Accent not fitting with upbringing

[artichokebakedbean]

I have quite a 'posh' accent as I've been told, especially considering I grew up in the provinces. I attended a Jewish state comprehensive school. Lived in a 4 bed semi where my parents were teachers. Pretty lower middle class, with parents who'd fallen in wealth from their upbringings so had pretty similar accents to mine.

People always assume that I had a naice upbringing with boarding schooling and lived in a huge detached, like my parents did growing up.

People always act so surprise when I tell them I come from humble roots.

[artichokebakedbean]

Oops I posted far too soon!

What I was meaning to ask, was, do you feel like your university education has made you adopt an accent that doesn't fit with your roots?

I feel my time at Cambridge gave me a false accent.

[HingleMcCringleberry]

Intersting question artichokebakedbean. In the first year at university there seemed to be a bit of smoothing of accents, as some people wanted to blend in. By second year though everyone was speaking as they always did (I imagine going home and getting the piss taken out of you for sounding weird made people drop their 'fake' accent), possibly as they were more comfortable being who they are.

Do you feel your university education made you adopt an accent not fitting your roots?

[OttilieKnackered]

I’m not sure a four bed semi is exactly ‘humble.’ It’s hardly the underclass, especially if it was in London...

[AbrahamsGone]

Is a Jewish state comp meant to be your idea of 'humble' ?

[BertrandRussell]

4 bed semi with teacher parents does not count as "humble roots" Don't be silly.

[BertrandRussell]

Your "time at Cambridge"?

What were you doing there?

[BigGreenOlives]

You don’t come from humble roots, your parents were teachers!

[MarysInTheDyson]

I agree that professional parents and a four bed house isn't humble roots.

[HingleMcCringleberry]

Your "time at Cambridge"?

What were you doing there?

Come on Bertie, keep up! While the OP was not explicit, I feel you can draw the link between sentence one:

What I was meaning to ask, was, do you feel like your university education has made you adopt an accent that doesn't fit with your roots?

and sentence two:

I feel my time at Cambridge gave me a false accent.

Unless... have I extrapolated too much? You're making me doubt myself!

[Reallybadidea]

Well it was certainly implied that the OP was at the University of Cambridge...of course there is another university in Cambridge.

[Whatsallthisaboutthen]

I’m the opposite-I have an RP accent (brought up in a big house in a naice part of London, went to boarding school etc) but am now up north and poor as a church mouse 😆 people expect me to be well off and we’re not at all. (I am, however, much happier than I’ve ever been.)

[DisrespectfulAdultFemale]

And in today's Humble Brag...

[Rachelover40]

OP's parents would be classified by sociologists as 'middle middle class', not lower.

[blueskiesandforests]

Humble roots? Potatoes?

Angela Ruskin? Or working in McDonald's in Cambridge.

Sorry, nothing to add, I've just got my popcorn...

[FarmerMaggott]

Only on MN would a 4 bedroom house in "the provinces" the Home Counties then , a faith school education, and two teacher parents be described as "humble"

[HingleMcCringleberry]

Reallybadidea - you genius! You've cracked it - OP now has a fake Bostonian accent, not a fake East Anglian accent. The world makes sense again.

[FarmerMaggott]

Also why do you even give a fuck? My accent is posh as anything but I look rough as fuck. People who've only spoken to me on the phone look past me when we meet. But it's not something I'd start a thread about or that I even think about that often.

[blueskiesandforests]

FarmerMaggott the second reply pulled her up on the humble roots, and most of the following posts are questioning or taking the piss, so I don't think its exactly "only on MN" more just this entirely genuine sounding poster...

[Thesnobbymiddleclassone]

I grew up in quite a chavvy town and moved away somewhere nicer when I left school.

Everytime I go back to visit my parents and bump into school friends I'm told I'm too posh now and that my accent has changed but I honestly can't here it.

I used to get quite embarrassed about it but have learnt to take it as a compliment

[DustyMaiden]

Well I was born in South London and moved to Essex, I strangely had a very plumby accent.

My DGD recorded us on her iPhone and I realised my voice now brings to mind a tractor driver.

Any help from those that gave been to Cambridge would be appreciated. I once went to a Beth Ditto gig there, don’t think that helped.

[blueskiesandforests]

artichokebakedbean you say that your parents "had pretty similar accents to mine"

That's where your accent comes from.

Your accent matches your humble roots because it is the same one your humble parents had. You doubtless babbled your first baby words in the accent your parents taljed to you in, long before you got your place place at Anglia Polytechnic.

[AbrahamsGone]

Anglia Polytechnic 😂😂😂

[goodbyestranger]

Not sure about that blueskiesandforests. My father had a strong Polish accent and I just talk proper.

[AtiaoftheJulii]

So if your parents have/had similar accents, do you think you got yours from them, rather than your time at Cambridge?

[blueskiesandforests]

goodbyestranger I'm sure you do

I didn't mean everyone has the same accent as their parents.

The op says explicitly that her/ his parents had pretty similar accents to him/ her.

Therefore why the op thinks they acquired a fake accent in Cambridge is unexplained. It's highly likely they had that accent from childhood, under the circumstances imagined here.