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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@RueCamb0n the people moving there rather than it being a local accent is a good point. I don’t really know what a Bournemouth accent is - I think of most of the coastal towns that are within a couple of hours of London as having a pretty similar accent to London, just not so pronounced

@RueCamb0n

Has anybody done that ny times dialect quiz? it's fascinating. The questions are all along the lines of what rhymes with what and you make the selection. Mine came out very generally across Ireland, basically somewhere along the south east coast but also bits of the west coast of Ireland too! We do not have one accent that is perceived to be the right one here. Obviously people can tell a lot about your level of education, privilege and origins from your accent but I'm really glad there's not perceived to be ONE correct accent.

If anybody else is interested in accents like I am this is a fascinating quiz

here

First I did that quiz as I speak now, after several decades in the south, and then again, putting the answers that I would have when I lived in Derby.

My present use of language is all over the place! The quiz couldn't really place me anywhere. The words of my youth (especially when I di the extended questions pinpointed me exactly where I grew up.

@RueCamb0n

Has anybody done that ny times dialect quiz? it's fascinating. The questions are all along the lines of what rhymes with what and you make the selection. Mine came out very generally across Ireland, basically somewhere along the south east coast but also bits of the west coast of Ireland too! We do not have one accent that is perceived to be the right one here. Obviously people can tell a lot about your level of education, privilege and origins from your accent but I'm really glad there's not perceived to be ONE correct accent.

If anybody else is interested in accents like I am this is a fascinating quiz

here

This quiz is amazing, mine was spot on!

DH is northern (from the furthest corner of the North East) and whenever we visit his family they all think we’re rich and posh (we really aren’t, we have friends who earn over £100k a year and we have a joint household income of half that!) But DH’s family are low income and have a very different lifestyle to us. Equally I have a friend who has a friend from the North East and they are very posh (big mansion with acres of land, five dogs and horses and they own their own business).

Yes and it's extremely shortsighted and hypocritical of the horse-riding, land-owning "northern" (East Midlands) twats I met who called me posh for saying "grass" with a long a

I think is because in the South an RPish accent just means you are middle class (if that, if some areas), whereas in the north it would mean you are fairly posh.

@Angrymum22

Northern sense of humour is very dry and I have found that southerners often take what I say in jest for the truth. So a northerner saying you are “posh” may well be sarcasm. Also posh is a bit of a derogatory term for stuck up your own arse. I love going back up north where I can say things without people taking offence or taking me seriously. I found that when I moved south I really had to stop saying the first thing that came into my head. The slight pause is a real give away that people are not really saying what they are actually thinking.

I've lived in the North for over 20 years and I can tell you "posh" is not sarcasm and definitely meant to be derogative.

And then you contradict yourself by saying Also posh is a bit of a derogatory term for stuck up your own arse.

Trying to pretend it isn't used nastily, is a bit like when my ds says at school some of the "popular" crowd say nasty things and then if someone gets upset say "I was only joking, you can't take a joke."

And for your second part (having lived both places) I don't think the sense of humour is dryer at all. People who say the first thing that come into their head are still regarded as rude in all the places I've lived, north, south or midlands.

However you could call people a twat there without it being regarded as rude, because it was considered a mild insult (or another way of saying "hit") where I came from in the North.

I've had experience of this. I'm a southerner who moved north nearly thirty years' ago, I still have a southern accent and over the years have been referred to as "posh".

Fucking ridiculous really 😂

Yes definitely

I’m from Leicestershire, so definitely not southern or posh in any way, but when I worked in Stoke the locals all thought I sounded posh and asked if I went to private school. Odd place, Stoke...

I stayed in Gainsborough once and so many people were getting me to talk to hear my "posh" accent, which they said they loved.
It's West Country and really not posh at all!

I didn't get any sense of resentment from them, though I did run out of things to say - there's only so many times you can say "glass" in a conversation, especially when you can hear yourself saying "glaaarze" every time

Leicestershire? I don’t know anywhere that would be considered posh.
Stoke is extremely very odd 😂

• extremely odd

I am not posh. I am just 'normal'. Class wise probably middle I expect if that's even a thing nowadays. But I grew up around Oxford so am often told when with northern friends and family that I sound posh. Probably because I have a bit of a non accent. It's not distinctive here, we just sound 'English' as in how someone from the US would perhaps think most English people sound based on films. Posh farmers is how I've heard it described

I also think some people think the south is 'posh' because it's more expensive. Houses are crazy here, wages are higher than in the north and broadly speaking the assumption is more money = posh.

That's forgetting of course that there are huge areas of deprivation in the south. Oxford is posh, right? Go five miles out of the city centre to Blackbird Leyes, Rosehill or Barton (all of which are classes as Oxford) and see if you think it's posh there! No.

@LetSophieGo

North Midlands here. No way do I think southerners are POSH. PMSL.

I think some southerners think they are, but people further north don't!

@Rosewood017

Sometimes farming families send their kids to private boarding schools and they end up with posh southern accents even though they are northern.

Like Helen Baxendale, isn't she Scottish or northern?

I was at school with Helen Baxendale, we're from South Staffordshire so pretty much right in the middle of the country.

@Onairjunkie

I’m RP, but despite what some posters on this thread seem to think of southerners, I’m not snobbish, judgmental or rude, nor do I think I’m better than anyone else . It’s just my accent and a signifier as to where I come from.

But having a RP accent doesn’t indicate where you come from, that’s the point. It’s neither southern or northern, it’s simply a well spoken accent, middle/upper class, which again, is irrelevant to a particular area. It sounds lovely btw.

It could be argued that more people speak RP in the south but it’s not a southern accent at all. It would common place for doctors etc to speak like this whether they are northern/southern.

Nope. Loads of them are rough as owt
@RemyMorgan I lived in Blackbird Leys for a couple of years, we used to call it 'Lower Garsington'

I think this is a class thing. I don't know any middle class people who would think this. Possibly also a generation thing, makes me think of those who don't get out of their region or home town much. Its a bit cringe really.

Also I'm from the North East I wouldn't ever describe myself as northern. I don't even know what that means obviously from or living in the North, but beyond that what? Why is it relevant? Who are these people who go around identifying as northern? Is this a significant part of people's identity? I don't feel like it's something relevant to the people I know.

Having spent a portion of my teens to early twenties in Lancashire I’d say the perception of the south is wariness with a bit of an inferiority complex. For example, watching the weather there’s be schadenfreude if it was rainier/stormier /colder than areas of the north (when I bet those watching in the south wouldn’t even think to compare). The wariness comes from the perception of busy-ness, a frantic high-pace, access to culture and the arts that is just not as available and a seemingly higher proportion of educated / varied background adults milling around in the pub.

I felt utterly depressed as a teenager constantly looking for things to do or be part of, but that is probably not true for everyone where I was from, as we were pretty hard up, and there were deeply rooted issues about sense of place in my own family anyway. Going to uni in the south opened up so much for me. I go back occasionally now to see family but bar my college lecturers, the people I knew just see me as a madam!

I have the opposite.

I'm Scottish. Other Scots would describe me as well spoken and my siblings tease me mercilessly about sounding posh and/or Southern.

However, people I meet in London (I live here) make hilarious judgments about me on the basis that I have "an accent" and some of the comments that have been made make me think they imagine everyone north of the border is like Rab C Nesbitt!

When I mentioned to work colleagues as part of a coffee room discussion that I'd gone to fee paying school the shock was palpable. Despite the fact that about 25% of kids in my home city are privately educated and 50% of those in my profession....

@Morethanwordsonapage

Feels like you're making wild generalisations and speaking for all of the North when you have an experience of a small part. The idea that you think culture is not as widely available is embarrassing. Maybe in the area you have experience of, but seriously do you think big cities are like that?

These type of embarrassing generalisations are why I can't be fucked with all this talk of North and South differences as of they're these homogeneous places.

That map was spot in! Clever quiz