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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be soooo irritated by step kids new accent?

130 replies

wishingonastar9 · 16/04/2014 18:05

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.

OP posts:
RyvitaSesame · 16/04/2014 21:56

Never met anybody who said hambag! Confused I do say gonna and wudda though, out of laziness. Ithink that's americanisation not liverpoolisation though.

IHeartKingThistle · 16/04/2014 21:57

Surely originally it must have been 'iced lolly'. Ooh or even 'iced lollipop'!

Must boycott R Whites immediately.

IHeartKingThistle · 16/04/2014 21:59

Most people say hambag! And samwich! They just don't think they do. It's called elision. I think.

(Pointless degree and I can't even remember the terminology!)

IHeartKingThistle · 16/04/2014 22:00

I have never met anyone who sounded the 'd' in handbag. It would sound like two words.

Kleptronic · 16/04/2014 22:01

Shut up! It's a lolly and it's iced!

blackcats73 · 16/04/2014 22:03

Yes but ice cream, ice lolly!!!!

Patchouli · 16/04/2014 22:04

Children do adapt their accents quick.
I was at primary school when I moved away from Liverpool - I lost that scouse accent pretty quick down south.

A friend of mine has emigrated to the States recently and I'm sure it won't be long before she hears "gee mom, have you seen my sneakers"?

Bonsoir · 16/04/2014 22:05

I say hand bag and sand wich. That's because I live surrounded by pedantic non-native speakers who can only understand English that sounds like the way it is written.

ArtexMonkey · 16/04/2014 22:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mamicar · 16/04/2014 22:05

lolly ice !Grin

I miss my scouse accent. been in wales for ten years. I still say plazzy bag and leccy though. and bath instead of barth.

ds adapted to welsh accent and language and I get called welshie when I go home now.

but it is still LOLLY ICE and ice cream is just an icy or a 99er Grin

Kleptronic · 16/04/2014 22:09

Ah well you've got me there. Outside! Again!

Kleptronic · 16/04/2014 22:11

Sorry, that was to blackcats. Who knew a scouse thread would move this fast :p

Pagwatch · 16/04/2014 22:11

'8 and 10 year old children are annoying' shocker.

blackcats73 · 16/04/2014 22:12

My children used to have my (Non Scouse) northern accent before they started primary schiool but now have a very generic Cheshire middle class type accent with Northern vowels. There are lots of non locals at the school (From all over the country, including Scotland, Liverpool, Yorkshire, Ireland also travellers. So now generic posh (by my north east accent standards) is the accent of the school.

I love regional accents really, just get irrationally irritated by lolly ice. No idea why. (mad emotion)

Wearyworker · 16/04/2014 22:32

YABU Op, children can and do change their accent so the children in their class can understand them, I would go with that rather than him trying to piss you off

17leftfeet · 16/04/2014 22:34

My dc don't have the local accent despite being born here ( another northern town, not Liverpool)
They do get picked on but mostly they like how they speak

I have the accent of whoever I happen to be speaking to at the time to the point that I can be having a conversation with 2 people and I will use 2 different accents

If I'm wound up about something either excited or angry I flip into broad scouse

I've never been there in my life!

Martorana · 16/04/2014 22:42

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

Grin
Bogeyface · 16/04/2014 22:47

Kenneth Branagh did exactly this when he moved as a child from Belfast to Redding because he was being bullied. He was Irish at home but local at school, and it sounds like your DSC are doing the same.

I would try to be less irritated and more interested in why they feel the need to do it, are they not happy there? Being bullied?

Bogeyface · 16/04/2014 22:49

17 I "come out in sympathy" too, and have had people think I am taking the piss! An ear for accents was very useful in my AmDram days, I always got the good parts that needed a particular accent, but not so great when you work in a hotel :o

nocheeseinhouse · 16/04/2014 22:50

I love your idea that you speak properly! Everyone thinks they don't have an accent, and in fact are speaking correctly, it's everyone else who's wrong. (Saying bas instead of bus is the one that grates with me, who can think that's correct?! Yet, evidently, people do.)

Scouse is one of those accents people gain quickly, and it sounds like the kids have enough on with the move, without you moaning about they way they speak. Let them be.

NaturalBaby · 16/04/2014 22:55

Should they be speaking the queen's English to stand out even more in their new school then? Why does it irritate you so much that your step kids are trying to fit in with their new peers?

My Dc has a new friend with an Australian parent and he's picked up an Aussie twang. It's what kids do!

threepiecesuite · 16/04/2014 22:57

I don't think you can fight it. The foreign kids at the Liverpool school where I work were scousified within about two weeks.

TamzinGrey · 16/04/2014 22:57

YABU I was 8 when I was uprooted from South Wales to Kent. The other children at school, and even some of the teachers made a Really Big Thing of my accent. It was so horrible, and I will never ever forget it. Took me about three weeks to speak perfect Kentish at school, but I always had to switch straight back to Welsh as soon as I walked through the front door, or I'd be told off by my mother.

Looking back I feel so sorry for the little girl that I was then. It was all so horribly stressful trying to please everyone by the way that I spoke.

flossietta · 16/04/2014 22:57

It's definately lolly ice :) like it's going to 'The ASDA' :)

'Scally' comes from Scallywag. I shall look further into tang one.

Aww, it's nice to see some other scouse/plazzy scouse mums on MN.

ExScooseMeMrOfficer · 16/04/2014 23:00

waves at all the fellow scousers not the Birkenhead ones though that's not liverpool!Wink