Would you try to change your accent to fit in?

[TheBabyAteMyBrain]

I'm just pondering this. 6 months a go we moved from the South to the North, and to a very homely, very friendly estate. But, I stick out like a sore thumb every time I open my mouth. A few neighbours have started to give me nicknames due to my accent such as m'lady. They do it in a jokey familiar way but it makes me uncomfortable and feel out of place.

So, should I try to emulate the local dialect to fit in, or would I just appear a right nob?

Sending sympathy.
I did.

My parents are midlanders, so I grew up with a relatively southern accent in Lancashire. Was bullied at primary school die to it.
No, there is nothing "matey" in being called "posh", and nor was it meant to be.

I changed my accent over the summer holidays before I went to secondary where I knew no one, and I don't think it was ever commented on from then on.

Now I'm back down south, I occasionally get someone asking where I come from, but no one makes silly comments about my accent.

If they are ribbing you it means they like you Don't try and change your accent it would be dead awkward for everybody.

Speaking 'southern' (not essex though) makes you sound more competent, educated and professional
Scots Welsh and Irish excepted. Northerners sound less intelligent by a mile.
I'm a northen, educated professional btw. If I moved South id change overnight but would sound odd if i did it in the sam place suddenly.
Most newsreaders etc speak RP.

Northerners sound less intelligent

Yes and I have done this over the years. I’m from Leeds but hated the way I spoke so gradually tried my best to speak ‘better’. I just didn’t feel very professional speaking with that accent. No reflection on fellow Leeds folk, my own personal opinion .

I moved a lot and now no one can tell where I'm from. It varies on how drunk I am too. Don't worry about sticking out OP, it's good to be different. If people comment on them just take the piss out of their accents. Do NOT try to emulate a northern accent if you're from the south. Depending on where you live you might get punched

No. Don't change yourself. They're idiots and I say that as a northerner.

No! And your neighbours are really rude!

This. I'd tell them that it makes you feel uncomfortable and out of place. If they're as friendly as everyone claims, they'll stop.

Northerners sound less intelligent
We do! I hate speaking northern and jave neutralised it as much as is acceptable without looking a fool

No.

I still harbour resentment towards DP's XW, who insisted that he got rid of his wonderful Dartmoor accent because 'he sounded like a thick farmer's son'. I've heard recordings of him from the years before he met her - it was clear, melodic and he sounded happy in a way that the non accent she insisted upon just can't do.

I'm a fairly RP-speaking southerner who moved recently to the NW, so I know what you mean OP. My accent has always unintentionally varied in 'poshness' according to my company, but trying to make it northern would be ridiculous!

I haven't had any comments(from adults) about my southern accent, but my dc did sometimes from kids when we first moved here. They'll get used to you, but it is rude and ignorant tbh!

Nope.

I moved from Herts to Liverpool, my accent also sticks out but I’ve never had that before. I’m not posh but I’ve a bland accent, not Essex or east end south if that makes sense.

No. I'm from Dorset & a Londoner told me I sound like the Cadbury Caramel Bunny.
Ha bloody ha.
I do mix with some 'posher' types but luckily have found that they accept my accent as it is.
It's Northerners & working class Londoners who do like to make fun of my accent but I take it in good humour.
My maternal grandparents were actually Northern!!
All my best friends except one who has a posh accent sound like me. & to the foreign people I mix with I just sound like another English person.

Mine changes all the time. I speak very differently when I’m with my mum (RP) to when I’m with local friends (south London). It’s not conscious, I just adapt.

I also find that if I spend time in an area where people speak differently to me, I pick up some of their speech patterns and intonations. I used to be very embarrassed by this but I heard a radio programme a few years ago that gave it a posh name (which I can’t recall) and said that those sorts of verbal reflections showed active listening, empathy and respect.

But to answer your question OP, no I would never consciously change my accent.

Northerners sounds less intelligent

Not to me (a south Londoner) they don’t. But I guess that depends on whereabouts in the North. To me a North Yorkshire or Cumbrian accent sounds deep and wise but a Tyneside or Scouse accent maybe doesn’t have quite the same resonance.

Northerners sound less intelligent

You reckon? They sound far more cool than those with whiny southern accents though.

No! I moved down South, from Oldham, to Milton Keynes, to do my nurse training in the late 1980s. I stayed there for 7 years, and over time, my accent modified slightly, without me even knowing. Conversely, I met my wife to be in MK. She wanted us to move to Lancashire. She got some gentle mickey taking for her "posh" Buckinghamshire accent, but there was nothing malicious. For me, there's nothing more fake and contrived than someone trying to affect an accent that they can't pull off. However, it's useful to know some regional differences in words, and to use them, to avoid misunderstanding. For example, in Lancashire, your evening meal is "tea" not "dinner". Good luck:-)

whiny southern accents

I don't think I've ever heard one of those. Where are they from?

Don't do it OP, you might end up like this

Northerners sound less intelligent by a mile.

Better to sound less intelligence than prove it by actually writing something like that.

The most impressive accent mix up I've ever heard

Robert Frettlohr, was a captured german paratrooper who decided to stay in England after the war

German/wezzy yorkshire accent that seems to depend on what hes talking about

www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80018706

Better to sound less intelligence than prove it by actually writing something like that.

I have to confess that the unfortunate typo in this made me snigger 🙂

No! Though I don't have an accent I appreciate hearing regional voices.
The important thing for anyone is to not speak too quickly and have good grammar but retain regional inflection.

At first I wondered whoy on earth Sean Bean, with all his acting training, didn't get rid of his Sheffield accent as he's clearly capable. I found it really distracting, but over time think he's succeeded despite it-or is it because if it?
We are naturally conditioned-news, radio, medicine, law, to see neutral southern accents as cleverer and middle class.

DH was born and raised in Scotland, his family all moved to Kent when he was 12 and he lost all trace of his Scottish accent. He said it was never a decision he'd made, it just happened. Occasionally when we're talking he'll call me hen, or say aye instead of yes but he's pretty much Southern now I'd say. Which is a shame because when he does speak with his natural Scottish accent, he makes my legs go a bit wobbly

We moved to Suffolk last year and DD has already started picking up a little Suffolk twang. I think it's lovely, but it's not a conscious choice, she's around a lot of people who speak like that and I think it just happens in your younger years. I wouldn't ever advocate doing it consciously though. I knew a woman from Wolverhampton who insisted she had always spoken with a Southern accent, but occasionally she'd out herself. Particularly then she said 'Wolverhampton'.