Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to wonder why it seems to be acceptable to be so negative about people from the North?

131 replies

TeacupTempest · 11/04/2011 17:52

Every day on here I see references to people from the North being less educated, less literate, less fashionable and so on.

How is that acceptable?

There are so many sweeping generalisations going on.

It's ignorant and it winds me up

OP posts:
dearyme · 12/04/2011 10:07

they talks funny oop norf dont they :)

thefirstMrsDeVere · 12/04/2011 10:07

I am a Northerner myself.

I am from Holloway N7 Grin

GetOrfMoiLand · 12/04/2011 10:11

The Vice - Jim Stott

Bucharest · 12/04/2011 10:16

Ken Stott, Getorf!
Messiah is also him I think? Also grim and gritty with him being all dysfunctional.
Pies and Prejudice is one of my most favouritest books of all time. It makes me howl with laughter and cry with longing at the same time. I'm counting the days till his next one is out (on the UK as a whole I think)

I have also never in my life (and I have lived in Salford and Liverpool) ever ever ever heard anyone pronounce "up" as "oop" ("oop" presumingly pronounced as "hoop" without the h. "Up" as in "look" yes, I do it myself, but if anyone can show me someone who really says "oop" I shall eat my phonetics book on a webcam)

GetOrfMoiLand · 12/04/2011 10:20

Ken Stott that's it!

Stuart Maconie is brilliantly observant without being at all maudlin I think. That book is really well written. And you can't criticise someone who loves the Smiths so much can you?

I love the fact that the first band he saw were the Beatles - he went along with his mum when he was a toddler. He can't remember much about it, and asked his mum if she remembered (thinking that such an event as seeing the Beatles would be seared into her brain) and she said that she can't remember the songs, but can remember something like she saw her cousin Elsie with a new hairdo, or something. Grin

GreenEyesandHam · 12/04/2011 10:20

Bucharest, similarly I don't get the 'fook' thing.

When I read 'fook', I rhyme it in my head with spook. And no one pronounces it like that!

GetOrfMoiLand · 12/04/2011 10:21

Plus I grew up in the 80s and 90s when the north (particularly Manchester) was just so COOL. I really wanted to go to the Hacienda and bump into New Order.

Instead had to go to the Ilfracombe Rugby Club disco and neck a pint of locally brewed Scrumpy instead Sad

Beamur · 12/04/2011 10:24

I am a Southerner in exile oop north. I'm happy to perpetuate the grim up north image to stop more southerners coming up here and pushing up house prices..

thefirstMrsDeVere · 12/04/2011 10:26

Ken Stott! I was the Messiah.
Funnily enough I think it was a story line that involved some posh bloke who had been murdered.
But the serial killer lived in a flat just like mine Hmm
I think it was the gay serial killer storyline.

GetOrfMoiLand · 12/04/2011 10:29

lol at 'I was the Messiah'

thebestisyettocome · 12/04/2011 10:30

Getorf.

You were right to want to go out in Manchester in the 80s/90s. It was BRILL Grin

I'm also a huge fan of Pies and Prejudice and made everybody in my family read it.

Also totally agree with the oop thing Hmm I've no idea where it comes from.

I hate the stereotypes on TV. I refuse to watch 'Candy Cabs' on the basis it will pander to the usual crap stereotypes of northern women flaunting their cleavage in ill-fitting, crap clothes and being 'larger than life' personality-wise Hmm

GetOrfMoiLand · 12/04/2011 10:32

And all that crap about certain BBC departments being 'exiled' to Salford.

Christ, you think people would be pleased. They can sell their houses in Chiswick or whatev, and buy a nice place in Mancehster. You think people would jump at the chance.

I think it is a good thing that the BBC is not London centric. Other departments which are based in other parts of the UK are successful (Natural History dept in Bristol for example).

GetOrfMoiLand · 12/04/2011 10:34

Oh yes, bubbly larger than life permanently jolly Bet Lynch northern women.

My best friend is from Warrington and I can confirm she is as cynical as I am.

We DO row about how to pronounce the word bath, mind (she is wrong)

dearyme · 12/04/2011 10:34

and buy a nice place in Mancehster.

Hmm
Bucharest · 12/04/2011 10:35

It was a fookin' good book (pronounce all those oo's as you will) was Messiah (the first one) different ending to the tv show. I read it in one day it was so good.

My Mum was nearly run over by a van carrying the Beatles (in Mansfield of all places that God forgot)

I sold some wrapping paper to your New Order man in the 1980s but didn't recognise him as was not a Hacienda girl, (but did go to the Venue which was on the end of the same row) Now when I go past on the train to visit friends in Bolton I shudder at what I've done on that bit of road....

Dara's book on the English is good as well, but not quite Maconie's standard.

dearyme · 12/04/2011 10:36

when i was at uni, a guy there said im so glad i live down here now (not sure where he came from, obviously north of Watford) cos my kids will be able to say barth and grarss and not bath and grass (like ass not arse)

:)

thebestisyettocome · 12/04/2011 10:39

Well said Getorf...

Don't they realise if they move to Didsbury and wear earplugs to disguise the northern accents they could almost pretend they're in Fulham Grin

GetOrfMoiLand · 12/04/2011 10:43

Why the Hmm deary me?

Was just saying if they didn't want to live in Salford, they could buy somewhere in Manchester. I know they are not the same place.

GetOrfMoiLand · 12/04/2011 10:44

Dara's book is funny, he went clubbing in Cheltenham to a place I sometimes go.

I can't imagine dara dancing about to dub step, somehow.

thebestisyettocome · 12/04/2011 10:48

If I'm honest I wouldn't live in Salford and I went to school there Smile

JenniL1977 · 12/04/2011 13:02

thebestisyettocome - aw fanks, an'all vat... love to say it was my choice, but my two best mates picked the dress. And they're southerners Grin

messylittlemonkey · 12/04/2011 13:07

Can't think of any comments like this on MN.

I'm a Northerner, spent several years living in London and am now back up North. If people make daft comments about Northerners, I presume they're the ones who are uneducated and most likely have never set foot past Watford.

knittedbreast · 12/04/2011 13:09

and you havent heard of the way northerns slag off people from the south?

im a southerner, i went to uni up north and made friends with the locals and their opinions and judgements of southerns was awful.

less fashionable? no just very differnt ideas on fashion. up north the fashion is to be very dressed up, down south its a more dressed down style

KatieWatie · 12/04/2011 13:11

I haven't seen it on MN yet but I do witness it in real life quite a bit(being a former Loiner now living in the South).

I firmly believe I have been discriminated against in the past due to my northern accent and that my career here in the South has suffered as a result. I would often get 'jokey' comments from old-school colleagues who thought it was ok to comment on me being illiterate, lazy, cheap, dirty or some other mad stereotype of northerners. I had a boss who would mimic my accent in meetings and think it was hilarious. My work is about 90% male and I've never felt I've suffered for being a female, only for being northern Angry

I doubt I'll ever lose my Leeds accent, and I don't particularly want to, but it's a disgusting state of affairs that people think it's ok to make these comments and discriminate on the grounds of how I talk.

purplebrickroad · 12/04/2011 13:15

Throwback to when the 'Southern' accent was seen as 'educated'. Silly.

Swipe left for the next trending thread