To think that my Scottish accent wasn't posh enough?

[TheGoal]

I was at an event today with my kids. I was invited but I didn't know the vast majority of the other parents/children there.

Everyone at the event spoke with what can only be described as a posh English accent. I don't mean that to sound in any way offensive. I found the group to not be very friendly to me at all. I tried to make conversation with so many people, asking them about their children etc but as soon as I stopped asking questions, the conversation went dead. I got the impression they had no interest in chatting to me.

My background is that I'm from a fairly well off family, had a very comfortable upbringing, but I don't have a posh accent for whatever reason. I just talk, well, Scottish. I don't use slang words, my parents didn't so I suppose you just mirror your parents with that sort of thing. I suppose what I'm getting at is that I don't necessarily sound as though I'm from a well off family.

I found the whole group to be pretentious and my gut is telling me that I just didn't sound posh enough for them to want to mix with me?

Has anyone else experienced this? I'm feeling quite low tonight after what can only be described as a very unpleasant day being made to feel an outsider. It makes me really sad that people would think this way and although I don't have any hard evidence that my accent was the reason, I have a very strong gut feeling. It's sad to think people can be so shallow.

I’m struggling to see how someone who went to “Gordonstoun, Loretto or Fettes” was educated in England Do you actually know where those schools are?

Tony Blair, although he spend some of his childhood in both Australia and the north of England, was both born and went to secondary school (Fettes) in Scotland.

I hate the weegie accent. Just sounds so harsh all the time.

There are a high level of Non Scottish students attending the boarding schools in Scotland. So those attending tend not to have a Scottish accent.

Pure Scottish accents are incredibly posh.

I also have a glaswegian accent and can't say it's much of an issue for me. Although, I've been to quite a few conferences in England and very often have to tone down my accent and speak painfully slowly for my English colleagues to understand me.
Ironically, It's more of an issue in the east end of Glasgow, I'm articulate, fairly well spoken and my accent has mutated somewhat so often get teased by old friends from the scheme I grew up in lol

I'm from Dundee, which gets ragged on quite a lot for the accent and dialect, and always get quite annoyed when people act surprised after they learn where I'm from. It's as if they think a Dundonian is incapable of speaking English/expressing things clearly/carrying themselves in any way other than on all fours and drooling.

It particularly annoys me when people ask 'Oh do you mean Broughty Ferry?' because no, I mean Dundee thanks.

I know tunnocks (best biscuit ever!) I also forgot to mention Hogwarts as another fine Scottish boarding school!

I talk Norn Iron and get this shit all the time. I treat it as an excellent bullshit detector. But it is much harder to get my voice heard in a meeting or similar, as I find people are tuning to my accent before they can parse wtf I’m actually saying

Happened to me all the time when I lived in the south of England. Some parents at school used to think it was funny not to undestandard me, other Scots, Irish, Welsh, Northerners...etc.

I feel your pain OP. I was seconded to London for a year and it was a laugh a minute about accents, heroin addicts and how poor my regional salary was. It was draining and I’m glad I only had to last a year.

Glasgow uni accent is reminds me of an american valley girl accent. Everything sounds like a question and is kind of sing songy. That video wasn't that great at it. Its utterly bizarre.

She wouldn't dream of being snobby to all the farmers she works with.

This was interesting to me. In Australia, the farmers are the posh ones with kids at boarding schools, etc. Landed, I suppose. (Yes, there are some very remote ones that we all hear about but most farmers that aren't remote and have a local high school still send their kids off to boarding school. That's the case where I live anyway.)

I spent some time living abroad about a decade ago and it was a real mix of people pretending they couldn't understand me (think me saying 'hello' and them saying 'please could you repeat that? I didn't understand') and people telling me I had the easiest native english speaking accent for them to understand.

I really do think some people get it into their heads that all Scottish accents are too difficult to understand and as a result just don't bother trying to listen. It really is their loss because we're a great lot generally.

"all fur coat and no knickers as my mum used to say!" Haha

Mine used this EXACT phrase to describe her now ex sister in law. Said sister in law tried to affect a posh accent and told people she was from Bearsden - her real accent (often came out when she was drunk) was more "Mary doll" and she was actually from drumchapel! And a scheme at that!

Now none of uncles side would have had any problem with any of that as they're from a scheme in another part of glasgow with a long standing reputation as "rough", purely her own insecurities, made her act as if she thought she was better than us especially in front of her work colleagues (also ridiculous her boss had grown up in the Gorbals WAY pre gentrification!)

This is what's in my head "the now"

m.youtube.com/watch?v=T_Lk7qivXbw

"Do you actually know where those schools are?" Yes perfectly well aware and in my own post even noted "educated in England at prep level" which is usually the case

Tony Blair left Scotland before he was even speaking! And never returned for long enough to acquire a scots accent growing up mainly in north east ENGLAND attending prep there too. Very few people without deliberately aiming to change their accents when older than about 7/8 years old.

"I hate the weegie accent. Just sounds so harsh all the time." I'd love to disagree as I find weegies mostly warm, welcoming, fun, would help anyone types. But there was a hoax a few years back about a trial of cctv being fitted with microphones to detect when people's voices were aggressive in order to target police attendance where necessary, being abandoned in glasgow cos everyone sounds aggressive all the time. To be honest I could see it being true, even listening to a weegie telling a joke can sound like they're gearing up to start trouble!

"It particularly annoys me when people ask 'Oh do you mean Broughty Ferry?' because no, I mean Dundee thanks." 😂😂laughing cos I know someone from the ferry who is MOST offended if someone says they're from Dundee!

Don’t know where in the South East you are OP, but in London any Scottish accent is unremarkable.

I worked for a year in Scotland in the ‘80s and my English accent wasn’t generally welcome. I don’t hold that against the Scots; but I do bristle about Scots’ reaction to their accents in England.

(Also spent several months in NI and had no issues whatsoever with English accent.)

I fucking LOVE a Scottish accent. All of them (they vary so much) are gorgeous to me. I can't believe you were judged for it, OP. They were probably just cunts!

I came on to post pretty much what RosaPfirsich said:
I have a mildly posh English accent... Lots of mocking of my accent and mimicking too over the years
I have been (and still am) judged as "posh" and written off. People get shocked when I swear (because, y'know, I'm POSH). People think I'm judgemental because I sound posh. I hate it, and it's so far away from what and who I am.

@Graphista honestly it’s that superiority complex that gets my back up!! Dundee is SUCH a vibrant place and has so so much going on, while on the other hand the ferry is full of overpriced pubs, charity shops, and snooty people with a misjudged sense of superiority.

(I can talk for hours about Dundee and how great it is, my DP jokes I should be on commission from the tourist board)

*and also Scotland as a whole, I bloody love it

OP i can believe this happened to you. I've been written off by people before because of my (ironically) posh Scottish accent and teased by Scots for being too posh (although the latter annoys me less because i feel i can usually tell it's good humoured at heart). I doubt you're being paranoid!

My secretaries used to be in stitches whenever my Dad called the office looking for me. I never said 'oh that's funny he thinks you sound just like peggy mitchell!' because you know, it's not kind to comment on people's accents

In all seriousness though i wouldn't change it. It makes me stand out (I've long since left Scotland) and differentiates me from my peers.

Fuck em (and can we please stop dissing the Glasgow Uni accent folks, whatever that is, that's just reverse snobbery)

I love all this 'don't take it personally, we're all really nice, you just misunderstood' from the very people that the op is talking about.

To me this post says it all:

Are you new to England? Have you just moved? I see that you think that people could understand what you were saying but is this true?

Do you fit in well elsewhere? Other friendship groups? Work? Extended family, shopping etc?

Did you look the part?

Could it have been specifically to do with this group of people? Were they quite close-knit?
^

Fuck me.
If this is the criteria for talking to people, then I don't want to know these people.

This is why I live abroad to avoid all this classist bullshit.

Great comment about farmers BTW.

You know, those old blokes in flat caps who own all the land

There are some people out there who can't deal with anyone slightly different from themselves. It's really incredibly sad and they must miss out on so many interesting conversations and people.

I live in the USA and the occasional person has told me that they can't understand me...they're usually people who have strong regional accents themselves.

@Graphista honestly it’s that superiority complex that gets my back up!! Dundee is SUCH a vibrant place and has so so much going on, while on the other hand the ferry is full of overpriced pubs, charity shops, and snooty people with a misjudged sense of superiority.

(I can talk for hours about Dundee and how great it is, my DP jokes I should be on commission from the tourist board)

Totally agree. This person is definitely up their own backside! So weird.

I too am quite evangelical about glasgow and Scotland

I have a softened Glaswegian accent, softened enough that I got teased growing up for my lengthened vowels. I arrived at an English uni to be told told that the way I sounded meant that I couldn't be as prim as I looked.
Posh Scots sound English, I grew up in a feudal part of Scotland and can state this with confidence.
My DH likes my accent though and it was blessing when it came to a career in social work, I could mix with a good range of people easily.