To be irritated by people who bang on about where they’re from

[Notfromthevalleys]

Couple of women where I work will NOT stop talking about how they’re from The Valleys (south Wales)
“Haha it’s the valley girl in me”
“Haha you can tell I’m from the valleys”
“You can take the girl out of the valley but you can’t take the valley out of the girl”

There is nothing remotely different or valley-esque about them as far as I can see, other than the fact that they keep harping on about the valleys as though being from there is some sort of pedigree.

There’s also a bloke who will not shut up about being a “Swansea lad”.

Is it a south walian thing?

I am from mid Wales and we all work in mid Wales so not like they’re a million miles away from home.

It’s like the Oxbridge people who name drop their college all the time. That’s annoying too, but I at least it’s a genuine achievement to go to Oxbridge.

I understand that people’s community and identity is important to them, but there’s just no need to bring it into everything.

Anyone else come across this and AIBU to let it grate on me so much?!

It's funny really - it seems that some people just like to perpetuate regional stereotypes, where others are keen that the regional stereotypes shouldn't be laid on everyone from that region!

My dad's from Yorkshire, but lived in greater London for most of his adult life - he still has a Yorkshire accent but doesn't bang on about being from Yorkshire unless he meets another Yorkshire person and then watch out!
Mind you, I'm a little guilty of that myself now I live in Australia - but so are lots of expats - whenever we meet another Brit, we ask where they're from and I ended up finding a school mum who came from the next village along from my Dad! 10,500 miles round the other side of the world and she could have grown up with my cousins!

I live in mid Wales and went to an Oxbridge college. Wondering if I've ever casually name dropped in your vicinity?

Some people seem to feel the need to assert their identity all the time. I'm sure it's something that helps them feel safe i.e. I have no responsibility for this aspect of myself because it's been externally imposed on me by where I grew up.

I dated a bloke from Yorkshire for a while. He'd not lived there for over 20 years.

He was tight as a duck's arse despite earning good money. We'd go out for a meal, and he'd order us both tap water, and follow it up with "you can take the boy out of Yorkshire...." along with the most annoying snorted giggle I've ever heard.

He constantly blamed his miserly ways on the fact he was from Yorkshire. He suggested that I buy a folding bike to match his, as when going places he would always research the closest place he could park for free and then cycle in. There was no way I was going to the bloody theatre or cinema with a sodding folding bike, and blaming Yorkshire for it.

It probably didn't help matters that we live about as far away as possible from Yorkshire in the UK.

I don’t think I have ever mentioned where I am from. People might have been able to guess in the beginning as I had a rather thick northern accent but now it is more of a case of people trying to place the last hints of my accent.
I think the last time I returned to my home town (about 20 years ago) the accent grated on me and I have never been back. I just find the place depressing.
There is nothing to be proud of coming from a slum town in the north.

@ShirleyPhallus

Nah you get it all over

Being a professional northerner seems to be a thing. Paddy McGuiness is all “eeh up it’s me paddy bloody mccguiness I’m just so bloody northern!!!”

Doesn’t happen so much down south. Well, apart from Claire from Masterchef. Did you know she was from Kent?

🤣🤣 Yes @ShirleyPhallus

I used to work with a man who wouldn't stop talking about how he was from "The Island", ie Jersey from the Channel Islands. The funny thing is that he had a really broad Brummie accent but he wouldn't claim Birmingham/Midlands as part of his past at all

Had a giggle about the aspirational middle-class rather than proper middle-class and who didn't know it was unmentionable. Sort of like Mrs Thatcher's comment about being a lady. Of course I'm a New Zealander although both my parents were Irish born! I don't think its given me a high tolerance for alcohol either.

Who knew I had a certain genetic ancestry that gave me no tolerance for alcohol.

I can get drunk on a liqueur chocolate (snd have been)

I think I have leanings this way, but it’s more excusable because I come from Yorkshire 😂
By way of deflecting from my crimes, has anyone ever met a submariner, however fleeting or distant their time in service, who didn’t shoehorn it into every conversation?

I worked with a Geordie who had to constantly mention where he was from and attribute everything positive about him to being a Geordie. I hear multiple accents daily here in London so whilst being fact about you, being from Newcastle isn’t a standout feature. Nobody’s bothered where you’re from. It doesn’t make you a more (insert positive attribute here ) person because you were born in a certain place.

I'm Cornish, I shut the fuck up about where I'm from!!

[quote FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop]@TheRebelle I used to live in the States, I'm from Yorkshire but lived in Scotland for 16 years. Can't tell you how many Americans said "Wow I'm Scottish too" have you ever been to Scotland? No. Do you have any idea of Scottish culture beyond kilts and whiskey? No. What makes you Scottish then? Well my great great great grandfather was a Scottish immigrant and my surname is McCall.

Ok then, random person from Buttfuck Alabama, with your NRA membership and MAGA hat, you're definitely Scottish.[/quote]
I had this in the US. I told someone I am half Italian (Italian mother), and someone started telling me they were Italian too - again they had Italian blood back from I don’t know when - and they couldn’t seem to see the difference.

I think it's a Welsh thing. My dad and his side of the family are welsh and they never shut up about it.

I'm from Yorkshire and it's pretty similar here too. Who cares? It's not like you choose where you're born.

Yanbu. I cant stand katherine ryan cos she goes on about being Canadian all the time. Its clear from your accent you dont need to tell us

I'm from northumberland (not Newcastle, no geordie accent) and loads of my friends consider themselves geordies and say things like "its cos I'm a geordie".

I cant understand why anyone would think it something to shout about

I’m an east ender me. Jellied eels for breakfast. Nice bit of rhyming slang thrown in for good measure.

@ViciousJackdaw

I have the opposite problem. I don't live in the city I grew up in but you can tell where I'm originally from as soon as I say something. Cue endless 'jokes' about cars on bricks etc.

I absolutely hate these 'jokes' and the sheep shaggers, and other similarly terminally unfunny attempts at humour. And I'm from London, so speak with an indeterminate southern kind of accent. I can't stand it because it's a kind of (in their eyes) acceptable form of putting down a whole group of people, while pretending to be funny. Similarly, women jokes, mother-in-law jokes etc. Deeply humourless.

I know people who do this a lot. It depends on what they're saying, sometimes it grates and other times its fine by me and I don't notice it.

I'm Essex born and most people I know don't like to go on about it. In fact, they will like to say they are not from Essex if they only happen to have to live here , but not born here.
I think that the Towie programme didn't help matters . We are not all rich or self absorbed or from the more affluent areas!
I lived in South Wales for a while and I didn't hear them mention the valleys that much , many were from all over the place where I lived though. I did have a bit of ' English hate' from someone who was English but had lived in Wales for years , which was funny.

@LBXXX

What I find slightly annoying is people that claim to be from somewhere they aren’t, just because their grandparents lived there for a short time

For example, where i am from ALOT of young people 20-30 have a fascination with claiming they’re from Ireland, when they aren’t. They were born here, so were their parents. But because their grandparents lived there as children and came to England when they were young they think they’re full fledged Irish.

Be proud of your heritage of course but I just find it very odd when there people claim to not be English at all when they were born and bred here and haven’t stepped foot in Ireland

Pretty much everyone in America seems to claim to be Irish on the basis of some distant ancestor.

I used to know a 'scottish' guy who hadn't lived there since he was a baby. I mean, yeah, he was technically Scottish.. not particularly so though.

@EssentialHummus

I’m foreign and find it endearing. I sat on a committee for several years with a woman who managed to shoehorn Grimsby into every conversation. There was something about her commitment to Grimsby combined with how, well, grim it sounds that just melted my heart a bit.

I’ve also never met a Liverpudlian who wasn’t up for a multi-hour chat about the sights of Liverpool, the world of Scouse football or their gran’s stew recipe. It’s quite lovely.

It’s scouse! 😬😂

I don't think I've ever used where I'm from in that sort of context...I only tell people when they ask or if it's specific to a conversation. Sounds very tedious!

We were in Cambridgeshire this weekend and went to the pub in the village we were staying in.
We for talking to a couple who kept saying where in Wales they had visited etc. She kept saying that the Welsh community were fab etc.
I really wanted to to say that with over 3 million it was a large 'community'.
😁

I actually know very few people who do this. Except for American friends who insist they're Irish because of some ridiculously distant relative. Maybe these people are just dull as hell and it's the only thing they have to talk about?

I knew of an old Yorkshireman who wouldn’t move in with his daughter for the sole reason that she lived over the border in Lancashire and he still hated them from the wars of the roses or whatever. In 1500 or something??

It’s quaint to be proud of where you come from but as PP have said, not as a substitute for a personality.