Wish I had a regional accent?

[turnyourmattress]

I don't know why, but I don't have a strong regional accent. There are occasional hints of it, and it comes out when I'm really angry. Most people think I am southern, or sound a bit RP (not really imo).

I am from Liverpool. Went to an inner city state comp, lived around people with strong scouse accents. My parents don't have strong ones, but do have accents. My grandparents were near unintelligible to outsiders 🐲

I think my accent softened a bit at uni. Or in other words, any accent I did have, disappeared. I never ever made a conscious effort to change it.

People are always surprised when I tell them I'm from Liverpool. They don't believe me, or ask if I went to boarding school/grew up down here. Ask when I changed it. I've had other people from Liverpool claim that I am pretending to be someone I am not. Some people think I am a huge snob, others think I am trying to hide where I am from.

AIBU to wish I had a regional accent, just so that I could conform to what people expect from people from Liverpool?

If someone was ‘educated’ in Liverpool, they’ll have a regional accent. An RP accent isn’t the only marker of education. If you’re distracted by any accent other than one you consider ‘acceptable’ on the radio perhaps you’re just a bit small-minded and struggle to understand others who are different from yourself.

Personally, I think snotty little attitudes like yours are the mark of a very closed and ignorant type of person.

Which accent is ‘polite and educated?’ I’d love to know. I was always of the impression that anyone who behaves politely to others is polite, and anyone who has achieved a good level of schooling is educated, but perhaps it’s actually to do with where you were raised and what accent you’ve developed.

Yes, that one correct accent thinking in the UK is an awful albatross for 90% of people.,

It is weird, so many accents are lovely if they're milder versions of the region's accent. I don't know what it's like in other English speaking countries but in Ireland it's perfectly acceptable for people to be able to tell where you're from, that doesn't mean that you're accent is bad in any way. Some people have very strong accents and perhaps a milder version of it might benefit them but there's no suggestion that they should attempt to eradicate all trace of where they come from. It's such a backward way of thinking!

"Is right!" as they say round here 😁

I was going to say this. I live in South Liverpool, the accent is far softer in my postcode (I live in Mossley Hill/Calderstones area) than it is in L8 which is 10 mins drive away, or places for eg like Page Moss/Kirkdale/Bootle/Fazakerley. Another thing I've noticed is that the older generation (70+) have a really soft accent.

No one Ive met on holidays or travelling has ever asked me to say "chiccchkken" or told me to calm down, and I don't think I have a strong accent.

I worked with someone who was born and raised in the Glasgow suburbs. He also had a soft accent. I Could always tell when he was on the phone to someone north of the border though as it got a lot stronger as the convo went on

And yet again we have all the people who feel it is acceptable to make derogatory assumptions about people from different parts of England that would be called out as racism or xenophobia if talking about people from other parts of the world.

Listen to yourselves will you. You'd never admit to assuming that someone from Pakistan or Poland is impolite or uneducated based on how they speak and where they're from do why you think you can say the same about someone from Liverpool, Yorkshire, the West country, etc?

What response were you expecting from your original comment though? This isnt a hypothetical question, I'm actually asking. Of course you knew people would respond that way.

I'm from the north east - have educated to masters level and I'm incredibly polite - how exactly should I be speaking @PearlclutchersInc 😂

Yes!!! I think for me it's because my mother has one regional accent, my dad has a different one (but a lot closer to modern RP), and I was brought up in an area with another different regional accent.

My accent sometimes changes several times just in one conversation!

I feel your pain. I grew up in an area with a strong regional accent, but my parents (originally from another area) loathed it and ironed any trace out of me through constant correction.
I now can’t even mimic the accent beyond a few words.
That meant I grew up sounding ‘too posh’ for my working class estate and never fit in or made real friends there. Have constantly been told that I’m not local and made fun of.
I have now moved to another area and in my adult professional life a neutral accent suits me very well, but it did cause me issues growing up.
I personally think a regional accent can be nice, but don’t think it should be the same as speaking lazily, which sometimes it can be used as an excuse for.

I would imagine OP that you do have an accent that is discernible. IME people will say this but actually the accent notes are there. I think if you you know your UK Geography you can easily place people's accents. I am originally from London, started out a private school where most had RP accents as it was the 1980's, my Dad lost lots of money and I had to go to a huge London comprehensive where I got bullied mercilessly for my accent, got called a snob and a posho even though non of it was true. After years at secondary school with London accents I developed a hybrid I think. But I can tell the subtle differences in London accents so North/South, even east/west, I can tell when someone is from Kent or Hertfordshire. However, most would say the southeast estuary accent is the same for all those places and it isn't so I would imagine you can definitely hear notes of your accent OP so why worry.

@Goldenbear I'm not sure that that's necessarily the case. I grew up with a fairly strong regional accent, but moved away from the area where I grew up when I went to university in England. I genuinely don't have my original accent any more, and now speak in a sort of RP tinged with the accent of the city where I live. If you heard me talk, you would probably think I was from the Home Counties but settled in the north of England, or else possibly that I was from the north of England but educated at a boarding school. If you were good at accents, you might be able to narrow the generic vague "Northern" to the city where I live. But you wouldn't guess where I come from from my accent.

I find the idea that regional accents are somehow impolite or ill-educated genuinely disturbing tbh. And I'm quite shocked that people consider it acceptable to say on a public forum that they find a regional accent "distracting" as one poster commented. Did you mean to sound so shockingly ignorant?

I also think the desire to conformize and bland over everything so awful. Why would you want everyone to speak with Radio 4 RP?

Why do you care so much what people think of you?

An educated accent indeed! There's some absolutely clack spouted on this thread.
High time we moved on from "you sound thick because you sound like that"...
Yours blackboardnailingly, a Scouser with a PhD.

A scouser with a phd? Sorry hun, you must be mistaken. You see, the Liverpool accent isn’t ‘polite and educated.’ I’m afraid you’re actually rude and uneducated. Only people with RP accents have phds. You can’t even do them at universities outside of London actually. Sorry xx

People think I'm not from my place of birth because I don't have the regional accent. I'm sure I must use some dialect. I never had an accent though. Mix of private education, peers, family. People think I'm southern because of long vowel sounds, but I'm not.

Perhaps people are wondering how you lost your accent. I know people whose accents have diluted to almost neutral in adulthood and some where they haven't altered at all. Similar circumstances of having left local area to attend university.

I'm also from Liverpool and have also pretty much lost any accent I had and speak with pretty much RP, except I still have Northern vowels. People are often very surprised to hear where I'm from. Generally, people from up north are sad for me having lost it, and people from down south are snobbier and say it sounds better or that having a regional accent would make me sound less educated (I have a PhD and a lot of people seem surprised that anyone from above the home counties could possibly do that).

The worst is that when I come across people with very strong scouse accents, mine starts to creep back and I get worried they'll think I'm imitating them.

@Kanaloa they do let some northerners out to do these education things. There's a quota though and a lot of them are for being a professional northerner e.g. Maxine Peake, Christopher Eccleston types. 😆

I’m the same, OP. I grew up in an ex-mining town in Derbyshire & spoke wi’ a proper ‘ay up mi duck’ accent. When I went to university and started associating with people from very different backgrounds my accent progressively softened to the extent that by my mid 20s it was very neutral. I still basically sound northern, eg I pronounce the ‘a’ in clap, bath & grass the same, but apart from that I sound like I could come from anywhere or nowhere.

I envy people who speak well & with cool accents eg Lauren Laverne, Sara Cox.

😂

YABVU because regional accents are generally hideous. I loathe it when janner slips into mine. But could be worse, could be Bristolian.

Can you have an RP accent if you grew up with a regional accent- im not convinced that happens. The RP accent is quite rare now anyway, even in the south-east, there is a modern version of it but it is not that common. My Dad was originally from the South Midlands so Warwickshire area but moved to London at 23 and sounds 'posh' according to the fellow residents of his new over 60s flat back in the Midlands but I can hear the Midlands accent notes, just as he states that sometimes I sound very much like a 'Londoner' despite most people telling me I don't have an accent. I agree that everyone has an accent before anyone jumps on that but this is what people have said to me in person in casual conversation over the years. I know I can sound like a Londoner one from South West/West London but I grew up with RP being spoken all around me. I just don't think you shake of your regional accent as much as you think. Yes people might not guess your Northern, Welsh etc town village but there is probably a bit of a give away somewhere, is it possible to grow up with a strong regional accent but talk RP like Prince Charles as an adult? I know someone who went to private school in Lincolnshire and she thinks she speaks with RP accent but the way she pronounces my daughter's name, it starts with a long vowel, she shortens it and she makes the e in the name sound like an I - it is the Lincolnshire notes of an accent coming through so not RP at all!

I was born in West London, I moved to Hook, Hants when I was two and Edinburgh when I was five. My parents are from Hertfordshire and Ayrshire.

This has resulted in me having a very mixed accent. Some people assume I’m from where I live now as while the accent is distinctive it’s not broad. Others guess I’m English but have a hard time placing my accent.

DH was the first person I’ve ever met to correctly place West London, Ayrshire and where I live now. In another life though DH was an HGV driver and so spent a lot of time travelling the length and breadth of the country.

You likely do have a Liverpool accent OP just not the broad one that people from where you grew up expect.

You do realise that every region has an accent? The majority of people have a variety of accents depending on what they're doing, most people's accents become more pronounced with family.

Someone upthread made a reference to people having a "polite or educated accent" and I sort of understand what they mean. I remember (absolutely years ago) a poster said that she and her family had moved to a very different part of the country and were finding it difficult to understand anyone (even the children's teacher). There's nothing wrong with having a distinctive accent but speaking in a way that makes it difficult for non-locals to understand is quite rude (obviously speak however you want with your friends and family).