To say it’s “because my parents were professionals”?

Not everyone has a local accent.

The person you were talking to sounds insufferable.

If have just said that you used to have the same local accent as them but you came to realise that it makes people sound really thick, so you took elocution lessons.

Then ask him why he’s never taken elocution lessons.

I think this is my beef with the professional comment too. I do think this guy sounds rude and nothing you would say would have really stopped him getting at you OP. But putting that aside, I am proud of where I am from and IMO broad accents aren't inherently unprofessional. It's sad that people feel they have to change their accent to get ahead or to change how their children speak but I do understand the rationale.

I worked for a woman (exec director) with a strong NI accent years ago, she was perfectly easy to understand. She was also pragmatic, considered in her views, always happy to mentor junior colleagues. I miss her!

Inverse snobbery - seems to still be acceptable. I be he wouldn’t have liked you to call him a chav in response to his lah di da comments.

It’s not because you parents were professionals but because they somehow made you to speak like them. It can’t have been easy to do.

I’ve had this a lot, and it’s irritating.

I wish people wouldn’t ask personal questions of strangers they’ve only just met. It’s a personal remark akin to commenting on your weight, your clothes or your features.

Why should we feel we have to satisfy the idle curiosity of nosy strangers?

I think you have it the wrong way round. People don't "choose" to speak with their natural accent. They might choose to try to change their accent and put on a new one though.

I think it's true that many people who want to get on don't choose to speak with a very strong regional accent.

Similar experiences to you. My Mother and her husband were foreign but I am British. I try to speak without an accent because I want to be easily understood

So the best I could come up with was “well I guess it’s because my parents were professionals”
Oh dear, you let your inner snobbery and superiority slip out!

A better answer would be 'I guess neither of my parents had a strong accent so I just took after them'.

I don’t sound like where I grew up.
Pretty sure it’s because my parents spoke RP and I listened to lots of RP films, children’s programmes and audiobooks. My mum corrected me when colloquialisms or an accent slipped in.
I remember parroting to my friends “It’s ‘school’ now ‘skewel’ “. Cringe…

I don't think your parents being "professionals" has much to do with your accent. If just have said that your parents had been away to uno and didn't have strong accents either, so your accent had never been that strong and had faded further during your own time away at uni.

He shouldn’t have kept on at you but your answer was a bit odd. It implies that unprofessional people have regional accents

Agree, I would have turned it back on him, why is this so concerning to you John, can we change the subject it's really boring.

You have my sympathies. I am from the north east and moved away for University 20 years ago. Naturally, this is somewhat watered down an accent that was never very strong
When I was younger, at work social/drinking events, young men would frequently mock my accent, probably trying to charm me or get a laugh. I would then go home to the north east and my family who still lived there, would mock my lack of accent.

I only ever found this incredibly tedious.

I’m entirely on your side. Perhaps you said the wrong thing, but honestly if it was me, I would’ve told him where to stuff it as soon as he started this line of conversation.

He sounds tedious.

This doesn't seem to be a thing in the north east (Newcastle/Sunderland). The 'professionals' born in the area have the local accent.

You didn't do anything wrong, it was his fault for being rude and pushy.

I get questioned about my accent too, mainly because in the 70s/80s the council built masses of estates and housed people from Liverpool. So because I don’t speak with a scouse accent they think I’m not from my town lol. It can be quite annoying but I’m used to it now.

People really ask this?
you need to go to better pubs!

I grew up in the west of Scotland but don't have a typical accent - in fact most people here (i live in London) think I'm Irish.

My dad was from north east Scotland and had a lovely, soft accent, and he wasn't keen on the local dialect. Sobi think that's where it started.

But also I am on the autistic spectrum and it is completely impossible for me to do accents. My brother was always able to speak like everyone else outside the home and in a more toned version with our parents. But I couldn't do it, and I was often teased for it and accused of being posh.

Anyway, I just tell people my dad was from a different part of the country and so I speak more like him.

You don't have to answer any questions you don't want to. You could have said, I don't know, and changed the subject.

I grew up in Yorkshire and had a strong accent as a child, my mum discouraged it and corrected my speech despite having a strong accent herself (she still does). She also moved us to a 'nicer' more MC area for high school to encourage me to drop the accent. She wanted me to not have any barriers in the way when I was an adult, and I disagreed at the time but now I get it. Honestly I'm someone who over shares so I probably would have just told the guy the whole story 😅 I do feel like saying "because my parents were professionals" might come off a bit patronising/snooty which probably didn't help your rapport with him.

Edited to add - I now have what I call a "generic Northern accent" as in you can tell I am northern but most people can't place it. Then again I have been mistaken for southern...I slip back into it a little when I am speaking to other people from Yorkshire or who have strong northern accents.

My mum and dad were both Irish. I was brought up in Nottingham and don’t have an Irish accent.

Maybe it’s because they weren’t professional people with Irish accents.

My Dad was an electrical engineer with a regional accent, and my mom was a nurse and also had a regional accent. They were professionals.

I was born in a different part of the country to where they were originally from and my Dad sent me to elocution lessons when I was a kid so that I sounded posh. His reasoning was that throughout most of his adult life, when on site, people had assumed he was a general labourer rather than the engineer in charge of the whole job because of his regional accent. Sounds as if you're making the same assumption, i.e. that having a working class accent means you can't also be a professional.