Do you have a strong local accent?

[nicecuppateainthemorning]

I do! If I hear it on a recording I am surprised at how strong it is. When I did a voice message to a family member I did it about ten times but couldn’t disguise it!

I don’t mind the accent but it isn’t particularly attractive.

I spoke to an old friend recently after many years and she had such a lovely voice/accent and we are from the same area.

Do you have a strong local accent and how do you feel about it?

I’m from Northern Ireland and have lived in Scotland the last twenty odd years and England before that I thought my accent was mellowing until but when I speak to a colleague who is from a different part of NI, it becomes thick, fast and full of colloquialisms! My 18 year old daughter with a fairly neutral Scottish accent has just started at St Andrews University and sounds quite out of place! On occasion my husband and I have noted a change in parts of her speech to reflect a posh English twang. Her two best friends all have English accents despite coming from Edinburgh!

Which part of Lancs are you from? That strong rhoticity is now only found in a specific part of east Lancs and a small area of the south west. It’s dying out 🙁

I’m definitely the same!

Yes, strong Gloucestershire / South West accent. I'm a cider drinker, ive got a brand new combine harvester....

Lived in London since 1983. Accent still the same.

I lived in London for just over 10 years, apparently my northern accent (Lancashire) was very strong and I was mimicked in good nature because of it but when I moved back up north, according to old friends & local people , my accent sounded ‘posh’ 🤣
I think my accent has always been on the softer side and years of living in different cities has neutralised it somewhat, but you can definitely tell I’m northern.

It’s the Lancastrian phrases / expressions that I really love and that are guaranteed to make me feel homesick. They remind me so much of my childhood and growing up surrounded by them. It wasn’t until I moved away to uni that I found out that it’s not just the accents that are different and most people won’t have a clue what I’m talking about when I use what to me is/was a perfectly normal expression.

During lockdown, I really struggled not being able to go back to Lancs and see family etc and I started making Lancs food to comfort myself and ‘educate’ a curious friend (born and bred Londoner, never even owned a pair of wellies!) about the joys of Lancs. I was a one-woman butter pie and Chorley cake machine. 😂This led to teaching my friend some Lanky expressions and despite him being very smart (criminal barrister), he came very unstuck with “any road”. For some reason he just couldn’t get his head round how/when it’s used. 🤔His favourite is still “summatsupeer”. To be honest, he tried his best but he was useless.

Edit: just to add that I’m loving how many Lancastrians are on this thread. 😍

I’m from the Midlands and have spent time down south and up north and it’s just a bit all over the place and non-descript, though DH has said that I’ve started to say some words in the accent of our current location - our kids have this accent but not a particularly strong one.

Same here my lover.
Now that will look odd to those not from the shire.

I’m Irish but I have an accent even if it’s ‘neutral’ as in people can’t tell what part of Ireland I’m from! I suspect you have the equivalent neutral English accent @ImPamDoove! I’ve lived in 5 different counties in Ireland and my dad was from Donegal up at the top and my mum is from Cork down at the bottom and I probably have some of their sayings too, even if their accent’s were totally different from each others!

Do you mean county?

I know 🤣 I had a quick look through the comments and didn't see any Glawster accents!

Eastish, but I'm in my early 60s and I think young people in the area I grew up in may no longer have the 'r'. It was the norm then though and I remember taking it for granted so much I was unaware of it. We knew our 'ay' vowel was much longer and 'u' pronounced 'ooh' but I only became aware of the 'r' when I moved away, and someone said I pronounced certain words like someone from Cornwall.

Brissol ere but we's come up to Chaltnum (Cheltenham) to visit the family today like.
Will wave tou you when we goes ome

Nope - I've regularly been described as 'regionless' (worked in 'linguistics' for a bit). Generally, it's mildly southern, with a few northern vowels sounds (gl-arse, not gl-ass, though). My husband is the opposite side - I'd describe him as 'well-spoken Northern' (gl-ass). His parents were southerners living in the North and I've done a decade in each, plus a decade on the east coast and working up to another in the west 😂

Oddly, almost everyone I know has a mild accent - even the proper Northerners who only moved as adults.

I'm Irish and have lived in the UK for 12 years. I don't think my accent was ever very strong but in Ireland people could figure out I'm from around the Dublin area. I've worked in various countries with people whose first language isn't English so I've learnt to slow down my speech and people rarely have difficulty understanding me in the UK. But everyone immediately knows that I'm Irish from my accent. My family tell me I sound more English every time I go home but I think (hope) they're joking.

I was brought up near Barnsley, by parents from the North East, and aged 18 went to work in London as a Mother's Help. Within days I'd modified my accent to fit in, my Northern bath became baaaarth and all my other flat, short Northern vowels were altered. It was difficult for a time but after a few days I felt that I was accepted more by my lovely north London family.

I enjoy hearing different accents; however, I was raised in Surrey and, until six years ago, lived and worked in the South East / London. I now live in the Bolton area (my husband was a child in the area) and work locally. The hardest part of my job is when I am on the phone to older local, broad Boltonians - I really struggle to understand what some of them say (especially if they don't have their dentures in!). Conversely, I have often been praised for my clear speech.

As an aside, when my husband was around 8, he was sent away to boarding school (family tradition) - only about 50 miles from where he was raised - and for the first three weeks or so, none of his peers could understand him, his accent was SO strong, so he had to adapt radically. Now, if you heard him, you'd be hard pressed to work out where he was from (he travelled round the world in the RAF), although he still uses a couple of phrases that pinpoint he's from the NW.

I dislike strong accents intensely. When I was mid-teens and realised how ugly I sounded I trained myself to enunciate and lose my horrible accent.

Saaaf London here. Couldn’t change it if I tried!

I’m from Yorkshire and living in Cumbria. I didn’t think I had a particularly strong accent but since moving it’s become clear I do I’ve even had people from overseas recognise im from Yorkshire!

I deliberately set about losing my strong Devonshire accent when I joined the RAF 4 million years ago. The children (adults) all speak with neutral British accents.

Until I sit with people with strong Devonshire accents and then mine comes back 😡

I love British accents I just dislike the Devonshire one that all of my family have (NC with). They say maid, budder, dunee/duner, wasson and all that.

You dislike ALL regional accents “intensely”? So you really just like RP? Is that what you mean?

@Piglet89 , the pp said "I dislike strong accents intensely." not "I dislike regional accents intensely"

Mine is just a generic northern accent. Brought up just outside Wigan so can slip into a broad accent with no issues. DD1 is pretty broad but my other two sound quite posh in comparison as they've adopted more of DH's accent. He moved over from SA as a teen and moved around the country a lot so has a weird mix of a bbc accent but with northern vowels.