blur into other ones. In Rhyl, for example, the Welsh accent is only slight, with a strong does of Scouse. Moving from Liverpool towards Birmingham, the modification of the twang changes very gradually; by the time Brum is reached, the change has not been at all great.

However - visit Southport, where the Scouse accent is quite significant, and travel along the road for a few miles until you reach Ormskirk. Here, you will experience a strong mid-Lancs accent. How can the accent change so suddenly? There's no physical boundary (river or mountain range) between the two.

And then there's all the marked differences in accent separating the now-dormitory towns just north of Manchester such as Bolton, which maybe by consequence don't identify with Manchester in the way that a Croydon resident now thinks of themself as a Londoner. And think of The Wash, and how it really is the narrow dividing line of just a mile or two between villages between Southern/East Anglian vowels (broadly speaking!) and those found north of a slightly wavy line from Warwick to Peterborough via Northampton. Dialectitians of a couple of decades ago will have been surprised at the survival of West Country burr in places like Reading and Portsmouth, let alone Bristol, when many predicted their complete demise by the Millennium. More amazing to me, at any rate, is the almost total obliteration of the various variants of so strongly characterised and identity-defining an accent as Cockney and its replacement by Jafaican with admixtures of Strine within the capital itself over the past 20 years and its virtual banishment to the suburbs and beyond, including among the white and ethnic south Asian populations.

[Pulcinella]

Most regional accents blur into other ones. In Rhyl, for example, the Welsh accent is only slight, with a strong does of Scouse. Moving from Liverpool towards Birmingham, the modification of the twang changes very gradually; by the time Brum is reached, the change has not been at all great.

However - visit Southport, where the Scouse accent is quite significant, and travel along the road for a few miles until you reach Ormskirk. Here, you will experience a strong mid-Lancs accent. How can the accent change so suddenly? There's no physical boundary (river or mountain range) between the two.

I suspect that Ormskirk's accent has remained fairly unchanged but that Southport's, if it ever had one, changed as posh Scousers moved there out of Liverpool. I grew up in Crosby; my parents 'escaped' there from Bootle! Never had much of a Scouse accent, but can still be identified by those that can distinguish traits.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

And then there's all the marked differences in accent separating the now-dormitory towns just north of Manchester such as Bolton, which maybe by consequence don't identify with Manchester in the way that a Croydon resident now thinks of themself as a Londoner.

I do quite a good Professor Higgins party trick in identifying accents of Greater Manchester, Lancashire and West Yorkshire. I once accurately pinpointed a teacher in Driffield who was born in Delph - a small village.

[cloughie]

I do quite a good Professor Higgins party trick in identifying accents of Greater Manchester, Lancashire and West Yorkshire. I once accurately pinpointed a teacher in Driffield who was born in Delph - a small village.

...and did he/she think of him/herself to be Yorkshire?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

...and did he/she think of him/herself to be Yorkshire?

She didn't say, but the old Lancashire/Yorkshire boundary wasn't particularly logical. The Pennine watershed would have been the obvious dividing line.

[teamsaint]

She didn't say, but the old Lancashire/Yorkshire boundary wasn't particularly logical. The Pennine watershed would have been the obvious dividing line.

Dorset nicked Bournemouth off us.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Dorset nicked Bournemouth off us.

Yorkshire was splattered over Lancashire, Cumbria, Durham, Cleveland, Humberside, North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire & South Yorkshire.
Lancashire was reduced to something rather small, losing out to Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Cumbria.

[antongould]

I may be wrong but I suspect I am one of the few people hereabouts with a distinct regional accent ....
Yet I don't really think I have one it is only when I hear a recording of my voice that I have to accept that I have. I have never thought of myself as a professional Geordie but I suppose I must be, for my sins, a natural one??

[Serial_Apologist]

Once they discovered they had in me the best treble voice the school had heard since the 1930s, according to those who claimed to know, I had elocution lessons to rid me of the London accent I never knew I had so I could sing the solo parts in anthems such as "O for the wings of a dove" and play Papageno in the school opera. On leaving school and getting employment I admit to deliberately resuming that accent as I felt more at home with it in the early '60s as a Mod jazzer, also identifying more with my mum's soft Middlesbrough than my north London-born father's attempts to sound like Bertie Wooster: "I say, jolly good", etc.

I may be wrong but I suspect I am one of the few people hereabouts with a distinct regional accent ....
Yet I don't really think I have one it is only when I hear a recording of my voice that I have to accept that I have. I have never thought of myself as a professional Geordie but I suppose I must be, for my sins, a natural one??

Our friend from the North.

[James Wonnacott]

So why is it the "last straw" ?

I was refering to listening to Radio 3 output, not the forum.
I feel I have to saty here if only to remind you that there are those who disagree with you :-)

[MrGongGong]

I was refering to listening to Radio 3 output, not the forum.
I feel I have to saty here if only to remind you that there are those who disagree with you :-)

I'm sure there are more people that disagree with me (about what?) than agree
BUT you still haven't really answered the question?

Saty ?

oooer mrs

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=saty

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Start in Dundee. Ask someone to say "oboe".
You might hear "ubu".

Travel southwards to Newcastle - "awbaw"

By the time you reach Hull, it's "erber:

Passing through Cambridge, expect to hear "eaubeau".

A little further south and it's "owbow" all way from Essex to Australia.

[Pianorak]

Could someone please explain London-born Simon Garfield's vowel sounds as heard on R4 in this morning's "Something Understood" with Mark Tully (06.05). I was both fascinated and mystified.

[James Wonnacott]

It’s the last straw because I've been getting more and more fed up with R3 and therefore listening to it less and less.
Putting up with the interminable babble of the announcers with the added irritation of regional accents would finally make me reach for the off switch for the last time.
Not sure what the relevance of "saty oooer mrs" is?

[MrGongGong]

It’s the last straw because I've been getting more and more fed up with R3 and therefore listening to it less and less.
Putting up with the interminable babble of the announcers with the added irritation of regional accents would finally make me reach for the off switch for the last time.
Not sure what the relevance of "saty oooer mrs" is?

Why are "regional" accents irritating?
Many people find RP accents phoney and irritating

saty:
n. derived from the Greek word Satyriasis which means uncontrollable sexual desire in a male. Comparable to the female nymphomaniac. The differance being when a female is a nympho she is a slut or a loose woman. When a male is a saty he is merely a player or a gigolo. It does not usually have the same negative connotation as nympho does.

(I think your internet is broken matey)