to think northeners perceive southerners as inherently 'posh'

[LetSophieGo]

I am northern, have lived between Derbyshire, Greater Manchester and Cumbria.
So I say this from a perspective of living with 'northerners' on a daily basis.
Often, when a person from southern UK moves into the north, they are perceived as posh, or of a higher social status. We know this is silly, and they are not necessarily on a higher income, but I am presuming it is something tied in with 'accent'.
Or is it class perception? My own family would not perceive a southerner as higher social status (I am not wealthy!), but many of my peers do.
What do you think? Any experiences to add?

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I’m northern and I don’t think this, and I spent the first 15 years of my life on a not very nice council estate. In fact the experience I’ve had has been quite the opposite!

Absolutely not. I think it's probably true that the poshest people in the UK live in London, but I don't think all Londoners are posh, and certainly not everyone living south of Coventry

God no not at all. Im Northern and think very few Southeners (I assume we are talking SE here) are “posh”. I tend to think more of Eastenders, Chad and Dave etc

DH is from Tunbridge Wells. It’s very far from posh. Run down, riddled with time, choked up with traffic. Thankfully we chose to live up North in a much nicer place for far less cost.

Also southerners suffer from not having Booths and have to make do with inferior Waitrose 🤣 (But true)

The Queen doesn’t speak RP, she speaks a now fast disappearing upper class accent. RP would be someone like Boris Johnson and many other politicians from fairly affluent background, including Priti Patel before she started dropping consonants. Think well spoken BBC reporters when they all spoke in that quite clipped tone in the 80s and 90s. If you speak RP but drop a fair few consonants that’s probably not RP at all - rather that’’s “Estuary” accent which is probably far and away the most common accent in the South of England nowadays.

Do they think Stacey Dooley is posh?

My father is from Newcastle and he definitely used to think southerners were posh. That was until he moved to Bristol where he met my mother and her family 😂 he has said that the people of the West Country seem to be a bit more rough round the edges (not in a bad way), more fun and more down to earth than others from the south. He also says the way of life and sense of humour is more similar to what he knows from back home. Obviously a huge generalisation and not something I would fully agree with myself.

I hate the north/south divide. I don’t think the government constantly forgetting that the North exists helps at all. Social media also creates a huge amount of friction, it’s ridiculous to me.

I certainly don't believe all southerners are posh. My university boyfriend was from Sussex. His family, particularly his mother, made my family back in Yorkshire look like royalty

@memberofthewedding

I an recall being on a table with two English southerners while on holiday in Bruges. Most people at the hotel were British. During the conversation one of them expressed the view that southerners were more "sophisticated."

The following day in the small hours they returned drunk and probably woke everyone in the hotel with their shouting. As they walked in for breakfast I called out to them "Morning gentlemen, was last night's exhibition an example of your southern sophistication?"

Everyone in the dining room clapped or thumped on the table. That morning the noisy pair checked out immediately after breakfast.

Well classy, luv.

I’m foreign and find the quirks of the English class system endlessly fascinating. I think there are certain region-specific accents that are seen as either posh or working-class (or perhaps not even working class but indicative of poverty or poor education?). It doesn’t to me seem split along north/south lines.

I am a northerner who lives in the south.

When I was growing up in the North I always thought southerners had a much easier time.

Moved down in my early 20s and can say things did become easier.

Just little things over the years we have found that make life a lot easier and are geared towards family whilst where I come from it is designed to make life harder.

@memberofthewedding

I an recall being on a table with two English southerners while on holiday in Bruges. Most people at the hotel were British. During the conversation one of them expressed the view that southerners were more "sophisticated."

The following day in the small hours they returned drunk and probably woke everyone in the hotel with their shouting. As they walked in for breakfast I called out to them "Morning gentlemen, was last night's exhibition an example of your southern sophistication?"

Everyone in the dining room clapped or thumped on the table. That morning the noisy pair checked out immediately after breakfast.

Gosh, a real-life 'and then the whole room clapped' out in the wild . I'm sure they then gave you the Nobel Peace Prize at the end as well, didn't they?

As for Southern accents - I mean what people actually mean is just London and the Home Countries isn't it? No one thinks of places like Norfolk or Cornwall as 'posh', bar said Home Countries dwellers that have moved there with said 'posh' accent. Even within the HM and London the accents are generally just anything from plain/indistinguishable to just as un-posh as a 'generic' Northern one (to other people's minds). I find it hilarious that some people from Essex and Kent think they sound well-to-do just because they're from the south-east. I think the worst presumption is that anyone from the North or with an non-South East accent cannot be well spoken, which is just bull of course.

Not sure why my phone has insisted on changing counties to Countries twice....

I actually know what you mean.

I'm from South coast city. I'm not particularly posh or well spoken but was brought up comfortably financially.

I went and worked abroad for a few years and had colleagues from all over the U.K.

Some took the mick because they said I spoke with the queens English. My dad was always pulling me up on sounding common

The only thing I often struggled with with understanding my board Yorkshire housemate. But that was more dialect.

Just little things over the years we have found that make life a lot easier and are geared towards family whilst where I come from it is designed to make life harder.

What do you mean?
I find the traffic dire in the SE. so takes the shine off it. And also many commuter towns which seem to be full of rented property so no nice neat gardens, instead broken hedges , no flowers etc
I visited Yorkshire recently - such neat gardens and clean pavements where I was.

When I went to uni (in a southern city) my friends from the Home Counties thought I was a complete wurzel for my slight west county accent. But then I visited a friend in her home town up north and her brother thought I was unbelievably posh, despite the fact their family are just as boringly middle class as mine.

RP (or close to it) is common across the South East but mostly an upper class thing in the rest of the UK. So someone who is lower middle class from the home counties sounds similar to a posh northerner.

Working class Essex, Cockney, etc do not sound posh.

There is also the fact that middle class Southerners tend towards certain cultural traits (like being reserved) which are 'posher' up north.

Of course all these things are merely averages and individuals vary wildly.

Yes, until someone talks with a local accent like Bristolian and then the cat is out of the bag! But perception wise, yes.

@Letsgetreadytocrumble

I always think Northerners have very strange ideas about what it is like in the South of England.

Ha ha ha! I would say that many southerners' views of the north are way more out of whack! When I moved South I could hardly believe the picture that some of my new colleagues and friends had of the north!

I have lived in the North for half my life now but still have a Southern accent. I think some Northerners perceive any Southern accent other than Cockney or a West Country drawl as a bit posh. I am not posh at all.

Whenever someone would say that their relative, especially adult child/DN had moved down south, it was said in a way that meant they were doing better than those who stayed closer to home. A bit like people dressing up emigrating. I've also known people who bought into thinking moving down south meant that you were doing well.

Some have a perception of accents, with 'posher' meaning more intelligent. Higher intelligence can lead to a better job, so more wealth.

I'd formed an opinion of my hairdresser's background because she spoke so 'posh'. Her Mum and Dad lived in a nice new build and I'd assumed they'd downsized after the children left home. I was surprised that she grew up here, in a rough bit of Liverpool in a two up/two down and shared a bedroom with her brother. The parents house came after an inheritance.

Surely Jaywick, life on benefits put paid to anyone's illusion that down south = posh? That and the amount of guests Jeremy Kyle had on his show from Plymouth/Devon, especially Torbay. We all know of the poverty in London and people not being able to buy were they grew up in the South East.

When I moved to South Yorkshire with my East Midlands accent a lady on the phone (locally) said I spoke like "people on the telly". I remember thinking that people watch telly and understand it, so how come they don't understand me‽ I was also told I speak like the Queen (I don't, I also don't speak RP) and, yes, several different incidents where I was referred to as posh. I did ask if they thought everyone in my town was posh, apparently yes. We unpacked that a bit, the plumber I knew was loaded, but was he posh? Why was the southern (Midlands, but I would have been the only one to make a distinction) bin man posher than his Northern counterpart? Now I've been here over a decade I even sometimes say "while" when I mean "until" - if you have the dialect down, the accent doesn't matter as much.

I live in the North of Northumberland, growing up I was often called posh because of my lack of local accent. After watching glimpses of made in Chelsea and towie I definitely dont think southerners are posh 😂 the folks I perceive as posh are the land owners around here who I see on shoot days

I also have been told I sound posh by Northeners. I have a South Wales accent 😂

What I’ve gleaned from this thread is that some northerners (English North) spend a great deal of time comparing themselves with people from other parts of the country.

Yes there is definitely a certain type of northerner, probably one who calls themselves a northerner, who thinks all people from the South are posh and snobby!

I'm from Kent, a pretty shitty kentish town at that. I have an estuary/Kent accent. It is not posh at all. When I went to university the amount of northerners who would say I was posh, or I must have gone to a private school (because state schools don't exist in the SE). But then also had I ever seen a sheep/cow/hill (because the South is a concrete jungle apparently). Did I know what a bap was (yes). Had I ever heard of chips and gravy (yes). I must live in a million pound 5 bed detached property (no). It must be sad because I would never be able to afford a house back home as house prices are so expensive (I'm from thanet not Islington!). These weren't necessarily working class northerners, or even particularly northern northerners, but some people from the North have a real chip on their shoulder about people from the South East.

I was also called a tory because I was from the SE, I'm not a tory. The word tory used as an insult to indicate a sort of privately educated Jacob rees mogg esque figure. There are plenty of Conservative voters in Kent but they are not like Jacob rees mogg!

But then again I also witnessed people from Manchester/Liverpool thinking people from Bristol were country bumpkins.

I think really there's just people who just have very little knowledge of places outside their own town.