Are accents snobbish

[678somean]

I know this is going to get me a lot of backlash. But I love a good debate so thought I'd pose the question....
I hate regional accents. I know they can't be helped but they sound so thick.
There was an article in the Guardian recently where they mentioned that people with regional accents go to speech therapy before moving to London in order to apply for jobs!
I think it's a smart move. But of course not a popular opinion.
I've worked with lots of people in high profile roles and honestly, whether people like it or not, the ones with RP are definitely taken more seriously and respected.
I've noticed all over England that the ones who are highly educated with good jobs rarely have their local accent and most have admitted that it's undesirable to have a regional accent and they are middle/upper class so don't speak with one.
Do others feel the same when applying for high status roles?

I was just thinking about this and my favourite is the Manchester accent. I have cousins from there and when i was growing up (west of Ireland) it seemed terribly exotic! Still does tbh!

No one said you can't be successful with an accent.
Wonderful posts of people saying that they made it regardless of their accents!
Of course you did and can.

Just saying, the powers that be wouldn't speak like that in England.
To the Scouse- sorry forgot your username.. I don't think anyone in the House of Commons would take that accent seriously.
People assume (from the comments) that I'm a journalist 🙄. No, I'm just asking questions.

There are scouse MPs obviously.

However the issue with rising in government is more to do with class and nepotism not accents.

There are lots of ways to be successful.

Maybe your own snobbery is actually to do with class which is a massive problem in this county.

There have been many MPs from Liverpool, and I hope that some of them have kept their accents.

But if regional accents aren't taken seriously in the House of Commons, someone probably needs to tell Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, no less, who very much has a regional accent. I wouldn't like to try and place it accurately, but I'd say he is from somewhere in the Wigan area.

Well you are saying regional accents sound thick and agreeing that people with non RP accents are not prominent In "canary wharf" your field you are demonstrating that you don't have a grasp of life outside of your bubble,or you are not articulating your point very well,which is it ?

I think he's from Chorley
I love his accent

Why would people not take an MP seriously because of their accent? An MP for Liveroool SHOULD have a Liverpool accent like?

Plenty of Essex accents in Canary Wharf.

I'm aware. Behind closed doors they are looked a bit down upon.

Awa bile yer heid min.

Everyone can say what they like. I don't make the rules. Just saying it as I've seen it.

I know they can't be helped but they sound so thick

What sounds "thick", if push really comes to shove, is creating a thread entitled "Are accents snobbish?". Your thread title makes no sense. An accent is not human and therefore isn't capable of human traits and characteristics. Also, questions are usually indicated by the use of a question mark.

What I think you would have said, had you been able to write, is: "Are snobbish people (like me) right to be bigoted against people whose voice identifies them as having come from a particular region of the UK?"

The answers are:

a) No. They are bigoted, narrow-minded and stupid.
b) Anyone who thinks a regional accent is "thick" is by definition much thicker than the person speaking with the regional accent.
c) Anyone who tries to score points by looking down on people with regional accents will be widely disliked (and thought unintelligent) by the vast majority of the people they meet.
d) If you really do want to style out being a proper snob, you have to learn to write intelligibly.

HTH

Lol, that's obviously not relevant to my post. I'm only referring to English people... 🙄

Definitely.
I do an accent recognition lesson with my students and it's very notable that the younger royals have a much less "posh" accent than their spouses who have had vocal training. William sounds less posh than Catherine being the most obvious example.

Also very noticeable is how the late Queen's accent changed over the years.

Boris Johnson with his "Crow Na Vase" renditions, remains one of the less than 2% of the British population who still has an RP accent.

I think there are snobby attitudes towards accents. OP has proved this. Unfortunately it boils down to the classism that is alive and well in this country.

I also think OP has a very narrow world view and idea of what it means to be successful. Private school and working in 'The City' sounds like hell to alot of successful people who happen to have a regional accent.

There are many successful people with accents in lots of different fields. Canary Wharf and the Houses of Parliament are not the only measure of success.

Thanks for explaining how I should have written my post.
If you read my prior comments you would see that I've already said it's just a social media post.
Nothing too serious and definitely not how I would write an email or conduct myself at work

Anyone who is interested in this should do the University of York course on Futurelearn (it's free) on accent sociolinguistics. It's very interesting.

This came up on another thread (regarding how people pronounce latte, which in turn has been the subject of another thread recently).

My family are all from the north west of England, so I like those accents, and have a slight north west sound to my own accent, but there are other regional accents I don't like at all. It's not necessarily a snobby thing, some accents are just easier to listen to than others. And this is also the case in other countries, where people from certain areas are looked down upon because of their accents, it's certainly not a peculiarly British or English thing. For example, Erich Honecker was from the Saarland area of Germany (very much not the GDR, it borders France) and people took the mickey out of his accent. And people from the Saxony area of Germany routinely get the mick taken out of their accent.

I also think people have a reverse snobbery about RP and think people who have it are posh, even if they're not.

Accents are incredibly interesting though and it was be very sad if they died out.

Agreed.

It's also true that a lot of people confuse RP with southern standard.

PS this must be the third thread I've seen this morning where people have been described as "thick". Can people please stop it?

Maybe you can get a law passed that forbids anyone without a RP accent from speaking.

You have zero insight into your own bias though.

You excluding Scottish folk fae responding to yer post then? Canna dee at min.

I think they're allowed to speak as long as they know their place in society is below OP.

They have to be able to speak so they can be easily identified as thick you see. This way OP can steer clear of the common folk.

Wouldn't that be wonderful! Then maybe people would listen!

Sorry, but this is nonsense. RP is not a "generic English" accent at all. It has its own regional and class associations just like any other UK accent or dialect does.

The only reason RP was historically thought of as the 'proper' English accent is because it was spoken by the wealthy land-owning classes, and was used as a way of recognising those of their own class. (Knowing the right terms for things was also used this way - using the wrong terminology or etiquette would mark you out as being from a supposedly inferior class.)

The class hierarchy determined the perceived value and status of accents, and accents were one of many tools used to exclude incomers and keep the proles in their place. Anyone who clings on to that is just helping to perpetuate that system.

However, RP isn't really widely spoken by the upper class any more. It's not the accent that most people would associate with upper middle class/well to do London, even Prince William doesn't speak it. Boris Johnson speaks RP, but his accent is extremely unusual, even among politicians etc.