To ask if you have a posh telephone voice?

[Applejaxx]

I can recall as a child whenever my DM had to make or receive a phonecall from someone who wasn't a close friend or family member she would put on this ridiculous fake, slightly higher pitched posh voice that DB and I would always take the piss out of. She'd always start with 'Oh Hello, I wonder if you could help me?' and end with 'thank you, bye bye'.It was so fake and far removed from her proper voice and I can remember one of my friends saying her mum did it as well and thinking it sounded equally ridiculous.

I really hope I don't sound like that when talking on the phone. Did this used to be a thing or do people still do it?

No. My mother used to do the same. It gave me the creeps, even as a small child and I have something close to a lifelong phobia of put-on accents. I wish everyone would just be themselves.

I didn't think I did but I've been told I sound really young & posh. It's not deliberate. I cringe when I hear it on my voicemail message.

I've got two, both completely authentic, accents. I switch between them in different contexts but it's not 100% under my control. I canter up and down the class hierarchy like a drunken pony.

Me too! Although the cockney is harder to control when I'm angry.

Both my SIL and MIL do it, not only on the phone to a stranger, but when ordering a restaurant meal — it’s not even just a ‘posher’ voice, but also higher and more nasal. I think it’s a sort of insecurity about relative status in comparatively unfamiliar situations.

I am exceedingly posh normally.

On the telephone I drop all my h's and sound like Eliza Doolittle.

I have a couple of work voices.

If I have to call a customer I go quite posh but friendly.

If a customer is being a knob head awkward I have a slow, deep, no nonsense voice which I can never conjure up outside of work bizarrely.

No, I have a confused "shit I can't see your face so let's get this over with" phone voice.

My neighbour has a pretty hilarious posh voice. She shrieks at her family but elongates her vowels quite theatrically when she's spilling out her woes to certain people.

DH gets her posh voice but I get the fuck off voice when she's forgotten to blank me.

I have a special voice for asking Alexa things

My Mum always had a Harrods / telephone accent when we were children.She was actually Welsh so we couldn’t ever understand why she disguised it !!

DH can channel his dad's pitmatic when he needs to. He doesn't even realise he's doing it. It's not like he's normally RP.

I recently had a telephone conversation with someone who was supposed to be a professional person. It was absolutely awful, she certainly did not do her profession any favours with her mode of speech, her grammar or her inability to understand what a conversation is, two people speaking to each other taking turns to speak or listen.
Strangely I assume that she was from the same area as I live in. I do not speak in that way at all. I did notice that once we got past the hello and into speaking she seemed surprised by my voice/speech. It is not the first time I have felt that way.
I notice that everyone is relating that people put on "posh" voices, this was probably the opposite of that. Whatever the situation with her voice it served no purpose and I ended the call as I was not really sure that this was a professional person.

No phone voice, however a story relating to it;

I am from the south east, and sound as such, nothing special. I was on the phone to the US office one day and speaking to someone I’d not spoken to before. She tried to put me on hold but pressed the wrong button and I overheard her saying to someone “she’s so fancy, I feel like I’m talking to the queen”. When she came back on the phone, I realised to my horror I was poshing it up. I distinctly remember her saying “sorry about that” and me saying “oh don’t worry at all, no bother” like some spiffing, jolly good show, famous five/ public schoolgirl hybrid. I cringed so hard but I just COULDN'T stop. I hated myself for it.

I told my husband about it when I got home, and “she’s so fancy” in an American accent is now our go to mocking phrase for if one of us is acting/speaking a habit different around someone we don’t know, a serviceman etc.

I wonder if it’s a generational thing? It’s definitely different from a formal telephone voice, so OTT almost Hyacinth Bucket like.

I work in quite a "working class" environment.. I have both a posh telephone voice (for talking to people outside my organisation) and a decidedly not-posh one for talking to colleagues. Tbh I've forgotten what my real accent is 😂

Also, DP talking to workmen is hilarious.. he goes about 2 tones deeper and his otherwise imperceptible Scottish accent comes out

Mother does this, not posher but more singsong. Drives me nuts, though I'll miss it horribly when she's gone.

I wouldn't say 'posh' but 'posher'

I've got quite a strong London accent but usually pronounce my s's, t's and h's when I answer the phone. Until I know who it is, when I usually revert to sounding like Peggy Mitchell.

I lose my west midland accents on the phone. If people hear it, they tend to mimic me (but end up sounding like Noddy Holder) and assume I'm very stupid - I think it saves hassle to drop it for business calls.

Yes, sing song is a good way of describing it.

‘Oh Hello, I wonder if you could help me?’

Well they are not going to say no are they?

‘I rang the other day and spoke to a lady/gentleman’.

Just say I called the other day and spoke to someone. Why such flowery bollocks?

Yes. Yes I do. I cringe every time I hear myself, but I can't stop it.

I also have a tendency to say slightly eccentric things, so come across as a total loon. I told the John Lewis delivery people that I was "very much looking forward to seeing them in half an hour" the other day. Argghh!

I don't have a telephone voice, I'm Irish, it would sound ridiculous if I tried to say "it's been fratefully naice speaking to you".

I am from the south east, and sound as such, nothing special. I was on the phone to the US office one day and speaking to someone I’d not spoken to before. She tried to put me on hold but pressed the wrong button and I overheard her saying to someone “she’s so fancy, I feel like I’m talking to the queen”. When she came back on the phone, I realised to my horror I was poshing it up. I distinctly remember her saying “sorry about that” and me saying “oh don’t worry at all, no bother” like some spiffing, jolly good show, famous five/ public schoolgirl hybrid. I cringed so hard but I just COULDN'T stop. I hated myself for it.

That reminds me. When I lived in the States I would crank up the Hugh Grant in my accent a lot when I wanted something. I found locals were much more forgiving and helpful if I gave it a bit more of the "gosh erm.. that's awfully kind of you" than if I spoke in my normal voice. Conversely, when I got home after 6 months, friends were constantly ribbing me how American my accent had become. It took me months before I could say words like 'butter' with Ts in the middle instead of Ds.

I thinks it pretty normal to have chameleon accents. My wife is always very Yorkshire for a few days after visiting family (she were Yorkshire born) but is assumed by people who meet her for the first time to be Scottish.

Think. Not 'thinks'. (I went all Mummerset for a moment there.)

When I lived in the States I would crank up the Hugh Grant in my accent a lot when I wanted something. I found locals were much more forgiving and helpful if I gave it a bit more of the "gosh erm.. that's awfully kind of you" than if I spoke in my normal voice.

My experience is that many Americans can't tell the difference between various English accents (in terms of class and region), and are as likely to coo over a working-class Mancunian accent as 'so British' as the Queen's.

I have different voice for each language but not for phone😂