AIBU in finding comments such as "soft shandy drinking southern bastard"

[lolaisafuckertoo]

from my husbands Northern family, beyond insulting. Card from FIL with usual sentiment on it for DH for birthday. Similar comments from the fleet of twats during Xmas day Skype (we are abroad for the moment). given that the grand daughter is southern i.e. born here. I am also born in the south east. I want to tell them all to just fuck off northern fucking monkeys.
I don't think it is funny. DH doesn't seem to think so....but then his dad is always less funny than he really is..

[Wallpaper123]

I find the condescending stereotyping of northerners just as offensive and we are both transplanted southerners.

[SuzanneUK]

I think it's just inverted snobbery.

He's jealous because the south has trees and grass, and indoor plumbing and jobs and toilet paper and tampons and soap and all sorts of things like that.

You should be a little more understanding.

[LittleBabyPigsus]

Of course neither set of stereotypes is nearly as offensive as the Hotels4u 'Brummie' advert

/annoyed Midlander

[EllaFitzgerald]

I like having a bit of banter with my Welsh in laws and DH enjoys bantering with my family and his friends and colleagues here. My DFIL jokes that he tells people his son is in prison rather than admit he's living in England. It's not serious, everyone would be mortified if they thought either of us was upset by it. They're good people and love us both.

My friends, however, think it's very funny that I've started saying things like 'I'll be there now'.

[HaroldLloyd]

I lived with a lovely posh boy from clapham in university and I got him,

Within a term or two he was saying I'll do it now in a minute.

[Grennie]

This is probably banter. I am from the north living in the south. I quickly learned that was fine to say to people in the north, was considered rude and offensive by some in the south. The thing is my friends in the north all knew that you didn't say stuff like this to people if you meant it. And you only said it to people you like. It is actually a sign of affection.

[anothernumberone]

OP you wouldn't survive in Ireland people slag others off from coming from the parish 2 miles down the road but who are members of another Gaelic football hurling GAA club. The North South divide barely gets a look in.

[RockinHippy]

Give over YABU to the max,

as a northerner living south & the constant jibes & even damn right pig ignorant prejudice we've had to put up with from some quarters - Ive even had the drunk DW of a friend of DHs forget that I too am Geordie & proud, even if not so obvious to hear any more - but sat bitching at a party that northerner are all just so common, they just don't understand the MC & apparently we all eat pigs trotters, pies & lard & that its just so grim & dirty up there, she's not surprised they all leave, but she rather they didn't come here & finished off with "what on earth possessed me to marry one" Ive come across real, genuine ignorant prejudice from certain wannabe MC acquaintances & they don't even see that they do it

I've never seen that from North to South - only banter - so YABVU

[RockinHippy]

I also remember an ex of mind in London, he also genuinely believed everything past Watford was so down market - he went on & on about his DPs large upper class family home, made such a huge deal of my finally getting to see it, worried I would be intimidated

It was a rather ordinary unimposing mid terrace FFS

[SantasLittleMonkeyButler]

Oh yes, littlebabypigsus. That'll be because every midlander who ever lived sounded/sounds exactly like Lenny Henry. Grrrr.

[Grennie]

Hippy - Pigs trotters are served in some very expensive restuarants now!

[Preferthedogtothekids]

Anyone south of Gretna is a soft Southern Shandy-Drinker to me :-)

[EllaFitzgerald]

Harold it's bloody infectious!

[aderynlas]

I ll be there now in a minute is great. Also put it down here by there. Enough of this shandy talk everyone who doesnt drink a pint of daaark is a softie.

[wishful75]

YABU, its called banter and most likely intended to be affectionate. Grow a sense of humour.

Anyone below Teeside is a southern softie in my book and yes that includes Yorkshire.

[RockinHippy]

Grennie I know

• like I said - pig ignorant (excuse the pun ) - DH & I don't eat meat either

[SconeForAStroll]

Ha! Try being a southern softy moving to the grizzled north as a child. Other kids at school used to mock me witless over my vowel sounds. :(

Now I self identify as a nomad. It's easier. And I get to have a camel.

[wellthatsdoneit]

Start calling him frank Gallagher and ask him if he's got electricity and an indoor toilet yet. Then bray loudly at your own 'joke'.

I don't think it's the term as such that's offensive but just the sheer relentless unfunniness of it.

[TwinklyMummaLuvsHerBubba89]

I moved from Hants to Merseyside aged 5. I remember trying to sound more Northern (my Northern family are from Liverpool, but lived in St Helens)

The teasing stopped as I became more scouse. Then we moved to Warrington and I landed in the middle of Mancunian exiles who ripped the piss because I was a Scouser.

My accent is now generic Northern

Throughout all of this my Hants and Dorset family have really taken the piss. They constantly infer that Northerners are less than Southerners, that we are all living in either Coronation St or on the Shameless estate My Dorset village, Dubarry-clad cousin was once shocked to learn there was countryside in the North....

While the majority is light hearted banter, there are several family members (esp within the Dorset lot) who genuinely believe they are far superior....

My witty retorts include labeling them either Cockernees and calling them Del Boy, or when a Dorset cousin got particularly offensive I replied "I'm sorry, could you repeat that? All I heard was 'oooo arrrr' and something about tractors....?"

She stopped talking to me, could dish it out but didnt know how to be on the receiving end.

Some people (North and South) are just ignorant cunts. The rest are just having a large and you'd be daft to take it personally.

nb: I love everybody from John O'Groats to Lands End puts down spade, hopes hole is big enough

[TwinklyMummaLuvsHerBubba89]

*having a laugh

[Latara]

Twinkly there is an old Dorset rhyme that goes ''Dorset born and Dorset bred, thick in the arm and thick in the head'' (I'm from Dorset)

[SomethingkindaOod]

Latara I've heard that rhyme said about Yorkshire born people as well.. (Lancashire born and bred here) my Yorkshire FIL still acts like me and DH need some kind of diplomatic relations because I was born to Mancunians and is therefore an incomer!
Just to top off the Northern stereotype, the house I grew up in had a working outdoor toilet as well as an indoor one as did our own first house that we bought when DS was a baby.
My southern friends use this knowledge with way too much glee IMO...

[harticus]

Doesn't matter where you come from stereotypes abound - try coming from Surrey where everyone thinks you are ... filthy rich, stockbroker, footballer, Russian mafia.
North Londoners have a pop at south Londoners and we shove it right back at them.
Or try coming from Norfolk and put up with the endless bollocks about inbreds and webbed feet.

Just fine tune your humour and chuck it back at them.
Although the FIL sounds a bit of a dick - my ex FiL never stopped making jokes about my son's height (he's tall).
Year after fucking year of it.
Some people are just unfunny arseholes.

[ComposHat]

some My favourite is the Yorkshireman's toast:

Here's to me and the wife's husband and not forgetting me'sen.