To wonder what your views are on 'working class' accents

[Timri]

And think people need to learn the difference between the words correct and standard
Inspired by a comment by somebody saying they didn't look down on anybody's accent, but hated words being pronounced 'incorrectly' such as 'bovvered'.
Uhm, it's called th fronting and it's one of the central features of a cockney accent FFS.
Please tell me I'm not alone in this?

Gwenhwyfar
Sorry, I just thought I'd include an explanation in case anyone else reading was interested.
In terms of Liz Truss, I think things like this goes to show that hardly anybody speaks exactly like the standard, therefore looking down on people for not speaking 'correctly' is ridiculous, not to mention hypocritical, when there's a high chance your own speech isn't 'perfect'

wasonthelist I'm not sure, I'd say they are pronouncing it, but maybe very very softly? I think the SE has very soft Rs in general, I've heard it being compared to almost a W like sound?
In terms of the 'broadCARST' do you mean a broad A, or are they actually pronouncing that R, I must admit I've never heard (or noticed if I have) that.
I think it's always tricky to write things out phonetically too, because in my accent AR and AH make exactly the same sound, which I know is not the case in other accents.

I am an immigrant and children have picked up a working class London accent at school.

I like it. What I don't like is the bad grammar that comes with it. "you was", "I done it" etc etc.

I was shopping in Guildford, Surrey a few weeks ago and a woman on the street asked me where Lakeland was. I said 'sorry, I don't know' to which she gave me a look as if to say 'of course you wouldn't'. Which I took to mean either she thought I was too common to shop in Lakeland, or not from this area. I grew up in south London but I've lived in Surrey for 15 years, but I still get judged on my accent (or maybe I have a chip on my shoulder!)

You can often tell if people have attempted to change their accent. It may only be the odd syllable but it will give them away.

You can often tell if people have attempted to change their accent. It may only be the odd syllable but it will give them away.

See, I find this post really sneery. You may not have meant it like this, but there's an obvious tone of "you're not one of us, you can't keep it up, your slightly different accent shows your real breeding".

Why do you have to assume that people are trying to be something (that you consider) they're not? Can it not just be that a person has lived in a few different places and has picked up on the different sayings and ways of saying things of those around them?

I love hearing different accents, I love finding out how and why people have moved about, experienced life in different places and I think that makes someone much more interesting, not to mention brave.

In my (very professional) job/industry I get to work with people from all different areas of the UK and abroad who have moved about with work. When people from the home counties, or Italy/Germany/whatever say little Scottish phrases or pronunciations they have picked up from living/working in Scotland I don't think to myself "pfft, you are trying to be Scottish, who do you think you are trying to be one of us".

I find the sneering very unbecoming.

AyeAmarock What a great post. Ronny Deila the Celtic manager has picked up a bit of a Scottish accent. It endears him to me.

I love hearing different accents, I love finding out how and why people have moved about, experienced life in different places and I think that makes someone much more interesting, not to mention brave.
Yes.

My French friend/colleague told me last week that at our Christmas party he was "giving it laldy on the dancefloor" I felt an overwhelming urge to cuddle him!

giving it laldy

DS says th as f, and he's young enough to not know which is meant to be which.

I let him know which ones are meant to be th, and make it a game of practicing th.

I've told him that f is an accent and he can choose to pronounce it like that if he wants, but he needs to be able to do th and know which is which.

I've changed how I speak depending on the environment since I was a young teen going to a posh school but living in a mixed MC / WC area. I had one accent for school, another for home. I left the school and largely dropped the posh accent! Can still do it if I need to - my phone voice is pretty posh!

There's no point in me trying to shape DS's accent IMO, his eventual accent will depend much more on his peers than me or his dad IMO!

My French friend/colleague told me last week that at our Christmas party he was "giving it laldy on the dancefloor"

What did he mean?

He meant he was having a jolly old time displaying his dance moves with rather a lot of gusto.

No not "sneery" AyeAmarok, just observation. There's a difference between the interesting and genuine mix of accents when people have moved around, and the person who deliberately tries to fake an accent that isn't theirs. Sometimes this is to purposely sound posher, but equally it can be to sound "cooler" and more working class.

"What I don't like is the bad grammar that comes with it. "you was", "I done it" etc etc."

Isn't that dialect rather than 'bad grammar'. Only a problem if they can't tell the difference between standard and non-standard and don't know which is appropriate for writing.

"People change their accent to fit in."

Sometimes, but most of the time, people's accents change without their doing anything. It just happens and can happen even if you try not to let it happen.

"What I don't like is the bad grammar that comes with it. "you was", "I done it" etc etc."

Isn't that dialect rather than 'bad grammar

For me, dialect is the use of words such as "laldy" (never heard before and don't know how to pronounce it) or "dreich" (have heard many times, still find it difficult to pronounce).

"You was" or "I done it"… that's bad grammar. You can have people with the same accents, from the same region, who don't make those grammatical mistakes; it's not the same thing as using - for example - an 'f' noise at a time when the queen would use a "th" noise.

I speak a second language - my accent/pronunciation is terrible… my grammar is spot on (as good as native)… communication-wise, I would do better throughout the entire country of my second language if the former were better than the latter...

"For me, dialect is the use of words such as "laldy" (never heard before and don't know how to pronounce it) or "dreich" (have heard many times, still find it difficult to pronounce). "

I don't agree with this definition of dialect, it's not just words, it's also grammar. Dialects have their own grammar.

""You was" or "I done it"… that's bad grammar."

It's non-standard. I don't think it's 'bad' as part of a dialect.

"You can have people with the same accents, from the same region, who don't make those grammatical mistakes"

Someone speaking a regional accent is not necessarily speaking in dialect though. You could be speaking standard English, but using a regional accent, while another person could be using a regional dialect with the same accent.

I disagree. A lot of my friends have different accents, but they do use correct grammar.

The friends I have who say "I seen/I done" write that way too, so to me it's that they either weren't taught, didn't learn or don't care about grammar. I know people with RP accents who also have poor grammar.

IMO, speaking incorrectly is not an accent thing, it's an education thing.

I am originally North London but now Essex. I love accents. They give people character.

Different dialects do have different grammar. It might grate, but some dialects do say, "we was going" instead of "we were going". Others might say, "we be going" instead of "we are going". It can be inflected (possibly very simply), and it follows rules - just not the same rules as what is considered to be standard English.

And I agree, it's only a problem if people don't know the difference between a local dialect and standard English. (Hope you're reading, colleague who writes, "he done it" in formal business mails. You should be embarrassed that all our colleagues whose first language isn't English tend to write better English than you do.)

"I disagree. A lot of my friends have different accents, but they do use correct grammar."

Yes, accent is just the way you pronounce things, it doesn't cover other parts of dialect such as which words you use and how.

A cockney saying 'we was' is using dialect as is a Mancunian saying 'I were'. Where I live, people say 'I likes', it's dialect, not just a mistake of the kind a second language speaker might make with an incorrect conjugation.

"The friends I have who say "I seen/I done" write that way too"

Yes, I'm sure some do, but others will be 'bilingual' in that they can use their regional dialect and the standard and know when to use each.

I agree Gwen and I think it's also to look at where people are writing.
For example just because somebody uses regional dialect in writing on texts or on Facebook or something, doesn't mean they would write that way on a CV.