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.

Btw I'm Scottish and from Lanarkshire but now stay in Glasgow. So I have a mix of those accents.

Although I dont say "herr, sterr" etc for hair and stair.

I think there is a ‘new posh’ Scottish accent though that’s a kind of warbly, mouth-full-of-marbles accent. My DH is Scottish and has the usual accent for his area of the Highlands but his cousin went to private school and he sounds absolutely bizarre to my ears. Not English, just warbly, if that makes sense.

I have found the really posh people couldn't give a crap what accent you have, they will talk to anyone.

It is the nouveau riche wanna be's who are up to their eyeballs in debt who are the ones to look down their noses at people

I don’t find the school Mums very interested in making friends with me. I don’t think it is to do with my accent or appearance. In my case I think it is because I work full time and haven’t joined in enough. I would be really surprised if your accent was the problem. They just sound cliquey and hard to get to know.

I didn't read the thread after your first post OP but I personally have never met a Scottish accent I didn't love so they were all probably jealous . Be grateful for your gorgeous voice. Some people have atrocious manners and are just not friendly - that's their problem. Actually that's another observation, I have found Scottish people to be on the whole very friendly with excellent social skills.

Sounds to me like the group of women you were with OP are deeply insecure and only comfortable with identical accents to theirs. Highly likely that if you had been from a different English county you would have been treated the same way. Find a new group of less ignorant friends. I have a well spoken east coast Scottish accent and am incredibly proud of it. I was raised to never use local slang (I understand it but never use it). Regional accents - across the entire UK - are the backbone of this country.

I'm from the NW of England, and find some people in the south east of England are only used to hearing that generic, southern English middle class accent and struggle with understanding other accents. It's very parochial and unworldly of them and it's their problem not yours.

Yes, it has happened to me on more than one occasion.

I changed countries several times as a child and have a completely different accent to what I had at eight. When I went to live near my cousins they too the mick at my very English Windsor accent. They explained to everyone everywhere so I soon lost it.
When I moved here and went to pick up from school I had a parent approach me with a very posh English accent and her first sentence enquiring,
“ What one’s husband did? “ left me flabbergasted 😯 I was never invited to her dinner parties.
However I found another mum the same week and thirty years later she is still my best friend. I love her and her family.
So don’t worry about it.

I doubt very much that you haven’t perceived negative thoughts surrounding your accent before. You sound very hung up about it and given that these people haven’t mentioned it, the inferiority must come from you.

No one has the power to feel bad about yourself without your permission.

@AgentJohnson - is that the kind of black-slapping pep talk you would give to a black or gay person who who came on here to say they felt their race / sexuality was why they were socially excluded?

I can well believe this.

I'm a middle class Scot (went to one of the schools mentioned above) with a neutral generic "Scottish" accent. I live in London.

When I've worked in areas of Scotland associated with strong regional accents fellow Scots have been surprised to discover I was even Scottish as my accent is so neutral to Scottish ears.

However in the SE I have had lots of comments over the years indicating that people just don't recognize that there is a middle class in Scotland and assume that everyone lives a life similar to that displayed on trainspotting! Hence the avoidance tactic at social things because you are perceived not to be PLU (people like us) when in actual fact you often are!!

One of my colleagues is also Scottish but from Glasgow. They are much broader than me but other colleagues can't hear the difference between us at all!

I had a similar type experience, I have a strong regional accent but have a well paid job and several degrees. I went wedding dress shopping in a very naice shop, dressed casually, the woman couldn’t have seemed less interested and sneery until my future mil who was with me asked after a particular wedding dress designer. The woman proceeded to (after picking her jaw off the floor) ask our address to send details of event evenings and on hearing where we lived suddenly couldn’t do enough for us and even brought us champagne 😡. Needless to say we bought my v expensive dress somewhere else

Some women weren’t very welcoming and the OP has managed to spin it into this posh vs non posh accent thing. There’s no evidence that they were discriminating against her ‘non posh accent’, none.

The OP has an obvious sensitivity about her accent and sometimes that turns into a self fulfilling prophecy which becomes the convenient explanation. The OP has ceded so much power to these women that she wished she never left the house. That’s an awful lot of power to surrender to anyone, let alone complete strangers.

Perception isn’t the same as truth and yes, these women could have been biased against her accent but then again, not.

We live in a time where we unfortunately look to have our bias confirmed.

@AgentJohnson it is indeed possible that the ladies were just generally cliquey and rude, but you're awfully dismissive of the OP's experience.

"given that these people haven’t mentioned it, the inferiority must come from you"

Should we only validate the OP's experience/feelings if the ladies had said "sorry TheGoal could you just step away and leave us to it, your accent is really annoying us?"

You sound like you be got a chip on your shoulder. I doubt anyone gave a fuck about your accent.

I think it's more to do with their ignorance and cliques than it is your accent. The Scottish accent is lovely and much better than sounding like a west country turnip farmer

@DexyMidnight, come on, I’m just saying there isn’t any evidence to back up the OP’s claim. I’m not dismissing her ‘feelings’, just saying that looking for confirmation of our own bias/ inferiority isn’t healthy or helpful. How does pointing the finger help the OP to move forward? By dismissing the possibility that she could be wrong, she’s robbing herself of the opportunity to climb outside her inferiority. Inferiority complexes/ anxieties are always looking to be fed.

The OP could be right but on the evidence given alone, there’s a greater chance she isn’t.

I wasted my teenage years and early twenties worried about what people thought about me, in some instances to the point of paralysis. It took the indignity of walking around the supermarket with a scarf on one of the hottest days of the year because my neck still had the imprint of my Ex’s hands when he tried to strangle me several hours earlier, to realise ‘who gives a fuck’. I can tell you something, ‘who gives a fuck’ is the unexpected gift that keeps on giving.

I agree with AgentJohnson actually. A 6 page thread about accents with chips on shoulders all over the shop, when we actually don't know why the OP had a crap time at this social gathering. It sounds like the sort of purgatorial event I would run a million miles to avoid, and the people there sound like fuds. That's more likely to be the reason the OP felt out of place.

Though I am glad of the opportunity to find out what a 'glasgow uni' accent is - I've heard people slagging this before. Turns out that's exactly how my boss speaks, which is going to make me giggle quite a lot now.

Learn the Doric (what I speak) and confuse people even more.

Fair mintin like quine? (Sp?) @senttomefromheaven (love Doric!)

It could totally be something else but prejudice based on accepts is a real thing. There was an article a while ago asking how northern teachers were aaked to posh up.

I'm not originally from UK and I have an accent that people cannot automatically place. So I dont have pony in this raise. But my bf is Cornish but since his parents as form the SE he doesn't have the Cornish accent and a lot of people comment how posh he sounds when they hear his hometown. I don't know if this was the case but I feel like there is a mentality that anyone with a northern (or non SE) accent can't be posh. Even after some time in the UK im just happy when people have an accent I can understand.

Foos yours doos? @GoGoGadgetGin

I used to work with a woman who hated my (admittedly quite posh) Scottish accent. She was incredibly snotty and rude about all Scottish accents. Ok, fine, except we both lived and worked in Edinburgh.

Foos yours doos?

Aye, peckin' 😂