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?

The OP probably thinks that all Scottish people have the same accent, although I don't know where she places Scottish folk on her scale of sounding 'thick' to 'not thick'.

I'm interested to know what the upper middle class speak then? Genuinely curious.
To say politicians like Boris's speech is unusual is new to me. How do politicians speak then?

I live in a regional area. It’s a fact that people from poor backgrounds or in manual occupations tend to have strong accents, while those who are in professions have a much less pronounced accent. They still have one but not as strong, and they don’t use regional slang words either. In general you will find that as a person gets posher, their accent becomes weaker. I’m not judging at all, that’s just a fact.

I was actually part of a university research study about accents a while ago. They interviewed my Dad, myself and my son. My Dad was a working class manual labourer, while I was raised by working class parents but brought up to be a bit more middle class and had the opportunity to go to university. My son is definitely middle class, raised by educated parents with loads of cultural opportunities like music, sports, theatre, etc. My Dad calls my son a “scenty gob” because he thinks he has a posh accent. You can definitely tell the difference between us even just in a couple of generations. We only live a few miles apart - the only real difference is money and education.

This concept of having a supposed default human which is accorded high status (male, upper class, RP accent, wealthy, white, straight), and then categorising anyone who deviates from that default in some way as inferior (female, person of colour, working class, different accent etc.) is used as a tool of class-based oppression and has been for centuries.

There is prejudice against people who differ from the default in various ways, but this needs challenging. RP has no more right to be considered the default accent than men have to be considered the default human being.

Do you not watch the news? I'm not British and don't live there, but i've seen loads of PQs and heard lots of accents.

Maybe you could use your ears and your brain and listen to some of them? There's a whole channel devoted to the Houses of Parliament on TV.

No one who isn't a troll could claim that Boris Jonnson's accent is a common one, even in well off London circles.

You come across as if you have led a very sheltered life. I suggest broadening your horizons - there’s a whole world out there it would do you good to explore.

I have a friend who grew up in Yorkshire and has a fabulous Yorkshire accent. She married a man who grew up in the SE and has a typical RP accent. His parents were a bit 😞when they announced that they were getting married, they thought she sounded very common and that he could do better.

Friends parents both had decent degrees and were in senior management roles, she had a good degree from an RG uni and was in the process of qualifying as a solicitor. He ran a coffee shop, his parents were a mechanic and a shop assistant, but they thought she was punching above her weight!

Unsurprisingly, the marriage didn't last...

@678somean

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.

But surely you understand that starting a post aimed at whipping up judgement at other people based on the way they speak will make you look hypocritical, unintelligent and breathtakingly lacking in judgment if you can't speak or write yourself?

Not sheltered, I've traveled all around the word and went to various schools. There is a reason why when you go to other countries they want someone with a 'proper English accent'.

Actually I’ve found that people from other countries struggle to tell the difference between British accents. Several of us went to a work conference and the Americans struggled to distinguish between Scouse, Geordie, Cockney and Yorkshire accents. The Chinese delegates thought we sounded identical.

So no-one took John McDonnell "seriously" because of his scouse accent?

And I bet they take Ian Byrne seriously when he takes to his feet in the Commons. He has a fabulous scouse accent, and is a really passionate speaker.

Absolute tosh. I worked in London for 15 years with a Northumbrian accent. Never stopped me from being taken seriously or being promoted several times. I had many colleagues with regional and non-British accents who were successful and taken seriously.

@678somean

Not sheltered, I've traveled all around the word and went to various schools. There is a reason why when you go to other countries they want someone with a 'proper English accent'.

They really don't. I lived in the US and they struggle to tell the difference even between a British accent and one from another part of the US. Most people I met assumed I was Australian and I speak with pretty standard, slightly Londonised RP.

The vast majority of people in the world couldn't tell a British accent from a US one, let alone distinguish RP from Estuary.

Hmm that's not my experience at all.

Now I can forgive the people who mistook my Yorkshire accent for 'sounding like Coronation Street' but surely people can distinguish between those accents, particularly the Americans, being native English speakers. They are completely different.

Of course, if not, it would explain why Daphne had a completely different accent to her brother in Frasier.

This really is nonsense. I have two very successful friends living in California who cling to their accents after decades because they’re currency. One has an East Midlands accent, the other is Estuary English.

I find my RP accent an embarrassment at times and it’s certainly never helped me. As for thick - some of the most beautiful accents are regional, Durham, Edinburgh, Yorkshire are lovely.

But I do always wonder if Americans would think people from Yorkshire, Liverpool and Newcastle sound 'posh' like English people are generally portrayed as in US films/TV.

I think it's really sad that people regard regional or local accents as somehow inferior.

We're already losing a lot of them in the south. I live in Sussex and it's very rare to hear a Sussex accent compared to when I first moved here 30 years ago. The only person I know who has one is in their early 80s.

The Hampshire accent seems to have virtually disappeared too, and even further west RP seems to be getting more and more common.

I regard accents and dialect as part of our culture, and think we should treasure them.

@LakieLady

So no-one took John McDonnell "seriously" because of his scouse accent?

Indeed.

Or Nicola Sturgeon?
Or Gordon Brown?
Or Charles Kennedy
Or Angela Rayner?
Or Lindsay Hoyle?
Or Neil Kinnock?

etc ad nauseam.

I think like many of these threads there's a germ of truth in what the OP has identified, there can be a bias against people with strong regional accents and this is supposedly more acute in business than in politics. It's fading, thankfully.

But starting a thread about how "thick" you think people sound when you can't frame a basic written question in English and can't identify that an accent is not capable of human behaviour and then freely admit to a shocking degree of ignorance is so lacking in self-awareness it's laughable.

It would be funny if attitudes like this didn't create serious problems for our society.

@LLakieLady I agree proper Sussex accent is disappearing. I blame it on the high numbers of middle class londoners who have moved out to Sussex.

Ok then,
Genuinely lol that you know who most of the ‘top school’ heads are and what they sound like 😂

Also, can you just clear up what you think the M25 accent is that you referred to earlier?

Do you not hear them speak?
They have accents.
A small minority have an RP accent.
Same as the rest of the population.

RP is a relatively new (yet already dying out) concept anyway and thankfully, both in society in general, and linguistic circles in particular, is already seen for the anachronism it is.

Thanks @TheLongGloriesOfTheWinterMoon good to know I’m an anachronism😉

Strange because I’m in my 50’s, worked in very high profile financial institutions my entire adult life and I’m surrounded by many with strong London/Essex accents who have climbed high up the career ladder through their hard graft.