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?!

LibrariesGiveUsPower456321

Me too

I understand that it's normal in the US to use Irish/Italian/Polish/Basque etc to mean that you are from the US and have Irish/Italian/Polish/Basque parents, or grandparents, or distant ancestors from wherever it was. It confused me for a while, but now I get it.
But what do north Americans call people who are actually from those places? I saw a reference to "the native Irish" once on a US website. Is that typical?

Do you not think this works the other way round as well, kind of like an inverted or in fact outward snobbery...

I'm from Blackpool so everyone assumes I live on a fairground, have fish and chips for tea every night and have a seagull as a pet.

My DD went to uni last year and is sharing halls with a girl from Jersey . Now, DD went to private school, has quite a good financial back up, did well in school and college etc etc and none of this matters really - well it does to the girl from Jersey, social standing and all that - but because she's northern, she definitely gets spoken down to by this girl, I swear she almost speaks to her like she's staff and I've heard it first hand as she did it in front of me. People are weird.

I think it's ok when it's friends who know there's no nastiness behind it

On the American thing. I used to know someone who said they were German. Their great great great great something grandparents emigrated to America a very long time ago

Gilda, I do know what you mean

I had things such as ‘bruschetta’ and ‘mojito’ explained to me by someone at uni who thought that northern people lived in the hovis advert

@CoalTit

I understand that it's normal in the US to use Irish/Italian/Polish/Basque etc to mean that you are from the US and have Irish/Italian/Polish/Basque parents, or grandparents, or distant ancestors from wherever it was. It confused me for a while, but now I get it. But what do north Americans call people who are actually from those places? I saw a reference to "the native Irish" once on a US website. Is that typical?

It was certainly an issue when I worked at an Irish university that got a lot of US visiting students doing a semester or a year abroad, many of whom had Irish ancestry, but identified strongly as 'Irish', despite never having been there before -- every year, I had to deal with upset American students who would do the 'I'm Irish, too!' schtik that clearly worked fine as an identity marker in the US, but were baffled and hurt, even shocked, that the Irish students just viewed them as Americans and didn't view them as Irish at all.

Add in a year when there were well-attended student marches against the US-led war in Afghanistan, and you had a recipe for major hurt in Americans who had never previously lived outside the US, or encountered any criticism of US foreign policy...

(To answer your question, yes, I'd heard 'native Irish' and also 'Irish Irish' used by those students to make a distinction, but the real issue was that some of them didn't see the distinction, because identifying as Irish had been so key to their identity at home.)

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?

No, I meant 'owning' a trait that might be looked on with prejudice by getting in first with 'humour'. e.g someone from Essex having something sparkly and joking about them being an 'Essex girl' before anyone else did.

I was just offering a different perspective, but your pist did make me laugh

Come over by here!

If you're from the valleys it will be obvious to everyone. If you can't see a difference in how they act, speak and dress then maybe they're piss taking that they're from the valleys and really they're from the big city i.e. Swansea.

Also Mid Wales, South Wales and North Wales are all different countries collectively known as Wales. You should know that.

I'm from Blackpool so everyone assumes I live on a fairground, have fish and chips for tea every night and have a seagull as a pet.

Sorry but 😂😂

Hmm, if I say I'm from the Valleys, it's probably more in a self-deprecating way than a brag. I grew up in the Valleys but talking to people not from there, they'd throw around all these stereotypes about 'Valley Girls' and 'Valley Boys' - much like a Welsh version of 'redneck'.

And I DO think the Valleys have a culture all of their own - typically coming from the massive influx of people due to the coal industry 200 years ago, from other parts of Wales, England, and other countries (e.g. Italy, Poland and Hungary) and the resulting cultural melting pot.

Also Mid Wales, South Wales and North Wales are all different countries collectively known as Wales. You should know that.

Don’t forget West Wales.

@SmiledWithTheRisingSun

Speaking as a Londoner, I've never even heard of any of these places 🤷‍♀️

This made me laugh. Like the OP I am tired of hearing about what terrible shithole area of London people are from as if a) I will automatically know exactly where it is b) I could care less c) I believe the ridiculous narrative that thy live in an "artisan's cottage" (terraced house) in a village (part of a massive densely populated urban sprawl) in London.

[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]
😂😂😂

Anyone from London never says the area they're from to someone from outside of London. We all know lots of people won't have heard of it. It tends to be people who've moved to London thinking that everyone knows evety part of London (or simply over excited about being where they've moved from). Native Londoners just say London if asked where they're from.

The village thing can get silly. Especially when it's am area that for years and years used to be known as one to avoid. Suddenly it's a chi chi village It's an estate agent thing really.

It is tedious, I agree OP. I had a work colleague who was like this about Yorkshire, despite living in London for many years (and when you actually look at the village where she was from, it was over the border in Derbyshire!).

Then again, perhaps I am just jealous because I come from an area with no distinguishing features... 'Oh, you know about us Bedfordshire girls, we're so... er... er... fond of clangers and chocolate toothpaste tart!'

I don't like to talk about where I'm from but it comes up a lot. I'm from Kent but live in Hull so every time I open my mouth it's really obvious I'm not from round here!

It starts funny seeing the quizzical look on people's faces, but then either gets boring when you have to discuss different regional words for bread rolls or really rude when people are so disparaging about southerners. I got told once we don't smile with our eyes!

But I am a CrossFitter and as a previous poster pointed out you'd know that soon enough

The only time I’ll do it is if I hear a local to home accent and ask where they are from, I live in central Scotland but am from away up north in a v small fishing town. No family there now and I’ve lived south longer than I did north so I suppose I enjoy talking to people from ‘home’ I’ve no local accent but never did as mum was from an RAF family so English accent as with most of her family and my other grandparents one English (Geordie) other Scottish. So I didn’t pick up a broad accent at all. My dad lives down south - London/Kent I think now (we don’t speak) but he’s a professional Scot and v embarrassing bangs on about it to anyone who will listen. I don’t talk about where I’m from, although one of the girls at work is from edinburgh and you’d think no one had ever been there or knew anyone from edinburgh the way she goes on and on about it. It’s like 30 miles away from where we work it’s not on the moon.

@Tealightsandd Buttfuck Alabama 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Wow, the unpleasantness here.
There's nothing wrong with identifying with where you are from. Nothing wrong with celebrating your heritage

Can you see that there is a world of difference between being proud of your origins and banging on about it incessantly? Building your personality around it? Using it to turn conversations around to being about you?

When it comes to people from Yorkshire I hate to say it but so many do this to justify fitting the self deprecating/tight arse stereotype. So many men I know are so stingy - I'm organising our end of term party (work in a school in Yorkshire) which we plan (hopefully if restrictions ease) in a local restaurant complete with a 3 course meal subsidised by the school. So it's gonna be £12 for a 3 course meal that would otherwise cost £25. Our Head has kindly said that we all deserve it after a shit academic year.

I've had to tell three (male) teachers that no they can't come and order a sandwich for £6, or sit eating nothing, it's group dining, fucking pay the money or don't come.

After a few years of being the only Scot working for an organisation in Leeds, I was a bit miffed when another one joined. I liked being the only one! Didn't help that he was from a rival football town, I don't like football and he brought it up all the time. We eventually bonded after overhearing a phone conversation between our Norwegian colleague and someone called "Joby", colleague pronounced it jobby 😂

The fish and chips in Leeds were okay once I learned to refuse the offer of "scraps". WTF is that all about?

In University, there was a guy who started every statement with "WHERE I COME FROM". Every answer to a question, observation, everything always started with a very loud WHERE I COME FROM. 3 years of that, 5 days a week. We did a group presentation project, and even that he managed to wangle a WHERE I COME FROM in his part. I still have zero idea where he came from, because he never told us.

@Iamthewombat

Well that’s rather the point isn’t it? The people doing it - bragging about coming from somewhere considered less aspirational- are doing so because they want to present themselves as more authentic than anyone else in the room, or as a working class hero who has escaped their humble origins by reason of their own brilliance. Yawn.

Funnily enough, your comments were the ones that stood out as unpleasant, "yawn". The people I known who do this, do it in a self deprecating way, usually as a defence mechanism to deflect the shitty (disguised as humourous) remarks before they happen. But also usually in response to some dubious smart-arse stereotypical remark about working class northerners or other regional example. I've been called a professional bloody northerner because of my accent, but I'm not the one who comments on it..."Ah, you're used to living in the frozen North", "Do they have t'internet up there then?", "You'll not be used to this fancy food where you're from?".

The fish and chips in Leeds were okay once I learned to refuse the offer of "scraps". WTF is that all about?

It's a regional word, not all regions use the same words. No real need for the wtf and confused emoticon.

@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?!

I'm South Wales - not the valleys - but I get what you mean. I don't really understand it either it's not like the valleys is a particularly nice area. Not everyone is like it from there must add.

It's a bit embarrassing but I guess part of they're identity 🤷🏻‍♀️