Does your husband/partner have a ‘talking to workmen’ voice?

[GiraffeNecked]

We are getting a lot of work done. I’ve jus5 noticed the ‘talking to workmen’ voice. There’s a lot of use of the word mate...

My husband knows a lot about spreadsheets and is the least practical person on god’s earth. And rarely says mate. There’s a lot of nodding as things are explained...

I’m unsure whether to be amused or worried as I head out the door to work.

Dh is a tradesman and 99% of the ones that come in our house are his real mate mates

The Sainsbury's delivery folks get the special chat though.

Yes lots of 'chief' 'my friend' 'mate' makes my skin crawl he normally speaks quite normally!

@MilkandWater

No, but in general it's called code-switching, and the psychology in this specific instance appears to involve the fact that men hiring workmen perceive said workmen to be more traditionally 'masculine' than they are (and they feel slightly emasculated by having another man come in to do traditionally 'masculine' jobs in their house), and that masculinity codes as working-class, hence they code-switch down a social register, and beef up the 'mate' stuff to try to eradicate the difference.

It would be interested to look at it alongside women's relationships with their cleaners.

Yes. Nothing would wind my dad up more than my mum saying "I'll have to get a man in" re any DIY job that needed doing

www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/middle-class-man-blessed-with-ability-to-communicate-with-tradesmen-20181022178537

Dd1 has had the same accent at primary, secondary school and home. Dd2 has gone to the same schools but she has quite good social skills and hangs out with a wider range/bigger group of kids. She spoke the same at home and primary school but now she's at secondary seems to have a home accent and school accent which is more South London. She sometimes slips into it at home when talking about school stuff.

My ex did
He morphed into Alan Partridge whilst doing it.

Catastrophic turn off while being hugely amusing in a self parody type way.

DB has a degree and retrained as a plumber. He called me mate on the phone the other day :)

I do this. I crack out my Lancashire accent and sound very coronation street according to DH. I do it so I can't build rapport and relate to the workmen 🙈🙈🙈

Nope. They ask DH a hopeful question about, for example, a stop cock. He very politely says "I'm sorry, no idea, let me get my wife". They roll their eyes, we have a lovely chat and I make them a cup of tea.

I always deal with the builders.