"I'm from Yorkshire" : anyone else notice this?

[Odilla]

Why do people from Yorkshire feel the need to tell you that? It is fairly unremarkable given that the collective Yorkshire counties form a large part of England so lots of people are from there.

Yet still they do. Repeatedly. And will shoe-horn this revelation into any given conversation. Eg "I'm from Yorkshire so I don't like spending money on heating". Well yes I'm sure this is true; nevertheless this is not a special circumstance given that most people do not enjoy spending money on heating. Or they take something that is particular to them and still gas on about Yorkshire eg "I'm from Yorkshire so I don't wear blue shoes".

Never have I met a crowd of people so keen to assert common identity yet so unaware as to how common identity actually works. Although ironically that's an identity of sorts.

@nettie434

One thing I remember from the 2012 Olympics was the unofficial 'If Yorkshire Was a Country' medals table. There were quite a few UK medallists from Yorkshire, like Jessica Ennis Hill and the Brownlee brothers, so Yorkshire was quite high up. I didn't see an equivalent table from anywhere else

Ifail I didn't know Yorkshire used to be in Northumbria either so I'm another person who's learned something new today.

Yes we beat Australia.

We do have some sympathy for Lancastrians though

Yes but I immediately warm to them! Love the accent (reminds me of Sean Bean) and am a bit of a Yorkshirephile. Less endearingly, I know people from Salford who do this too. I have two colleagues on £100sks and both from professional/ medical background families (one parent with a knighthood) but pretend they have working class credentials and can speak on behalf of those in poverty because "I'm from Salford and ..."

@NewYorkCityDreamer

I’m from Northumberland and I do this a bit. I have never had heating so I always say “I’m northern” when anyone asks why I find their house uncomfortably hot!!

I refer to myself as "the world's crappest Geordie", because I'm always cold!

@HyacynthBucket

My DH is from Yorkshire, but you would never know. He does not mention it, and certainly never goes on about it. I prefer the West Country way of being nice to everyone and unassuming, not self-consciously Devon, Somerset or whatever. I find the northern friendliness thing quite forced and conditional on whether you agree with them that their area is best.

I also think a lot of people confuse friendliness with chattiness, I was on a train once from Newcastle to London, sat on a 4 seater and a couple of geordie women sat opposite me, I was just about to put my headphones in as I just wanted a chilled train journey, when one of them started chatting to me and saying how she was glad I hadn't put my headphones in because she finds it so rude when people do that, mostly southerners (yes she actually said southerners for some reason) because she likes to chat to people and she finds it unfriendly... luckily they weren't going all the way down to London so I didn't have to chat for too long, but I really really wasn't in the mood to chat and I didn't find it particularly friendly that she was trying to dictate what I did during my train journey 🤷🏼‍♀️

My friend is from the westcountry (like me). Her husband is from Yorkshire. Watching TV, her MIL commented how nice it was to see a Yorkshire lass presenting for once. My friend reeled off a list of visible media personalities from Yorkshire, and asked where the westcountry presenters were? Especially with accents?

In short: yeah Yorkshire people are much more interested in being from Yorkshire than is justified.

Yorkshire is patently not better than everywhere else. Have you even been to everywhere else?

Australia 3 times
Mauritius
Indonesia
Argentina
Chile
Uruguay
Ecuador
France
Spain
Italy
Switzerland
Luxemburg
Germany
The Netherlands
Belgium
Singapore

I've lived in (apart from God's own county)
Lancashire
London
Oxford
Wolverhampton

I'm from Yorkshire, and I tell people just to play up to the tight arse stereo type.

The people here are not friendlier than any other Northern county ( but it isn't a myth that northerners in general are friendlier than southerners in my experience) .

I don't think many other counties have the identity that Yorkshire has been given to be honest, so that might explain it.

@itssunnyyay: part of the reason I'm glad I don't live in the north anymore is that I'm not expected to chat to every bugger I meet in the south!

(Although on a train the other week, I realised I'd lost my bank card, and a whole family full of Yorkshire folk jumped to help me look, and commiserate with me when it couldn't be found, which I thought was lovely.)

@Ozgirl75

I’m from Sussex but I can’t really think of any specific defining feature that ties us Sussexians together - otherwise I’m sure I’d be using it. When I was young I went on a 20s holiday and they did this skit taking the piss in a funny way out of where the different airports are (so they had the “mad” Manchester lot, the “why aye” geordies etc) and when they got to Gatwick they had them coming out in white stilettos, dolled up and in short skirts and we were like “they’ve done it again, mixed us up with Essex”

We've got Sussex pond pudding!!

Which I've never had btw lol

I think the other places with a very strong sense of identity, Liverpool, Newcastle, London etc have very noticeable accents. Yorkshire has the sense of identity but not the accent.

Just been reading this all through. I think it's right that, in the main, people from Yorkshire (whichever county) are proud of it, and as several people have said, there's a lot of us, the collective counties cover a large area, and we have a lot of history (as do, admittedly, lots of other areas.) North Yorkshire alone is the biggest county in England, so collectively with the others, it forms a massive area.

I also think, and in general there's good humour about this, whilst some people from Yorkshire may bang on about it, often people from elsewhere like to absolutely rip the piss out of us for our accent, or for living here. I can't tell you the number of times I've had people say how cold it must be here, or joke that we don't have running water, or the internet, or that I must have left my whippet at home. My husband is from Cumbria, and randomly, people never make the same comments to him! But it doesn't bother me, it's usually intended as a bit of fun.

I love Yorkshire, true some bits have seen better days, but there are some glorious parts too.

Live in Yorkshire and have done my bit by breeding a mini Yorkshire pudding person. Prefer Ringtons tea to Yorkshire though

The only time I tell people I'm from Yorkshire is when I'm asked or it's relevant to the conversation eg. on MN you might get a thread on regional variations of a certain item and what is it called in your part of the county etc. But otherwise nope, not information I wrangle into any old conversation nor have I noticed it from others tbh 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'm from Lancashire and we rib each other over this with the "wrong side of the pennines" joke but honestly, I love people from Yorkshire and I love the county itself. God's own country indeed.

I love a good, strong cup of tea. Before I moved to the U.K. I think I’d had two cups of tea in my entire life! Multiple cups daily, now.

I make a mean Yorkshire pudding (in a tray, not individual ones), which I’m very proud of indeed!

@saraclara

Not something I've noticed, to be honest.

My thoughts too

@Sushi7

A lot of Welsh and Scottish do this too! Regarding the people from Yorkshire, it’s as though they think they are the only county to have all these hardships.

Speaking of Scottish people, my DP is Scottish, I'm from London and that's where we live, my in laws live in Scotland and have never lived anywhere other than their small town, so I'm abit 'different' to them, they love sharing their culture with me which is really sweet and I enjoy it ofcourse, but one thing that baffles me is that they're always translating words for me! Some words are Scottish slang which fair enough to translate although I can usually understand what they mean by the context of it, but some words are just normal English words...I actually asked my dp once whether his parents knew I spoke English! 🤣

@glowingcandle

I've noticed this too! So glad it's not just me. I was actually on a training course last week which a guy from Yorkshire and I swear he mentioned it at least once per hour.

When people do this I usually start asking where they're from lol 'where are you from again Tom, you've not said?' Unfortunately usually they don't get the joke at first and they use it as another excuse to say where they're from 🤣

Hmm. It is the most beautiful county. The countryside is stunning and as another poster said it feels magical in some areas, particularly the Dales and the North York Moors. So I think pride does play a huge part. I can see why you wouldn’t be rushing to tell people you were from Bedfordshire for example. I live in Bucks now (originally from Yorkshire) and it doesn’t compare.

Agree with the poster who mentioned ‘passive aggressive southerners’ this is a quality I had never come across until I moved down here. Perfected by my DH who clearly picked it up from MIL. Awful. Though he says I’m just plain ‘aggressive’ . If that means you know when I’m angry and why then so be it!

@Frogsonglue

I never gave "being from Yorkshire" much thought until I lived down south for a few years, and was treated like some sort of exotic flower; so many people acted as if the fact I was from Yorkshire explained everything about my personality, people mimicked my accent all the time and spoke in cod-Yorkshirisms around me. So I blame southerners for my strong Yorkshire identity! I don't find that people actually in Yorkshire really talk about it that much, maybe it's just when we leave. And I happen to be married to a Yorkshire-born vegan, they do exist (and it's definitely 4 counties).

Really? Where abouts in the south? There's so many people from all over the country and world down where I live that I wouldn't give it a second thought if you were from Timbuktu

Born in Yorkshire, married a Yorkshireman. (Albeit from a different part of Yorkshire, much further south than me.) I don't think I've ever heard anyone say they're "from Yorkshire". I hear people say they're from a specific town/city sometimes, but that applies as much to Sheffield, Barnsley, Whitby etc, as it does to Romford, Manchester, Glasgow or Cardiff.

DH makes a much better Yorkshire pudding than me though. Mine looks like a miserable biscuit, I can't make them rise at all. It must be my southern ancestry.

[quote Odilla]@BrieAndChilli no, they tell each other they're from Yorkshire as well. While in Yorkshire.
Eg

• has the number 20 bus gone yet?
• I'm from Yorkshire so yes it has.

The entire place is just full of people saying they're from Yorkshire, day in day out.

That's why the brontes shut themselves in that wee house and didn't talk to anyone for ages. Every time they went outside all they could hear was "I'm from Yorkshire".[/quote]
That made me laugh out loud! Strains of "I'm from Yorkshire" drifting across the Moors to Top Withens... 🤣

You see I’m from Norfolk and I love it, but learned not to divulge this from a very young age as I would generally get the piss taken out of me and asked whether my parents were brother and sister….. hopefully for the sake of my kids that sort of shite is dying out now.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being proud of where you’re from. However, it did make me smile the other day when I went into a local department store and overheard some of the staff talking. One of the ladies had a very booming voice so you literally could hear her around the whole shop. She was declaring how despite living in Norfolk for the past 12 years her heart was still in Yorkshire (lovely I thought, nothing wrong with that.)

But then she went in to declare how she found the people here so ‘cold, never want to chat, yes so so unfriendly but now in Yorkshire it’s a different story….’ I could just see her colleagues dying as all the customers were looking over. She certainly wasn’t selling herself to the ‘locals’ very well . I did make sure to chat and smile to her when I paid though lol

@Benes

It's not something I've really noticed. Although, I have noticed that non Yorkshire people feel like they have a right to take the piss out of our accent. It's very annoying.

Works both ways tbh.. I lived with a guy at uni who was from Yorkshire and he constantly spoke to me in a fake cockney accent to mimic my accent cause he found it funny, we're actually good friend so I don't care, but it's not just a one way thing. A lot of my northern friends also often make fun of how I say 'grars' because 'there's no r in it' and bla bla bla

I moved to York from London a few years ago. Still have people 'helpfully' pointing out how much friendlier they are than southern types, and how no-one spoke to them on the tube when they went.

I never say that I'm from London, as fear people would think I was 'up myself', as there's a definite inverse snobbery about the place, with a perception of it being all Made in Chelsea and Kirsty Allsop types. Rather than having some of the poorest boroughs in the county.

Being from Yorkshire seems to be a badge of pride, but being proud of anywhere else seems unacceptable!