To want to exaggerate my northern accent

[noraheggerty]

I was born in West Yorkshire, lived as a child in Co Durham and N Lincolnshire then after a few years in Cambridge I moved to Sheffield where I stayed for 20 years. People always comment that I don't sound very Northern, although I've lived in the North for about 42 of my 46 years!

I think the reason is that W Yorks, S Yorks, N Lincs & Co Durham all have very different accents. Especially in the case of Co Durham which is where I learnt to speak. When we moved from there people laughed at my accent and said they didn't understand me so I worked hard to get rid of it. Also my parents don't come from any of those regions, my mum is from Cheshire & my dad is from New York! My mum had been taught to speak "properly" by her middle-class-aspiring dad and she worked as a teacher and tried to keep that up to pass on to her pupils, and of course to me.

So I never had one particular accent that stuck, and I learned that using my mum's Teacher Voice would at least get me understood! Which was then reinforced when I studied at Cambridge with a load of poshos!

I lived down South again for a year recently & now I've just moved to yet another Northern city. I've noticed that my accent was morphing into something like RP and losing any trace of any of those regions. I hate this, because it doesn't reflect who I actually am & where I come from.

The other night I went to a party with some new acquaintances and something possessed me to exaggerate my accent so it became a broad Sheffield/West Yorkshire mix. I felt more accepted by them as I no longer sounded "posh" & felt like one of the crowd. It felt quite natural to me once I got started, as though I was expressing a part of me that I don't normally express, as opposed to feeling like I was acting or putting it on. Although now I'll have to remember to do it whenever I see them 😬

I'm quite tempted now, given that I'm living in a new town & meeting new people, to just start speaking that way and reinvent myself as it were. I can't decide if it's a pretentious, deceitful affection or if it's actually fine to make an effort to speak in a way that I feel reflects the person I feel I am inside better than the teacher voice does.

Tha comes back here with thy fancy ways!

Did you live in a dip when you were younger?

It's interesting you got picked on in Lincolnshire because that's where I did too! Though mine was a southern English accent I got the piss ripped out of me for. And I was stubborn so decided I would never adopt a flat A and would rather be friendless!

I went to Cambridge uni and did notice when I went home for the holidays I sounded considerably "poshed up". Then I worked for a year in Boston and swallowed all of my long vowels especially when serving customers, and I even remember saying "hey, that's uz one [pronounced wonn]", meaning that's ours. So obviously I can understand that accents morph unconsciously.

I used to work where I had to have meetings with people who congregated from all over the country. One man once got in the lift with me afterwards and told me my accent was "so neutral" he couldn't work out where I was from and had been trying to all day. I felt strangely proud! I was a military kid so it's probably the result of living in Scotland, Wales and England with both parents from the SE but much of my childhood spent in Lincs!

Anyway, I empathise with the sort of hybrid accent you can end up with, and I do feel I lack that strong social identity that having a strong accent short circuits you to. Perhaps have a few drinks and see how your voice sounds then - it can bring out your accent more! But also, know you are enough just as you are, however you sound when you speak xx

Accents fascinate me! I'm Irish, though grew up in NW England. I also had a speech impediment as a child and so took elocution lessons. My accent is more or less RP a lot of the time, but if I speak to family I become Irish. That also morphs into a vague South Yorkshire as I spent a lot of time with an ex from there and all of his friends. I've zero connection to the place. That one baffles me a bit.

DH is Norwegian and speaks English with a heavy Norwegian accent. However, it's become a lot more mild over the years and he says a lot of things how I do now - pronounces certain words in an Irish way as I also slide to that when I'm relaxed. But when we spend time in Norway (I can't speak Norwegian so his family and friends speak English for my benefit), his accent becomes heavily Norwegian again.

TBH I find anyone who suddenly changes their accent pretty 'pretentious' (your word) / tedious. These new people won't know you're changing it of course. But I presume you're not solely surrounded by brand new people and you have at least some people in your life who have known you a while? DH has a non-local accent (I do a tinge too) and I would find it really trying if he suddenly started to change his accent! Just be yourself?? I know you feel like yourself when putting on this broad accent..... but explore why that is? Why can't you feel like yourself when being your actual self?

Wdym?

These are good questions, I will think on

Bit like the singer Lulu who developed a posh accent in the 60s and now tries to force her Scottish accent back in when she can, it’s a strange thing to witness 😂

I started with a cockney accent, went to secondary school and started hanging out with a middle class set, so I forced a more well spoken voice. Eventually let it slip back a bit to London sounding, but from 19 lived around the northwest after uni. My accent has apparently a bit of northern, sometimes southern but mostly generic, it’s who I am now so I just accept it, no one will care op, just let your accent naturally fall where it may. The mongrel accent IS who you are now🙂.

To be honest OP, it's a bit sad and insecure to feel the need to put on or change an accent at your age. Why bother and who do you think would actually care? Also, I think people would see right through you. Just be who you are - no need for affectations.

My parents spoke RP,, we .over to Yorkshire when I was 10 and I went to the local school, where I was told that I spoke "like the BBC!" I soon learnt the local accent, but spoke RP at home.

I live in Durham and am yet to hear anyone say bee-uk or stoo-un.

I think you are referring to a very, very small minority of accents in the area which are very unusual in their pronunciation and genuinely not reflective of the area at all…I have come across a handful of people over the years where I truly don’t actually understand what they’re saying. But it’s definitely not the norm….

The South East doesn't have one accent, London itself has different accents, there isn't even one London accent. I'm in Sussex and my DC have the accent which to me is quite flat but they think my West London accent is funny, singy/songy, up and down, i have family in North London and it is distinct from my DC's accent, all in the south east though.

Op it sounds like you have the accent anyway so I wouldn't worry about it.

When my mum came to the UK from Ireland in the 1950s she couldn't lose her accent fast enough. Some years later she attempted to reinstate it. She sounded ridiculous and often got confused about when she "should" say "T" or "Th".

I have an aunt like this! She moved to Liverpool and wanted a "posh Scouse accent". Well she doesn't sound Scouse and now she can't get Irish either; because she worked so hard to eradicate it she gets confused in conversation and has developed a stutter.

I was lucky that my "RP voice" seemed to only occur (unintentionally) outside the home. At home my dad would make me practice the elocution stuff in my real (Irish) accent.

Just copy Jane Mcdonald.
I grew up with her.. went to same schools.. ( 3 years above her) so l actually speak like her.
Also 6 years ago l bought a bungalow just round corner from her. Can see back of her house from mine.
My friend comes from Barnsley so her accent is much broader than mine.
If you watch casualty 24/7 from Barnsley hospital you will know what l mean.
Yes we really are down to earth and kind caring people.

Accents evolve yes but if you used a short A as in BATH not a long A BAARTH I find it hard to imagine this would happen unintentionally. I'm from NE but have lived in London for 17 years, I still have a soft Geordie accent. if I knew somebody was exaggerating a northern accent, I would find it a bit jarring and performative, can you not just find a place to be content with yourself?

OP are you exaggerating the accent, or just allowing it to emerge naturally Iyswim? If you can do the latter, it shouldn't sound false, and it shouldn't feel false either. I wonder if what you are doing now is, in fact, allowing yourself to talk naturally, and you have spent the last years policing yourself.
I'm a terrible (unconscious) mimic, my accent has veered all over the place. Some people just naturally adopt the accent around them, others hold onto their original accent no matter how long ago they moved away.

I lived in a mining village and people spoke a very old-fashioned way which was, just as you say, very unusual and now has pretty much died out. I think it might be what is called Pitmatic but I'm not sure. When my parents moved there they couldn't understand people at first.

But also, it's hard to put these things into writing so "bee-uk" is not exactly how it sounded. A better example: "face" was pronounced like "fierce". Is that any more familiar? For stone maybe "stwun"?

I’m a bit concerned you may be stalking light entertainments Jane McDonald 😂

You lived in a very tiny demographic that really isn’t representative of the local area then.

Yes I recognise your description of face but again it’s not generally the way people speak.

That's a very good question - the truth is I don't know! My original accent is long gone, I'm not going to speak like I'm from a Co Durham mining village any more, that was bullied out of me too young to even remember (although I do naturally say "frozzen", it's the only word that's survived, and I don't say "frozzen peas" either, but only about myself or the weather. I guess cold weather reminds me of living there)

So I'm always going to have a hybrid accent picked up from people I've spent time with in other places. Something in my brain over the years must have decided unconsciously to pick up more from some people than others. Not sure there's any such thing as natural in this case. Hmm

I wouldn't worry about it at all, OP - I've always tended to take on the accent of people around me, without a conscious effort to do so, so for me it seems perfectly natural for your accent to modify depending on where you live. In fact,
I've always found it a bit strange to witness tourists trying to make themselves understood by repeating a word in an ever louder voice, instead of just pronouncing 'water' or whatever it is in the local accent...

My accent is all over the place. After years of people in the South laughing and thinking I sounded like an extra from Trainspotting and folk from my hometown thinking I sound 'like a snob', I've learned to stop caring. It's very liberating.

(My mother is not from the UK, so my first accent was very foreign: I now have a chameleon accent- goes with being musical, it's a positive thing!)

But OP, what is the actual point of all this? You were born in a mining village yes, but equally, you say you want to Cambridge - back in the day, this was hardly typical. Your accent is just whatever it is. People come to the U.K. from all over the world. Nobody gives a hoot about what is a Durham accent, or a Yorkshire accent or where you came from 40-odd years ago. Hardly anyone lives where they were born. People just adapt and everyone is a hybrid of the different accents or languages they have been exposed to through time. Why the need to revert back to something you are not (anymore)?

I know what you mean I've had several distinct accent areas in my past but I just sound posh when they mix.

The odd thing is when I go home to Wales my Welsh accent automatically switches on as soon as I get off the train.