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?

Woolverampton...

Possibly Theyroamoverhere. Sean Bean is a really good actor though, did you see him in that TV series about a priest? He was marvellous, I wish there had been another series.

However I think people like Michael Parkinson, who has a Yorkshire accent, come over as well educated and I suppose 'middle class'. We've had prominent politicians with regional accents too. The guy who plays Ken Barlow (Wlliam Roache) is very well spoken but Northern.

Viva la difference, I love diversity (especially Ashley Banjo).

Parky is Alan Bennett class. I didnt realise he was northern for years. Coming from yorkshire myself it has the weird effect that I cant detect the accent in other people

I moved south to north 20 years ago and my accent has changed however I slip back into my southern accent very easily.

Just embrace it. Trying to change it unnaturally will make you an even bigger joke.

Mine changes by itself, I grew up in the southwest with 1 Scottish and 1 northern parent. The combination led to me being teased for speaking posh. So I adopted a broad local accent as a child. I then moved to Wales as a teen. After uni in Yorkshire - where I sounded too southern I moved to Scotland where I could mostly pass as local, before coming back down south again.

I studied languages and my strongest skill is the accent. I can sometimes pass as a native speaker in my second language until the language gets to complicated! I don’t do it intentionally but collegues can tell where I’ve been on holiday from how I speak when I get back! It doesn’t happen for places I haven’t lived though so I can’t suddenly do a Scouse or Geordie accent at all.

I just live in hope that I’m old enough now not to start picking up the local estuary twang where I now live!

I've spent most of my life with a non-local accent. I spent a few formative years in the south and aquired a southern accent which has settled at something generically within 50 miles of the M25 but nothing more identifiable than that, it probably was stronger in the first place. Spent the rest of my childhood actively resisting an accent that is very marmite to outsiders then moved further north. The accent here is pretty indistinct in terms of tone, it comes across more in terminology or dropping letters and glottal stops. I'm happy to have gained some local vocabulary and sometimes I do drop sounds, but still sound clearly southern

Apparently, I'm posh.

DH has a totally different accent again and it is still clearly identifiable after 25+ years. As a result the DCs have an odd fusion non-accent depending on who they hear words from. They go "oop to the barth"

Some people's accents will naturally adjust easily, some won't. I don't regret resisting an accent as it would have been a mild disadvantage after moving on compared to my existing accent, but I wouldn't try to copy an accent to fit in.