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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Language Timothy!

125 replies

ForGoldFoxy · 17/01/2026 18:23

This has never happened to me before so I'm a bit thrown. 1 year relationship - suddenly he's unhappy with my accent and how I pronounce certain words. For context I'm a working class woman who's moved about - I've got a little bit of a northern twang but mainly southern. I used to do a fair bit of public speaking -mainly to Health Professionals - as part of my job and although I'm not half as clever as the wonderful Cathy Burke that's sort of how I sound. I can hold my own in a conversation but I never try to sound 'posh' . So if I'm working or with people I don't know well I tend to be a little more guarded in my speech - no slang, no bad language However with close friends and family when I'm relaxed I do use glottal stops and very occasionally swear - usually for comedic effect. This is what's rubbing him up the wrong way. To keep the peace in that moment (a few days ago) when he was telling me how much he's always hated my speech I agreed to try and stop using glottal stops but immediately since I've feel like I've betrayed myself. Also it's proving really difficult to change my 'at home in my comfies' voice. For example - at home I will say "a glass of wa'er" instead of water also "be'er (better) is another example and that's pretty much the extend of my transgressions and his issue. He's getting really quite angry about this which hurts a lot as my beloved Dad and my loud, funny Aunties who brought me up also speak like this. I feel really attacked and I'm not speaking to him at the moment. Thoughts please.

OP posts:
Namechangeyname · 17/01/2026 21:26

@ForGoldFoxy since he thinks he's so bloody well spoken, here's some Latin for him: futue te ipsum, cunne (go fuck yourself, you cunt).

ForGoldFoxy · 17/01/2026 21:57

I bloody love you lot! What a brilliant bunch of self affirming messages/kindness/support and brutal come backs you have supplied me with. Thank you - it's made me a bit tearful if I'm 'onest 🥲

OP posts:
SouthernNights59 · 17/01/2026 21:59

I don't understand why you even need to ask other people's opinions. It's not going to work and you would be well advised to run. Once he starts trying to control one aspect of your personality he's not going to stop.

seriousandloyal · 18/01/2026 07:30

He sounds nasty and as if he doesn’t like you much at all. Don’t stay with someone who makes you feel like this, good luck OP!

Illegally18 · 18/01/2026 20:01

BunnyLake · 17/01/2026 21:04

It's who you are, he will have to like it or lump it. Don’t change who you are for him. I love Kathy Burke, I could listen to her all day! Imagine someone telling her to change!!

Kathy Burke doing the queen mum is a memory I will always treasure!

BunnyLake · 18/01/2026 22:30

Illegally18 · 18/01/2026 20:01

Kathy Burke doing the queen mum is a memory I will always treasure!

Kathy is someone you (certainly I) would love as a friend. To have her come round for a cuppa and natter would be a perfect way to spend an afternoon 😁

OP you should put the best of Kathy on tv, if he doesn’t raise a smile he has no soul and needs to be shown the door!

rainbows40 · 18/01/2026 22:43

Fuck 'im off!

WhosMadeline · 18/01/2026 22:44

You can do be’er babe! Dump dump dump.

TheeNotoriousPIG · 18/01/2026 22:44

If he is telling you that you need to change to suit him, it is not going to make you very happy. You're going to be living on eggshells, and once you've changed your accent to suit him, it will be on to the next thing that you do/say that annoys him.

He says you need to change your accent. I think that most people would agree that you need to a change of partner... preferably, one who accepts you as you are, glottal stops and all!

SleepingStandingUp · 19/01/2026 00:04

Leave. This chestnut isn't the right iteration for you now you for him. You're perfect as you are I don't doubt, but he sounds like a dick

manticlimactic0 · 19/01/2026 00:30

What an arsole, tell him to get fucked. A year?? A year he wasted your time 🙄
Also thanks for letting me know I've also got a glottol stop. I had to Google what that is 😂

Jamfirstest · 19/01/2026 06:53

A partner who says ‘I have always hated….(insert literally anything that’s fundamental to your personality/existence)’ shouldn’t be anyone’s partner.

beside the point but I love hearing accents

RampantIvy · 19/01/2026 07:13

WearyAuldWumman · 17/01/2026 18:52

When my uni boyfriend slagged off my middle name, I replied with " You know what they say: Duncan make your grass grow!"

Apparently a private school education didn't allow him to understand the jibe. Yes, he and I are both Scottish.

I haven't been privately educated, and I don't understand this jibe. I have never heard it before.

WearyAuldWumman · 19/01/2026 11:23

RampantIvy · 19/01/2026 07:13

I haven't been privately educated, and I don't understand this jibe. I have never heard it before.

It was a fairly widespread pun in Scottish schools at the time.

Dung can make your grass grow.

KimberleyClark · 19/01/2026 11:37

Last night I listened to a history podcast about the Victorians’ obsession with ancient Egypt (mummy unwrapping parties anyone?) and the guest expert sounded like Kathy Burke, glottal stops all over the place. But she was so interesting and knowledgeable, and funny too. Accent doth not make the (wo)man.

Elsvieta · 19/01/2026 12:26

So a year in, he now feels secure enough to start telling you what to do? And "getting angry" (wtf?) as if you were a naughty child and he was your dad? Over a feature of who you are which has been in place all along? What will be next, do you think? He's never really liked your face and you need a nose job? Bin him, and tell him that next time he needs to hold out for a woman who suits him the way she is.

RampantIvy · 19/01/2026 12:40

WearyAuldWumman · 19/01/2026 11:23

It was a fairly widespread pun in Scottish schools at the time.

Dung can make your grass grow.

😁
I should have said it out loud. D'oh!

WearyAuldWumman · 19/01/2026 12:42

In my experience, @Elsvieta , this type of bloke tries to tear down his SO because of his own inferiority complex. The thing is, you don't always see it at the time.

In the case of my BF, I realised that I had a problem when I understood that I liked his parents better than I liked him. They were very welcoming to me. I truly think that he'd been mucked up by being sent to a particular private school - his dad was a lovely bloke from a working class background who had managed to get into uni and had taken a science based degree and there was definitely no snobbery around either him or his mother.

I don't know whether this might be the case for the @ForGoldFoxy 's BF, but mine was the product of an all boys' school - one of the 'lesser' private schools in Glasgow. It seemed to have skewed his attitude towards women.

I encountered another former pupil of the same school while I was at uni and he actually brought his fist down on my head when he lost an argument to me in the department common room. I truly believe that he'd have been out of the department if the professor had witnessed it.

So far as my BF was concerned, I look back now and realise that there were several jibes meant to tear me down - comments about my hometown not being as dirty as he'd expected for a coalmining town, a 'joke' about me being 'as pure as the driven slush'... I was also told that he'd avoided introducing me to a friend who wouldn't approve of my ethnic background or the fact that I was studying Russian.

I've just realised how ridiculous the last one was - my BF had taken one year of Russian but was 'advised' to drop it because he wasn't good enough to advance.

Anyway, this is a longwinded way of saying that I agree with you @Elsvieta since I've lived it.

WearyAuldWumman · 19/01/2026 12:43

RampantIvy · 19/01/2026 12:40

😁
I should have said it out loud. D'oh!

The funny thing for me is that he heard me saying it...

Americano75 · 19/01/2026 12:52

Tell him to fuck up and fuck off. What a dick.

pinkyredrose · 19/01/2026 13:07

Tell 'im to go fack 'imself'.

YouAreTheCauseOfMyHeadache · 19/01/2026 13:16

I would leave him, and tell him that you've "always hated his penis and it's driven you precisely nowhere the beginning"

PS - This being a play on "always hated my accent and it's driven him mad from the beginning"

Dont even mention the accent issue, but find something that he cannot change to undermine as a parting gift.

Lavagir1 · 20/01/2026 18:57

You don't need correcting. You're not doing something wrong by having an accent. That's a natural reflection of your upbringing and culture. It's not a fault!
And you don't need a boyfriend that doesn't really like who and what you are. You'll do better.

FlapperFlamingo · 22/03/2026 12:49

How you speak is obviously not a small thing - it's something you need to do all the time. Imagine, if you stay with him you'll be forever getting pulled up on stuff, it'll erode your confidence after a while. Do yourself a favour and dump him.

DeftGoldHedgehog · 22/03/2026 12:50

Tell him to fuck off.

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