Paddy McGuinness

[percheron67]

I switched BBC 1 on early and am waiting for Casualty. The programme on at the moment is hosted AGAIN by Paddy McGuinness. He is rarely off the screen and I cannot understand it! He has a simply dreadful dialect and will keep sounding a hard G in singing. Apart from that he yells at the top of his (Very unattractive) voice. How on earth does this man keep a job on television?

[quote waterlego]@LizBennet

Here. Can you hear the difference?

streamable.com/wt2sp2[/quote]
Great vid, I heard the difference too. It is very hard to emulate that in my accent though. I've tried 😂

I think it’s ok and not offensive to like some accents more than others. My own preferences aren’t along a North/South divide. I like a Bolton accent more than I like an Essex accent, but I prefer a Cornish accent to a Hull accent. I find all of them interesting but some more pleasant to listen to than others. My absolute favourite is a Welsh accent, South Wales specifically.

@LizBennet, glad that helped!

@ShutUpAlex

I posted a video a few pages back where they are pronounced differently

I think you're going to have to accept that when spoken ina conversation, rather than accentuated for 'clarity' many of us REALLY can't hear a difference!

I get that the clip has

Sing ar
Fing err

but, as I said, I can hear that exaggeration, but in normal conversation don't think it is anywhere near as pronounced, I can't hear it. Couldn't imagine it until I listened carefully to the cliP, when both words sounded false.

Love Paddy, and his accent. Southerner in the North here.

@CuriousaboutSamphire That pronunciation isn’t false, as in forced or exaggerated. That is how I say those words in isolation. If I were reading a list of words to you, that’s how I would say those two. You’re right though that the difference would be more subtle in natural speech.

I like Paddy and his accent, just hate the singing programme it’s painful listening to the bad voices! Watched once never again
Saturday night tv is awful same with Vernon on the other side terrible programmes! Who commissioned this rubbish?

I liked him in 'Phoenix Nights' well enough, but went off him after he schtupped Thingy Appleton. Quite apart from the fact of the extramarital affair, I had no time for All Saints in general, and she and her sister were even more pointless than East 17's Terry and John.

@Cowssaymoo

So many appalling digs at the North here, honestly never realised people felt like that. I’m from Greater Manchester originally, family from Manchester and Lancashire. Have lived Down south and around the world and haven’t encountered these attitudes. Tbh my worst fear would be living in the South, especially with attitudes like this. If the Northern accent is associated with being thick, what about cockney etc..?! To me, that’s a really unattractive way of speaking, normally I wouldn’t have said that, but since the knives are out for The North.
Paddy’s accent is a pretty normal sounding Bolton accent to me. I don’t think he’s a ‘Token Northern presenter’
Disgusting comments.

Yes agree with all of this. I'm being battered in another thread for daring to attempt to understand a taboo, whereas here is absolutely fine to totally denigrate and mock oriole from the North for their accents.

Beyond appalling. All those posters should be deeply ashamed of themselves and maybe question their right to attack others like this.

Am actually horrified.

Go Paddy, go Bolton, go all of us north of the M42.

I think it'd a prerequisite that any host is irritating.

Also Find it odd that his wife regularly posts lingerie photos and then talks about challenges with their children with asd

Why?

So I’ve just made southern DH say ‘finger’ and ‘singer’. I can’t hear the difference. He had to really exaggerate that he says ‘sing-ar’ and ‘fing-grr’, so there is very subtle ‘ah’ vs ‘er’ sound. When in normal conversation, at a normal speed, I wouldn’t notice it. I have to question why someone would get so wound up about a subtle difference in ‘ah’ and ‘er’ though.

@TipsySquirrel

So I’ve just made southern DH say ‘finger’ and ‘singer’. I can’t hear the difference. He had to really exaggerate that he says ‘sing-ar’ and ‘fing-grr’, so there is very subtle ‘ah’ vs ‘er’ sound. When in normal conversation, at a normal speed, I wouldn’t notice it. I have to question why someone would get so wound up about a subtle difference in ‘ah’ and ‘er’ though.

No that’s not it. It’s hard /g/ as opposed to the nasal /ng/ sound.

I'm from near Manchester, currently live in Lancashire and obviously singer and finger rhyme to me.
My husband is from The Cotswolds area and I've just got him to say both words.
I can hear the G in singer is said differently but I can't copy the way he says it at all!

It’s nothing to do with an ah or er sound it’s the hard g in the middle of the word. If your used to saying it like that I can see why you wouldn’t get how it can be said any other way.

@Floweree
Also Find it odd that his wife regularly posts lingerie photos and then talks about challenges with their children with asd

Yes I wondered the same and thought it was a mean comment.

@ShutUpAlex

. If your used to saying it like that I can see why you wouldn’t get how it can be said any other way.

Yes like any child acquiring the sound of language from their upbringing.

How the hell ever is it ok to mock that?

I haven’t read ShutUpAlex’s comments as mocking at all.

Aah unless you weren’t accusing them of mocking? 🤔
Some posters have been pretty nasty though.

I'm not particularly a fan, but YABU and a raging snob. He's on tv all the time because he's affable and people like him.

I haven’t mocked anyone’s accent. I’m currently studying linguistics in my psychology degree and just find it really interesting.

Okay, I have never heard of Paddy McGuinness and instantly thought of MARTIN McGuinness when reading the OP.

Mucho confusion all round as I tried to process the stunning revelations that
a) Martin McGuinness has taken up TV presenting
b) Martin McGuinness is not dead

What I was trying to get across is that Top Gear is shown worldwide. Not everybody has English as a first language, so the thicker the accent the more difficult it is to understand.

Even though some of you are insulted, I'm pretty sure that if you speak a second language you too loose out when that is spoken with much accent.

[quote waterlego]@CuriousaboutSamphire That pronunciation isn’t false, as in forced or exaggerated. That is how I say those words in isolation. If I were reading a list of words to you, that’s how I would say those two. You’re right though that the difference would be more subtle in natural speech.[/quote]
I didn't say it was forced or exaggerated, just that to me that is how it sounded.

I was more commenting on those who don't appear to believe those of us who don't hear a difference.

I think that these jibes about his accent are just snobbery. One of the great things about English is the range of different accents we have. I enjoy listening to different voices. Southern or RP is not the default or the best. (I grew up on the South Coast).
I didn’t rate him as a person until I watched Too Gear with my son. Paddy is actually hilarious, and I really enjoy his repartee and camaraderie with the other hosts. They deal with sometimes sensitive topics in a very funny but gentle way, and I think the 3 of them are great role models for how male friendships can be without descending in to bigotry or cruel put downs. The episode about their dad’s cars was so well played and pitched.
So refreshing after the toxic masculinity of the previous presenters.

Interesting point about the international audience of Top Gear though. I wonder if they tested PM in front of sample Indians/South Africans/Americans to see whether his accent was sufficiently comprehensible. Some UK accents are a real challenge for ESL speakers but as a Brit it’s sometimes difficult to predict which ones will cause the problem: one former workmate’s very soft Scottish accent rendered her incomprehensible to a European colleague. I have no idea how broad Bolton plays in Vancouver or Mumbai.

Flintoff’s international fame probably outweighs any accent problems.

Ever been to Bolton? If you have, you'll understand why he never wants to go back.