To be soooo irritated by step kids new accent?

[wishingonastar9]

I know I'm going to offend some people here but I'm just being honest...
My step kids (8 & 10) have recently moved to Liverpool and within weeks DSS8 has developed a full on scouse accent and I'm finding it sooooo bloody irritating!!
DSD10 isn't so bad, she just says the odd word with a bit of a twang, I can cope with that but I'm sure DSS is 'putting it on' possibly just to annoy us, surely it's not really possible to completely change accents within such a short space of time?

What I find most annoying is that DSS has even changed the words and terminology he uses.
Sometimes it even seems that he says certain things on purpose just so he can say it the scouse way.
It's not just the accent it's the way they don't say a lot of words properly, eg instead of saying ''something'' DSS now says something that sounds like ''sut'en''.

They stay with us during most school holidays so so far I've had over a week of it constantly and I want to scream...I hate it!

Admittedly I am pregnant, hormonal, stressed and very tired after running around after 4 kids for 1&1/2 weeks so I know I am more irritable than normal.
But when I look ahead 10 years down the line, I just can't imagine that there will ever be a day that I won't be annoyed by it.

And before anybody questions my own accent...I don't have much of one...yes people can probably tell what region I live in from speaking to me but it's not a strong accent. And I say words as they should be said.

You sound horribly unsympathetic to a boy who has just had a huge upheaval in his life. Accents may come and go, but the way you treat him will stay with him for a long time. Do you really want to let your snobby ideas of what is 'right' damage a relationship which might be important to both of you? Because you are ignoring his needs in favour of your own preferences, which sounds mean-spirited and selfish.

Yabu

A Scottish boy joined my DS school when he was about 8 and changed his accent to fit in with the local ( home counties) accent very quickly as he was being constantly ribbed/softly bullied about it by the other kids.

OP you sound incredibly judgey.

Do you just not like your DSC?

We moved around a lot when I was young.

I spoke the way the people around me spoke just to be sure I fitted in. Otherwise my life was miserable.

You are being totally unfair.

Soooooooooooo mean!

So where are you from?

I moved from SA to the UK when I was a child and couldn't change my accent quick enough so to fit in. Children can be so cruel even with the slightest of difference.

Stop being such a poo head meany pants.

Sorry to say but yes yabvu op you would probably utterly despise my accent strong Lancashire now mixed with scouse since moving to birkenhead 4 yrs ago tbf I sometimes give myself a mental slap for saying certain words with the Merseyside flick i.e chicken , work haha anything that contains a k poor kids just really want to fit in so cut them some slack and don't end up being the 'evil stepmother' that they dread seeing .

I'd suggest you'd be better off focusing your irritation on something that actually matters.

Wondering how many of you Wirral mumsnetters I know now!

Fwiw my scouse-irish nan used to correct us if she heard my dad's southern accent creeping in to our speech as she couldn't stand the sound of it so it goes both ways.

Am I the only one really hoping that the DSS is putting on his accent purely for the OPs benefit

Sorry, OP but I think you try and not find it irritating, it's not going to get you anywhere. We moved from country to country over the last 20 years and it is amazing how some kids immediately change accents. I have to admit I was pleased my kids didn't do it but I don't think its a concious thing. I have met English couples who have lived overseas for 20 or 30 years where one of the couple speaks with a perfect English accent and the other sounds like a local.

OP, let me assure you that, contrary to what you appear to think, you too have an accent. And every time you open your mouth, someone makes assumptions about you because of it, even if you consider yourself some kind of neutral exemplar of Proper Speech.

I am an unintentional mimic. Sit me with anyone and I cannot help but copy their accent and even worse grammatical foibles and speech patterns, I do it without realising and have been threaten with a diggin (colloquialism) on more than one occasion. You'd loath me (especially when you thought I was taking the piss out of you within about 5 minutes). YABU.

If they have picked it up very quickly they are using it because it is a novelty, and / or to fit in. They won't have forgotten their more usual speech patterns.

I am bilingual in the accent and dialect words of the region I grew up in and use that when speaking with friends from that area, and in the RP of my parents and what I now usually use in my professional life.

Have you taken an interest in any other aspect of their new lives? Or are you just irritated by this one aspect?

Why on earth would you think they would do it just to annoy you? Why would they even think the accent of their new friends would be annoying?

Ignore it, it will wear off, at least for when they are talking with you and their Dad.

YaBu, children change their accent to fit in.

However, having lived in Liverpool and living fairly near now, I have to say it is the only accent that really annoys me (IT IS ICE LOLLY NOT LOLLY ICE!!!!!!!!!!!!). So also YANBU too.

So... I can't seem to find 'scallies' in a proper dictionary. Isn't that a slang term?

I do love the idea that one group of people speak correctly and everyone else is just doing it wrong. Does that go for all those people in other countries who go around using forrin words for things?

Ha ha, well, it depends where they go who'll they annoy!

Do you talk like Rebecca Rabbit on Peppa Pig? My daughter and I both agree that she has the most annoying type of English accent! My friend can't do davina mcCall's dvd because of Jackie's accent.

Changing accents not a problem.

Not pronouncing words correctly eg dropping letters, dragging words out. was a pet peeve with dd1.
She grew up on a manchester council estate and it was hard for her not to copy her friends.

I corrected her all the time and she now speaks lovely, it helped her get her foot in the door with where she works.

When we moved to Wigan and ds started school he quickly developed a Wigan accent and it was obviously protective colouring, he needed to fit in. My privately educated dsc adopted a Liverpool accent for their out of school friends they need to do it. All of them have perfectly neutral accents now.

RP is a horrible accent IMHO. Maybe your kids are irritated by the way you speak too op, I would be.

It's a lolly ice.

Some more here: www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/liverpool-sayings-top-26-things-6463028

Would also like to add "plazzy" as in "plazzy plastic bag" and 'leccy electricity.

Nah blackcats it's lolly ice, you berk!

YABU! I expect he just picks up accents easily and wants to fit in.
I don't understand how people don't pick up accents.

Oh my God. A child's accent is dictated (almost always) by the area they grow up in and the people they are surrounded by, not by the accent of their parents (or grumpy step-parents). A child will acquire a new accent extremely quickly and usually subconsciously. It's called assimilation. There are lots of studies on it. It's well documented. Slang use may be more to do with fitting in, but I wouldn't get hot under the collar about it.

Oh and the whole 'I say words as they should be said'. Well that's utter bollocks. Do you say 'handbag' or do you actually say 'hambag' like most of the rest of us? Do you really, really say 'going to' when you are speaking quickly, or does it come out more like 'gonna', like most of the rest of us? You are coming across as a snob OP.

ICE LOLLY,