To find snobbery around vocabulary very silly?

[crayolacom]

I too don't particularly like the idea of regional dialects and differences disappearing, but language does change and everyone should just deal with it!

I wonder if Shakespeare would be moaning about the modern lexicon if he was alive!

@lazylinguist The only thing someone’s accent tells me is whereabouts in the country (or world) they were brought up.

I worked with a senior HR manager who said "Aks" instead of ask. She knew she was doing it as we spoke about it. I suppose she's still doing it.

It's important to be able to use Standard English in appropriate contexts and not doing so does disadvantage people, but I find the endless threads on here full of people mocking dialects and accents to be tiresome.

There's something a bit snobby reading post after post of but it isn't regional, it's just wrong... people claim it's dialect but it's just a sign of poor education, why do people defend awful language use?

It always amuses me that the most snobby posts about 'correct' language use tend to show the posters' lack of knowledge about language variation.

The aitch / haitch thing annoys me because the argument is always so bizarre about it starting with h because that’s the letter. We don’t have wouble-u. The Irish origins makes more sense and explains my dad’s insistence on aitch - his granddad was Irish Protestant.

Is ‘axe’ instead of ‘ask’ a regional thing? Or ethnic?

@Broadbeanssleepinginheavenlype

I'm bewildered. Why would anyone care about this stuff??

Snobs, snobs think if someone doesn’t have x accent etc they must be both poor and stupid.

Imagine being such a cunt that magnanimously announcing you’ll tolerate regional accents seems like a good idea.

All stuff like this does is shine a giant light on how tiny, insular, and pathetic your existence is.

@Skinnytailedsquirrel

I worked with a senior HR manager who said "Aks" instead of ask. She knew she was doing it as we spoke about it. I suppose she's still doing it.

It's because ask comes from the Old English aksian or askian. Aks was actually standard before the vowel shift in the Middle Ages when ask took over.

Chaucer said aks and some dialects have preserved it. Particularly in black vernaculars.

Slightly off topic but I find accents fascinating. My husband can distinguish between a Burnley and Blackburn accent whereas I could only tell you if someone was from the North, the Middle or the South I take the GCSE language approach, as long as you're making yourself understood, I don't care how you say it. That does however mean you can't flower up the sentence with meaningless management speak that obscures the meaning

I wonder if Shakespeare would have many followers on YouTube.
What kind of videos would he make? Tutorials on how to write your very own satire? Or would he make rant videos on how the murder rate in Albert Square is ridiculous?

@imyournextdoorneighbour
I am tolerant about regional accents

You realise that you have a regional accent yourself? Presumably a southeastern one, but definitely still very much regional. A Kent accent is different to a Sussex accent is different to a London accent is different to an Essex one.

There is an unintentionally hilarious youtube EFL teacher who is under the impression that he has “no accent” when he has a North London accent stronger than Ben Elton’s.

Ohhhh, let me be free to say wubbleyou. It's so much nicer than double you.

Snobs, snobs think if someone doesn’t have x accent etc they must be both poor and stupid.

And desperately need to show that they couldn't possibly be poor or stupid.

I'm tolerant of regional accents

Well if you come here to Cornwall you'll be the one with a regional accent, and I may be tolerant of you, but not if you're that dickish to me.

I love accents and dialects. I've always been told my own accent is "neutral" which I think is so boring. I'm from east london and my parents are from Newcastle. I don't know how I ended up with no accent.

Well I obviously do have an accent, but "neutral" is just so meh.

@trilbydoll

Slightly off topic but I find accents fascinating. My husband can distinguish between a Burnley and Blackburn accent whereas I could only tell you if someone was from the North, the Middle or the South I take the GCSE language approach, as long as you're making yourself understood, I don't care how you say it. That does however mean you can't flower up the sentence with meaningless management speak that obscures the meaning

There are subtle differences in all accents. I can tell the difference between a Newcastle, Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Ashington accent for example but most people from outside these areas just hears a generic Geordie accent (much to the annoyance of the Makems). I appreciate it will be the same in other areas. My friend from Manchester for example can distinguish which area people are from by their accent whereas I just hear generic Mancunian. I think that’s why the ignorant people who just hear a ‘northern accent’ piss me off so much, there is no such thing just as there is no such thing as a generic Southern accent. They also tend to be the anally retentive superior ones who graciously tolerate our northern existence.

There’s a difference between regional accents and poor SPaG or corruption of common langauge.

Everyone has an accent of some type and colloquialisms particular to that area. We might like or dislike a particular accent, because of the intonation, but that’s a different thing from what many would regard as poor SPaG.

There are regional accents that I think are charming and those I find grating, but that’s a personal opinion. Words that are misspelled and grammar that is incorrect, are a different matter. Allowing for the fact that language evolves, there are some errors that compromise meaning, which makes communication more difficult.

@Countrygirl2021

Some things are just awful. "Of" instead of "have"

"Tryna" is a new one to have started to see.

I also hate fake words like "staycation"

That's not vocab, that's grammar

@lazylinguist The only thing someone’s accent tells me is whereabouts in the country (or world) they were brought up.

Really? People's accent and language use can give you a lot more clues about them than that - about their social class, the people they frequent, their level and type of education, their religion, their aspirations or feelings about their own background (e.g. do they try and reduce their native accent or embrace it), even their line of work. Not everyone consciously notices these things, the signs are not always reliable, and lots of the things they indicate are things we should not necessarily care about and certainly should try very hard not to judge about, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

'There are some errors that compromise meaning'.
Yes, indeed, like 'pry' when 'prise' is meant.

I dislike grammar pedantry, not least because most grammar pedants (especially the proudly self-proclaimed ones) appear to know very, very little about grammar.

I think I've seen the youtuber with " no regional accent." I don't know north from South London but definitely from "down South."

I don't like flaunt for flout.

But it may catch on.🤷