To feel angry when judged purely on my accent?

[manchita]

I just find it really depressing the way a lot of people make a habit of judging others on accent/class/appearance/children's names but what gets to me the most is the assumption you are thick and unworthy if you have any kind of regional accent

I fart on the heads of those who take offence to my accent.

manchita ...an angry socialist

Now you do surprise me

it does aggrevate me when people ask me where I am originally from and then start talking to me in a mock 'noddy holder' accent.

Manchita: some M&T groups are a snakepit no matterwhat kind of accent you have. (several hundred threads on hear would testify to that). If they don't want to mix with you, they are dorks.

madamez is a true Scouse.

Well, I'm sorry, i don't buy the victimsation of the well spoken as a particularly serious issue.
The mockney's I have met usually have an agenda i.e to look cool and streetwise. This usually fades when they get older or are around their parents.
I think well spoken people are viewed in society in general as more intelligent, affluent and well educated than those with regional accents. Where's the hardship?

Accents are v. important part of UK social fabric, I think. It's just ignorant to think that one accent is more valid than another.

My accent is RP. I got a hard time at school - Thornton's Special Toffee etc.

Mind you, I tease DH for saying plarstic instead of plastic and canarl instead of canal.

But then the other side of the coin is that where I grew up (from 9 years old) it's common to use third person conjugation for a first person person part of speech i.e. "I were in the shops.. . . ." Is that less valid than the Queen's English grammar? What if a Blue Peter presenter dropped their aitches and swallowed their t's... . . .

Well, I do have a problem that I have a broad southern accent Nherts and have lived in the North for over 25yrs.
I do have a dialect, and speak quite slowly, people think I am thick!!
I know all about RP and being able to talk to people up and down the scale (all walks of life in all ways appropriate to them) but where does that leave me?
Should you change your accent for others? Does it change their opinion of you if you speak 'proper' imo if you need to change your accent for others then they are the ones with problems.
They cant see beyond the stereotypical view, and miss the meaning of conversation!

One thing I love about this nation is the many regional accents! I'm one of those people who unintentionally pick up someone else's accents if I'm with them a lot of the time

what gets me is people who move to another region on the country and then say, 'oh, but i don't want my children talking like them'.

then why move and insult everyone there by concluding their accent is somehow not good enough for your kids? the cheaper house prices were good enough for you, but not how people speak?

ffs.

that has to be one of the most condescending phemonena i've come across since coming to the UK.

I even fart with an accent.

Me too Rhubs. Bostin'.

if people judge you based on your accent they're not worth knowing, anyhow.

manchita you have a point to an extent but I rather suspect that if someone with an RP accent walked into a M&T group in which the majority of people had a strong regional accent, they would feel as out of place and possibly be as ostracised as if they were in the postion you were in.

Mines not just an accent anyway. It's a dialect.

Mine's not just an accent anyway. It's a dialect.

Condescending phenomena-good phrase
Oldfash- that is exactly my point, it is their problem but it becomes ours as we are judged and pigeonholed

winky I do that sometimes. But I think it is actually dropping the s from was rather than using were. So "I wo in the shops"

Message withdrawn

And actually not sure I would do it in that sentence because "I was in the shops" is actually easier to say although I suppose you could insert "r" before in to make it easier.

I have a 'posh' accent and most of my friends admit that they assumed I'd be stuck up and "not like them" when they first met me. It always takes me a while to fit in where we live.

Manchita - I love that you have started a thread about how people shouldn't be judged by their accents, but don't want to extend the priviledge to 'posh' accents!

Expat, I can only say that you've obviously never heard a Bristol accent

It's up there. It's right up there.

What a strange last comment Broccoli Spears-I was making a point about how society as a whole judges those with posh accents to be more intelligent.
If you read my posts I haven't suggested people with posh accents should be judged by the way they speak at all.

Can you speak for society as a whole, manchita?

I think your problem is that you're a socialist

Unchain yourself from the shackles, girl. Take chip off shoulder and eat said chip. No one I have ever known thinks the less of anyone for having a regional accent. Quite the opposite.

Are you sure you're not reading too much into things?

You asked about when a posh accent is a disadvantage.

Well it wasn't much fun for me at school, until I lost it! Wasn't exactly plummy - just have parents who enunciate.

But, because of the way I spoke, was:
posh, snob, boffin, stuck up. And so on. Obviously people I knew didn't think this. But when you're 11, at big scary secondary school, it's not the people you know who you worry about.