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?!

For me the worst ones are those whose only connection to their heritage was generations ago and say call themselves Italian when their family have been American since the turn of the last century.

I wouldn’t be irritated by more local and recent references to homeland.

@likeamillpond

All regions do this. Scousers Brummie you name it. I have a friend who bangs on about being a 'Geordie lass' all the time. It's just what people do. Stop being so bitter!

You do it, I suppose?

Don’t worry, nobody is ‘bitter’. They are laughing at people who feel compelled to build their personality around a link to a particular region.

Yanbu. It’s a crap substitute for the personality they clearly lack.

Are they maligned areas, in which case, could it be a defense mechanism or what they see as self depricating humour?

@likeamillpond

All regions do this. Scousers Brummie you name it. I have a friend who bangs on about being a 'Geordie lass' all the time. It's just what people do. Stop being so bitter!

Bitter?

Are we reading the same thread?

You do it, I suppose?
Nope.
It doesn't bother me if others do.
As long as they're not constantly cutting op out of heir conversations, I dont see the harm.

@Cam2020

Are they maligned areas, in which case, could it be a defense mechanism or what they see as self depricating humour?

What, in a “I’m right self-deprecating, me. That comes from being from YORKSHIRE, where we’re all down to earth and call a spade a spade” way?

I think it's fine as a way to bond with people, but constantly banging on about it when nobody really cares is quite tedious. I'm not a fan of my hometown and when someone from there tries to bond with me about it I just try to brush it off. The things they want to bond with me about are the reasons I left, so it feels like a very forced type of bonding that makes me want to avoid them rather than become mates.

@Suffolkpunch345

Irish people do it too! So irritating!

If they talk about where they're from to other Irish people, it's largely because there's both a strong sense of county identity and because it's a small country, and you're not unlikely to know someone in common.

If it's with English people*, in my experience (haven't lived in Wales or Scotland), some of the time it's because a certain type of English person still has the most insanely misbegotten, stereotyped or actually offensively mad ideas about Ireland and Irish people. I've been minding my own business in queues or at bus stops, have taken a call or said something to whoever I was with that let someone hear my accent, and have then ended up dealing with everything from people who think your accent is basically hilarious and ask whether you have fridges or fifteen siblings to 'I was in Ireland once. Very primitive people over there' (female stranger with a northern accent standing in front of me in the queue for midnight Mass at Westminster Abbey) to accusations of being in the IRA ('I bet you were pleased when your lot did that' from a middle-aged man at a bus stop while nodding at an army recuitment centre in Leicester, which apparently had been bombed in 1990. When I was still at school in another country. ).

You have the option of ignoring or trying to correct. My point is that I'm not banging on about where I'm from, it's other people who seem to want to talk about it. In deeply strange ways.

(*Obviously a small minority of English people, mostly older white men, and far worse in the Midlands than in London, but it was far more frequent than I'd anticipated.)

@HeadNorth you might have something there. We had a get together on Zoom with some management consultants we are working with last week. The chap from Glasgow opened with the ice breaker of 'Where's everyone from, I'm from Glesgae"

@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?

Please don’t judge all northerners on that bell end.

I went to uni with a girl from Yorkshire, and she managed to bring it up in every conceivable situation.

Someone says they’re cold > “bleeding hell it isn’t COLD! Where I’m from we don’t even wear coats in winter!”

Someone comments on someone’s accent > “bet you can’t tell where I’m from?!”

Driving slowly down a country road > “where I’m from all the roads are like this, we’re out in the middle of nowhere, I love driving on roads like this!!!”

It really was brought up at every possible moment as if it was her only personality trait. She was also a Man Utd fan (with no family/geographical links to the club whatsoever) yet used to refer to all other Liverpool/Arsenal/Chelsea fans as “glory hunters”, most of whom had grown up in Liverpool/London

DH has and Aunt and some cousins who constantly talk about being from the North East (and one very small town there in particular). Lots of 'You can take the girl out of the [NE town]....' type comments. There are certain phrases that they always pronounce in a NE accent. According to them, everything in [NE town] is better than their current home town- friendlier people, better places to visit, better restaurants, less expensive etc etc. But I know from DH that their only link to the place is that his grandmother was born there.

I think sometimes it's associated with football rivalries, so if you're from a certain town you're supposed to take the piss out of another certain town. I couldn't care less about football or rivalries between two pretty much equally shite provincial towns. Other people seem to laud it over you as though they have some sort of magic power or secret knowledge that you don't have, which often involves something to do with cholesterol laden food or pisswater beverage. I think it's just a way for people from shitholes to reclaim their town's reputation. I just see my hometown as somewhere I happen to have been born through no choice of my own, I can't get worked up about it and it's hardly an achievement.

As a northerner who still lives up north I used to get really annoyed by professional northerner types. I still get annoyed by the ones on telly that put exaggerate their accents. But I did live in the south east for a bit and everyone pointed out that I was northern as soon as I spoke and a lot of people were really quite hostile about it. So maybe it is a defensive thing.

I probably wouldn't mind the valley thing as it sounds harmless, but I have come across people who think that all English people should be ashamed of themselves for being English, whereas their nationality is an achievement and makes them a great person. Usually when they don't have much else to feel successful about.
Of course where you are born is chance and not an achievement or failure. You get good and bad people in any country.
Rabid nationalism in any country including England doesn't seem to attract the brightest.

I often describe myself as NFN (Normal for Norfolk), but trust me, that's not a boast! 😀

I'm from Yorkshire (Leeds - great fish and chips!), live in Cornwall and went to Wadham College, Oxford. This thread is making me hate myself .

I do witter on about Yorkshire a fair bit, but only really to my children, who are obviously growing up Cornish (in my view - I know there are some who wouldn't consider them Cornish as both their parents aren't!). I don't witter on about Oxford at all - I'd be surprised if many of my friends here know I went there.

@Peanutbutterandbananatoastie

As a northerner who still lives up north I used to get really annoyed by professional northerner types. I still get annoyed by the ones on telly that put exaggerate their accents. But I did live in the south east for a bit and everyone pointed out that I was northern as soon as I spoke and a lot of people were really quite hostile about it. So maybe it is a defensive thing.

It's a shame there's nasty people around. Sadly ignorant prejudice is definitely one thing not defined by where someone's from. It's all over. A friend experienced some really quite nasty hostility from people when she moved from London to the north. She moved back down south in the end. She's from a working class background but the amount of times she was called 'posh southerner' or 'stuck up' or 'poncey' literally for opening her mouth and people hearing her accent. It was very unpleasant.

Oh yeah that definitely happens too Tealightsandd. I kind of did this accidentally to my friend from Bournemouth. She said she was from a rough area, but to me she sounded like Lady Mary from downtown abbey . I wasn’t mean about it though I hope.

@PicsInRed

Don't ever find yourself sitting next to a Kiwi at dinner.

You'll know as they start talk out about sex and fush and chups anyway 😂 just don't ask if they are South African or Australian.

[quote FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop]As a Yorkshire lass I reserve the right to endorse Jack Dee's views on Yorkshire people

[/quote] My Dh is a Yorkshire man and would entirely agree with Jack on this!

We have a saying in Wales which translates as “the most fervent Welshman is a Welshman away from home” !

In my experience, people from Yorkshire are the worst for this. I have a few separate acquaintances from Yorkshire and honestly, it they bring it up all the bloody time. I find it infuriating - its hard to describe but its as if their Yorkshireness means that they are more authentic and their opinions and experiences are somehow more more valid than anyone else's. And at times it is used to excuse a degree of bluntness that is frankly just rude.

Apologies to the (many, many) people from Yorkshire who are not like this, but it is definitely a thing.

Wow, the unpleasantness here.
There's nothing wrong with identifying with where you are from. Nothing wrong with celebrating your heritage, even if you weren't born there.
I have no real heritage, I'm northern, never mention it as it's quite obvious from my accent, and English, that's it. My sister in law is Indian, she loves cooking Indian food for us, telling us about her family and where she grew up, she's homesick, poor love. But should she not be doing that? .