The way you speak is a lot more common than I remember

[ishouldtryabitmoreachday]

So I socially distantly bumped into an old friend out on a walk with my DH and my DC. I am friends with him on Facebook, but we were in a friendship group 20 years ago. He spends time in LA trying to be famous, he is well educated, but I'm not entirely sure how he earns a living now. If I see his posts he presents a lifestyle of being some kind of knowledge guru / socialit ?! Brief chat today and he said that he was surprised by the way I speak, he said it was lot more common than I remember you being. So I was a bit agog, because who says that to someone, even if it's true. I'm not a cockney sounding person nothing wrong with it anyway, I don't think so anyway. The thing is it's bugged me, because why the need to comment negatively on something I can't exactly control. Maybe as the Americans generally seem to love the English accent in LA and he plays on that, speaking the Queens English, but I didn't say anything. I wouldn't. I wish I had executed a MN did you mean to be so rude. I just know this will stay in my head now.

Now we both grew up in the same area of South London, there is an accent to that area of the Sauf, but neither of us live there now. At school I was always told I spoke "posh", but I think really that was a lack of swearing and just didn't know any of the slang terms I was a geek. The cheek.

@nancybotwinbloom 😂😂😂

I must look up this 'negging tecnique'...imagine teaching someonw how to be a charming arsehole...omg!

OP, forget him....live your best life

@SionnachGlic

I had to google what negging meant lol.
Some people are just twats.

He's a twat.
No further need to worry about you. He is a self absorbed twat.

I bet that at school he secretly admired you for speaking well enough to be called posh.

I expect the comment was so you could reply with lots of praise and envy for his new LA fakey posh English speaking voice.

Instead he just made an idiot of himself and insulted you. I hope he's reliving the conversation over and over in his head and kicking himself for being a prat.

Next time you meet him just smile and hold his hand.

I am fro the North and I know I did have a thick northern accent which everyone had but to me other people didn’t have an accent
I have lived in and around London for the past 40 years and I think my accent has thinned out.

The last time I went up north I could hear the accent and it really grated

I certainly would never comment on someone’s accent. At best this guy was extremely rude

Next time you meet him just smile and hold his hand.

Come on! We can’t let this go by without acknowledgement!

Someone once told me my accent was chavvy immediately before asking for a blow job in the loos. Needless to say I did not acquiesce, charmed though I was

I think the term common just showed him
Up as out of touch and old fashioned. These days accents are celebrated think of all the pundits on TV . In fact you hardly hear a Queens English type accent. Take no notice.

Anyone who uses the word "common" is by definition as common as muck. Defining people by their accent is about the trashiest thing you can do.

@ernieshere I bet he came from Greece and has a loaded dad. 😀

I’d like to think I’d replied that he’s more of a dick than you remembered

He’s a knob. Forget about him

One should not be concerned. It was not one's fault that one survived a childhood in south London. One should ignore one's so-called friend who lives in la-la-land and has lost a sense of reality.

What an arse. I have known two people specifically who went to the States and absolutely built a whole new personality on being 'the Englishman' - and when they came back to the UK they sounded clichéd, their humour was a bit pathetic and hadn't moved on, and when it looked like someone else in the group was getting more laughs they went into a stupid posh drawl to refocus attention.

(In one case the US wife visibly realised she had married a dickhead when he tried to hold court at a table of British people and they weren't having it. Sad really. Always observe other nationalities in their home countries if you're thinking of marrying/having kids!)

I wonder if he just hasn't been getting the love he might be getting in the States and decided to neg you a bit to boost his ego. He sounds like a twat from all you say.

OP - the same thing happened to me, said to me by a friend I had been to secondary school with, at a mutual friend's wedding.

I was mortified. She lives a very glamorous life (investment banker herself married to a v wealthy business man) and it made me feel totally inadequate.

Both my (ex) friend and yours are absolute arses.

He can’t be that well educated if he used the words ‘a lot more common’. Really, if you are going to put someone down for the way they speak at least do it properly.