Accent, class and feeling like a fish out of water

[fishoutofwine]

Have name changed as moan about this a irl and think combined with my other posts would put me.

However, in the last year have moved to a very “of money” up market area (sort of imagine Hampstead garden suburb but not).

I have found that thanks so my strong accent and penchant for wearing ordinary clothes seems to be setting me ok a back foot.

I know some of this may be my own insecurities however habe had issues such as - neighbour in gazillion pound house assuming that when I said no to her builders using my garden for a loo talking slowly and patiently to me like I’m an idiot, when walking my dog around the local area other dog walkers asking if I’ve come far (quite enjoy pointing and saying “no I live there” and just low lever snobbery.

While fully aware that this is to some degree a nice problem to have, it does make me feel like crap (and like moving back to my perfectly nice area I was before).

I guess it’s more wwyd and how can I deal with it.

I'm surprised at how many people have taken the grammar post seriously.

It was obviously tongue-in-cheek.

If you want to fit in with the upper classes all you need is complete confidence in who you are, never hold your knife like a pen and never call dinner tea or lunch dinner.
That's it.

No way would I give up my accent for anyone, I'm proud of where I'm from and if people are so judgemental as to how a person is seen by how they talk then it they're problem and not mine. As for the loos in your garden, there not a chance in hell I would ever allow a line up of hair arsed builders and newspapers in my garden no way! If you want the builders then put up with the mess that comes with them!

madcatladyforever You forgot passing the port to the left

madcatladyforever
You forgot passing the port to the left

And never saying the 't' word

(Whispers - toilet)

The thing is nothing sticks out more and makes someone look more tragically Hyacinth than trying to “better one’s accent”.

You see it on here so often. Daft middle aged women calling mirrors “looking-glasses” and insisting they’d cut their children off without a penny if they heard them say “toilet”.

And of course the reality, that they’re getting their information on how to speak decades out of date and straight from Nancy Mitford/Jilly Cooper, just makes them look like hopeless frauds.

Maybe we all ought to be kinder towards the Hyacinths - they’re just cripplingly insecure after all - but IME people judge ‘em far more harshly than a TOWIE accent on someone Done Good.

As an Oxbridge educated, City working, Surrey dwelling person, I shudder when I read this stuff, recognising a lot of the kind of thing I see around my area.

OP you sound lovely, and these people you describe sound horribly stuck in an outdated way of viewing the world.

For me cliques of any sort (and the coloured trousers, tweed, 4x4, clipped accent stuff is a clique) are sometimes borne out of insecurity and a need to project success and wealth where no one asked.

Be yourself, I’d be lucky to have someone such as you as a neighbour. And then the types who actually genuinely like tweed, wear crisp clothes etc, but who are human and warm and curious, will embrace you without any issue of class etc.

The insecure faddish climbers aren’t worth your time anyway.

Where we used to live there was a large red trouser contingent so I know exactly the type of people you're talking about.

They tend to be the ones with insecurities if they look like they're try too hard. They've made it to what they think is upper middle class territory and are afraid of loosing it. The ones who have no insecurities and wear the tatty old red trousers, jumpers etc usually won't be so up their own arse.

Our old village was mainly full of the former 🙄

Saskatoon, haha my iPad changes Saskia to that too 🤪

If you actually want to do something about it, get over to the Style & Beauty board and let them advise you. Makeovers are fun if that's what will make you happier.
As for getting into conversation with your new neighbours, just be yourself, but it helps if you stay informed, have an interest in local community things, have hobbies and show interest in others.
I bet nobody is judging you, people tend to be wrapped up in their own lives.

fishoutofwine and saskia rembrandt - I always drink the port right out of the bottle.

@madcatladyforever and me through a staw - maybe that’s where I’m going wrong

Went along to a very informal meeting ... the others didn’t listen to a word I said.

Have you considered the possibility that this was nothing to do with you and everything to do with them ? Some people are like this, It's especially rife amongst the ones running the residents association.

Find nicer people, they will be around somewhere, I promise.

the Colonel's Lady an' Judy O'Grady
Are sisters under their skins !

(Rudyard Kipling)

@ madcatladyforever Sun 19-May-19 14:13:59

You also forgot that "Dinner" is called "Supper" by the truly upper crust.
Strange but true......

You could up the ante and add "innit" to the end of every sentence.

You should try living in a fancy part of London with a brown face. I’m constantly mistaken for the cleaner or the nanny, (although in part this is because I’m a scruffy cow). I have a very posh accent in both languages (I went to public schools in both India and England) and yet I’m still spoken-to-very-slowly and asked if my employer is in by door-to-door salesmen. It’s a very good dickhead detector, as I imagine is a regional accent. A friend of mine has a sharp Scouse accent and my nobbier schoolmates think he’s working class. He’s actually the son of a very eminent surgeon and a partner at a MC law firm.

I am mistaken for being my own children's nanny all the time (I have a strong foreign accent / not very fluent, but the children are native speakers). Little angels sometimes play up too

I’m afraid the world is simply teeming with dickheads. I laugh at my regular humiliations because there are few places more racist and classist than my own country.

How do you hold a knife like a pen? I can never see this in my head. Surely the knife would be unusable?

madcatladyforever I don't think I've ever had port- for all I know straight out of the bottle may be the way to drink it

images.app.goo.gl/CCJfbx9tPrA36P6k9

Is it Liverpool, or Birmingham?

Gth RTFT. It's a London accent as the OP has stated more than once!!

Easy to see where your prejudices lie though

Truly classy people don't give a shit. Fur coat and no knickers types seem to make more of a big deal about it.
Ignore them, op. They are naff.

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent