to love regional accents

[Owllady]

And love having one myself :) ?

(Has this been done before:o)

I have the worst one too, black country ay it bab

Cumbrian here but very sad that I'm losing it because I have lived overseas so long (probably have already outed myself - Cumbrians don't tend to move around too much )

Only problem is ordering water in the US - they have no idea what I'm saying

I have to order water for my DH when we go home to California- Otherwise it would take 5 minutes for them to understand what the heck he was on about. He has a poshy-scouse accent so obviously my Yankee friends all thought he was Irish or Scottish.

Accents are one of the many things I love about this country. 15 minutes in any direction and you will get a different one. It's amazing. You have to drive a day or two to get something different in the States.

My personal favorites are N.Irish, N.Scottish (like Ewan McGregor), Bristol and Yorkshire.

I wish I had a cool American accent. I have a friend from Georgia who lived in California for several years. Her accent is still there but it's softened a bit. Mine is very general- like anyone you would hear on an American tv show. Still, people stop me here to tell me they love my accent. It's very sweet.

The mayor of Dudley goes to visit a prostitute and has difficultly getting an erection.

The prostitute asks 'am yaw impotent?'

'I'm very impotent 'he replied 'I'm the mayor of Dudley.'

i come frm the bc & dont mind my accent but that "anything for yow cupcayke" was bad because it over exaggerated the brummie accent.
also ppl frm wolves are called dingles ,ppl from birmingham r called brummies & bc r yam yams.
my accent is worse when i get angry & def when im with my dh & df.
my df accent is so pronounced that when we went to the black country living museum the character actors there thought my dad was taking the piss.

My DH is a forriner from forrinland. He can't reliably tell the difference between an American and an English accent, and he would be hopeless at identifying a Scottish accent of any kind.

I have found that people in the UK are generally not very adept at identifying regional US accents. They might vaguely know that something is "Southern" but they wouldn't be able to say much more than that. Or they could identify a broad Brooklyn accent. But this is entirely understandable, since most people in the UK have little direct contact with Americans. And their perception of how Americans talk may come from actors who haven't learned their dialects properly!

Ayli sees Aynuk in a railway cutting sprinting along in front of a train.
Ayli : Hey Aynuk. Why don't yer run up the bonk?
Aynuk: If I cor bayt it on the straight I cor bayt it up the bonk!

I disagree that it's only in the UK that you can tell where someone is from by their accent. I can tell you if someone is from the Boston area, and although Mainers have similar accents they tend to use slightly different words so I can spot them. I can hear the difference between Tennessee and Georgia. New Yorkers are also pretty easy to spot.

I love being on conference calls with my colleagues from the south of the US. Sometimes it really is like talking to Elvis.

I can tell th edifference between a Dutch person from Amsterdam and one from the coast. Or the north. Or a flemish-speaking Belgian

I moved to Staffs from the south last year and am fascinated by the many and varied accents you hear round here. Teaching in a local 6th form for a few months I was known by the pupils (with no malice) as 'the posh miss', which made me laugh as I was teaching English Language - involving lots about social and historical aspects of accent and dialect.

Tequila my DH has eating a Wigan kebab on his bucket list

Ooh, yes! I love all accents.

owl, I am sure I have posted this before but, well, it's interesting ... you know the Black Country accent/dialect can actually be traced back to one of the most important books of English writing made before 1400? It's that old. And the accent goes right back to when the area was a centre of culture, way ahead of London.

I love accents. I thought I was the only one!

I think I bore people to death with my constant "Did you notice that though? We grew up ten miles apart yet I say skoan and you say skon!"

I genuinely believe that I can tell what part of London someone is from by their accent though. ('Normal' Londoners, not posh ones... they all sound the same to me!)

I have a Essex/HomeCounties/SE London hybrid accent. My parents were RAF brats so don't really have an "accent" apart from general nice "Southern" sounding....I live in Essex, but NOT TOWIE Essex (North Essex - the nice but )....until that programme came out I have never heard anyone talk like that and I've lived in Essex nearly 30 years. Also, my DH is from SE London and really sounds like it, with SE Mockney slang and everything.

You must understand that SE London rhyming slang is NOT the same as cockney rhyming slang...I didn't realise this until I moved there for a while but now I can spot the difference easily.

easy - oh, but it is the best thing, isn't it?! I love those tiny little differences. My mate is a musician and he notices all sorts of things with how people do rhythm and so on, too.

LRD It really is! I could discuss accents for days. I wish we could read accents through MN threads, this could go on forever!

Oh ... actually, I am glad we can't!

I hate my accent. It is sort of RP, but it changes really easily and I always feel fake.

its always nice for me on threads like this because my accent quite often gets mentioned as one that people like. And then again, I'm always struck by how breezily some people can say 'oh I hate X accent, makes people sound thick/sinister/some other insult'. I mean, people can hardly help how their surroundings have influenced their speech

I am probably better at detecting most regional US accents than I am at many UK ones apart from the obvious.

I love Southern accents and Texan accents- Tommy Lee Jones is the perfect package. That Southern sibilance of Holly Hunter's is beautiful too.

And the gentle Hawaiian tones I sometimes hear in Baracks's voice

My accent is quite posh. Not that happy about it but what can I do?

I'll have you know that Coventry was the most important city in the West Mids area in medieval times It was a big city for producing fabric dye, mostly sky blue hence the football team colours.

I'm told I sound like I'm from the southern US but I tend to disagree. Shropshire is closer to my accent

What is wrong with a posh accent? If that is how you speak naturally why is that less worthy than a not-posh accent?

(Are you actually my brother-in-law who has a tremendous problem with my accent?)

Cailin are you referring to my post?

Mignonette yes- why would that be a cause of unhappiness?