Have you ever wondered about the accents your blogging friends speak with? It occurred to me the other day when I realised that one blogger I know of doesn’t come from London as I thought, but the North. I’ve heard a few of you speaking on the radio and some of you make videos of yourselves, but what about the rest. Do you have a regional accent?
I have a midlands accent. Rob (R.P., of course) tries to correct me when I say ‘bath’ and ‘grass’, so I always ask him; what about ‘gas’? I was on a course once with a girl who told me that that I ‘talked posh’. She told me she was from Canvey Island - ‘can’t you tell?’
10 comments:
I still have a dull midlands accent, so I am told with a few bits of Scottishness added after being here for 40 years so understand you easily when you say you need a bath after rolling on the grass. Dull but not common. I always thought of it as nearly no accent as it is compared to somewhere like Birmingham!
Caroline xxx
I'm afraid I sound educated and plummy. I was actually born in Wales, and there's a vestigial Welshness, but Dad always had a BBC accent learned in London when very young, and I clearly took after him, rather than my Mum, who had a pronounced Welsh accent all her life.
I wondered whether my current voice therapy would fundamentally change the way I spoke, but apart from raising the pitch and learning to stress and emphasise words differently, no, it hasn't. I still articulate words carefully and in a manner that the late Queen Mother would have approved. In fact one of the young trans lads actually calls me the Queen Mother - said with affection, of course, but clearly I'm a bit of a joke as soon as I open my mouth. 'Posh Bird' is another nickname. The only consolation is that everyone agrees that my new 'Lucy' voice is seriously good, even if it is more Roedean than Grange Hill.
Lucy
Well you know how I sound ;-) I don't think I have an accent - I moved around so much when young I learned to lose it quick. Having an accent was something that could get you beaten up in the playground pretty fast, so within about a week of each move I learned to talk like a native. I still do it when I do research groups, unconsciously - by the end of the group I am aware that I'm mimicing the local accent (which is quite handy professionally, as it helps put people at ease a bit, but comes not from any skill but from a vestigial childhood fear).
And I don't think I detected a Midlands accent in your voice...maybe a little? Not exactly Dudley though eh!!? (Doodlay...)..
I hear a voice in my head...
...hang on, let me rephrase that...
the 'voice' behind someone's blog is like the visuals on radio to me. And they're rarely if ever the saame as the real voice if I finally get round to hearing it.
RP is only another regional accent, of course...
...by the way, I like the new photo, Anji!
I knew that this subject would draw interesting comments.
Caroline: It reminded me, my mum is dyslexic and writes as she speaks. Rob can't understand her letters, I have to translate. Where in the midlands were you from? I'm from the Vale of Evesham.
Lucy: or should I say Your Highness? It's amazing that you didn't get a Welsh tinge to your accent.
Josephine: It's very true. I was interested to read that you pick them up easily. I'm the same. Interesting when I had a boyfriend from the North East. Unfortunately I haven't managed the same in France, although people tell me they love my English accent...
Dru: Yes I have ideas about people's voices. It's a bit like seeing someone who's usually on TV in real life. They are never as tall or as short as you'd expect them to be.
I tell Rob his RP is just another accent.
Glad you like the photo.
Oh yes; long ago, when I popped into the British Embassy in Paris (I was trying to get a carte de sejour), the official whom I met had an accent that was almost a parody of the Poshe English Accent. I guess that he'd spent too long abroad, playing the part of Our Man In (Insert name of forren posting here)
Dru: Sounds like someone invented by Graham Greene
I recall my old headmaster used to pronounce maths marths. I'm a mixture of Nottingham and Cornwall - and both say grass and pass properly! Ooo arr.
Angie: Thanks for your comment. Nottingham and Cornwall! We had a neighbour who was from Nottingham when I was a child. It took time to get used to the speed at which she spoke, let alone the accent.
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