Douglas Murray on intolerant politics

I love regional accents and am v proud of mine, but not keen on people who claim it gives licence to swear and murder grammar, have poor diction etc..... So yeah, I don’t see why the insults and swearing you mention are somehow funny or culturally valuable just because pathetic speaker has a Scottish accent. Slightly different point, I guess. I think the history of suppression of the accent and dialect has perhaps led to a build up of tension which is leading to this backlash....

ChesterBelloc
Communities
I suppose that's it really.
I was hoping for something a bit stronger without being nationalistic, closer to indigenous.

I don't do Twitter or Reddit so am not entirely sure which terms you mean *Tocopherol&. Are we talking bawbag and fanny? Please tell me they haven't discovered fud. That's oors, they cannae hae it!

Palx? Bollox works.

Try saying 'folk' on FWR,

Only if you spell it with an "X", Scrim

As someone assigned northern at birth I now feel an irresistible urge to experiment: henx, petx, lovex.

Hmm, not really doing it for me. My cis-northern privilege is clearly getting in the way of me embracing more inclusive language.

I have noticed Scottish regional/Scots stuff is fashionable on Twitter/Reddit at the moment. Threads of people swearing Scottish-style and the like. That's fine, including gendered slurs - I thought this was rather incongruous with the "don't say bitch, prick, dick, gendered insult" environment there. Surely a gendered insult should be just as unacceptable regardless of accent? Hmm. Not seen any, say, Geordie equivalent gaining traction.

Brixton, south-east London

SE London has a record of trialling outstanding supported living initiatives. There are several flavours of 'Good Neighbour' schemes that make a tremendous difference to quality of life. I think of these whenever there's yet another dust-up about social prescriptions or the Academy of Social Prescribing.

tangent to point of OP

"Communities"?

When I said families, I meant people that live and work together, not just families.

We need a word to describe established extended families that have settled in an area that doesn't refer to class or ethnicity.

The word 'indigenous' sort of works but has connotations of history long gone.

An English friend of mine called my cat "my little chicken" and I was so confused. Not offended, it's just not a term of endearment I was previously aware of. Meanwhile Americans expect us all to speak with a generic vaguely posh accent.

The regional terms found all around the UK do seem to be problematic.
Locally ducky and luvvy is commonplace and their use tends to be sneered at, particularly in the workplace, but these really are just terms of endearment.
Those words tend to be used mostly by the older generation and the established local families and seems to mark them all out as a bit yokel.

Their language deserves more respect.

It all boils down to indigenous people (loosely speaking) again.

Ah, OK. I see what you mean. How tiresome - perhaps me and my friends are a bit too old and missed those developments. I graduated several years ago and things certainly seem to have worsened in the last 2/3. Or perhaps because I was up North?

Lol@ folk!

Try saying 'folk' on FWR, Tocopherol. And then run away, fast.

Use of terms like pet, love, hen comes up frequently. Also recently seen use of queer in the sense of odd, as is still common in parts of England labelled unacceptable. The Amercian use of guys as a collective, neutral term for a group of people is another so this isn't just limited to UK regional variation.

I've been lurking and reading for the last few days: thank you all so much for such an intelligent and wide-ranging discussion of so many topics. I'm 39, got 3 As at A-level (including History!) and a 2:1 from King's, and still know very little about the history of this country, its political landscape and how we've ended up where we are; this thread has been extremely informative.

Re packing's mention of supported living for the elderly - this is a big issue that has huge consequences for the NHS, as well as housing (elderly people living in big family-sized houses that they can't keep up, paying for hugely expensive carers that can change every month, etc).

Whilst no one should be forced to give up their home, there certainly should be more attractive options made available to the elderly who may only need minimal, occasional support. I know a 90-something year old who has (only within the last 5ish years) moved into a high-rise supported-living block. Each resident has their own flat, with bedroom, accessible bathroom & kitchen, & living room. There's a porter on-site 24/7, and I think regular visits from carers (not sure how often, but hopefully on a needs-based basis). There's a large communal area on the ground floor where the residents can hang out together, chat, watch tv, or they can visit each other's flats. It's a nice, friendly, sociable environment - she has loads of mates!

It seems a very good set-up for those who can't/don't wish to live alone with random carers dropping in. Presumably such places could be provided with varying levels of on-site staffing and support, depending on the differing levels of need. One of the biggest problems faced by the NHS is 'bed-blocking' by elderly patients who cannot be discharged until an appropriate (and usually complex and expensive) care package has been put in place. Places like this - both for temporary and long-term usage - could ease that problem significantly.

(And this is in Brixton, south-east London.)

Arnold, which regional terms have been deemed problematic?

My last uni and my wider friend group are very woke and I've not come across that (yet).

There is still quite some stigma in some snobbish circles in Scotland having an “ordinary” accent, but obviously the rise of the SNP and so on has made a big difference. Listening to Nicola Sturgeon with her clear but unmistakeablely Scottish voice this morning was refreshing - things have moved on a lot in my lifetime.

I'm not sure this has so much to do with the SNP as with changes in the education system.

When I was at school we were still in the tail end of an era when speaking Scots was frowned upon. We were told we were wrong, stupid, should speak 'properly' if we said 'cannae' instead of 'can't' or ammunt' instead of 'am not'. People a few years older than me got the belt for using ordinary Scots words.

That changed with the introduction of Standard Grades when Scottish literature and history were made integral parts of the curriculum. I'm of an age to have sat a mixture of O Grades and Standard Grades and the shift in thinking didn't really filter down to primary level for a few more years but by the time my own kids started school the change was very noticeable. Far from being frowned upon Scots was celebrated.

I also think it is worth noting that the snobbishness against it was always somewhat regional. While the middle classes round Glasgow sneered at thee local dialect that was never the case in the north east. Aberdonians of all classes have always been proud of their language.

In terms of England's regional dialects a big change I have noticed in my lifetime is a reduction in the number of actors speaking in northern or west country dialects. There don't seem to be nearly as many working class people in the profession. There was always 'BBC English' in terms of news readers etc but there seemed a lot more variation in drama and comedy in the past.

I also find the labelling of regional terms as 'problematic' by the woke types depressing. They seem desperate to make everybody conform to a very narrow pattern of 'approved' language with no thought for the rich diversity of English dialects which I find a huge shame. I love that people in any given region can pin point where people are from by their accents and dialects, often down to precise towns and villages. Why we can't celebrate that diversity is never explained.

I should have perhaps said “subservient” character rather than dim, or dodgy. When I wrote Dim or dodgy I’d moved on to Enid Blyton / Agatha Christie/Downtown in my mind..!

The occasional ribbing I got for my (audibly) Scottish accent in London was liveable with, but I couldn’t help noting that there were basically no WC or Regional English accents outside the support staff in our large firm... I’m always shocked at the blatant classism in TV programming, certainly in the BBC output, where having a regional or WC accent is often used as a lazy stereotype to signal a dim or dodgy character... even now I am still seeing it in kids’ TV, with the leader or boss/narrator given an RP or “Southern” accent (notwithstanding the range of token accents in the wider cast eg Octonauts/Hey Duggee). And let’s not even start on Enid Blyton !

I’ve often thought that to be regional English must be frustrating, to face such prejudice in your own country.

There is still quite some stigma in some snobbish circles in Scotland having an “ordinary” accent, but obviously the rise of the SNP and so on has made a big difference. Listening to Nicola Sturgeon with her clear but unmistakeablely Scottish voice this morning was refreshing - things have moved on a lot in my lifetime.

The standard of living in many parts of England is poor.
The nationalist Scots, the nationalist Welsh and the nationalist Irish have an outlet to fight inequalities of wealth.
Yet English nationalism is always condemned as racist.

The British ruling elite hide behind the coat tails of 56 million English people and nobody seems to acknowledge this.

I wonder what the UK would look like if all areas had affordable, suitable, good quality housing and all areas had stable, full-time jobs that paid enough to live on (you know, the basics).

He literally didn't know Scotland has a different legal system
Which is pub quiz level stuff. Ironically for the uni hivemind who supported him, Corbyn is himself uneducated.

It would be naïve to think wokeness is the fundamental problem with Corbyn. He's seen as a far left extremist by many, an ignoramus, a terrorist sympathiser and a 70s throwback.

He was never going to win and Labour were fools to elect him. Not least because at the time he was being touted as the man to win back Scotland when all we saw was an IRA sympathiser who didn't recognise Scotland as the different from England country it is. He literally didn't know Scotland has a different legal system. I had Labour members from south of the border hurling abuse at me for pointing out he would never, ever win here before he was elected leader.

I'm finding this thread fascinating. Thanks everyone.

One thing that was touched on very briefly earlier but not followed up, was the fact that most 2017 labour voters in leave seats actually voted remain in the referendum.

I think this ties to the finding that Corbyn was the #1 issue (maybe this was code for wokeness?) and Brexit second for many.

I think this is interesting and also provides some hope that we can come back together as a country. I live in London, and around 40% of people in my constituency voted leave. The whole country is split, not really geographically. Not everyone in the former red wall voted leave, not everyone in London or Manchester voted remain. I'm also a GC feminist and that experience has very much turned me off wokeness. I think there are ways that we can come back together.

Loving learning so much about FE, labour market and housing stuff.