To think that many Mumsnetters despise regional accents and dialects?

[binnibonnieboo]

I'm Irish, and I've been on Mumsnet for years. I've seen so many threads fulminating about pronunciation, spelling and grammar. These so often ignore the diverse accents and dialects across the UK and Ireland. There seems to be a view that anything not RP or standard southern English is common, ill educated, Americanised (wrong), and just Not Right. Sometimes (not always) I sense a thinly veiled contempt for how I and others (Scottish, Northern Irish, Welsh, northern English) talk. AIBU to feel this?

@Jellyandpeaches , West-MORE-land. The former county is WEST-m'r-lund/WEST-muhlund.

They are Westmoreland and Westmorland respectively.

Ah I see. Didn’t notice the difference in spelling in the first post, sorry.

The pronunciation threads are littered with posts like I say Amalia as Am-arl-ee-a but you can't figure out how they say it because it could be Amarl-EE-a or Am-ARL-ee-a, and if you have a rhotic accent you are puzzled by the R.
(see my volley with a pp about a place name)

The IPA is Amalia : /əˈmɑɫjə/ , which is much clearer.

@Jellyandpeaches , it's easily missed.

English to IPA Translator – International Phonetic Spelling Generator

I can’t read IPA unfortunately.
I’m always meaning to learn, but at the moment I mostly just skip over it rather than look up the sounds unless I’m especially interested in a word.

I think PP’s problem with the place name was that the other person wouldn’t accept that Oxford would sound different when said in a rhotic accent.

I think, when it comes to names, the emphasis in the word should be as the locals say it, but I don’t think you should have to fake a non-rhotic accent if your natural accent is rhotic (or vice versa).
I think the person PP met couldn’t seem to accept that. At least that was my understanding of the issue.

I also pronounce the r in Oxford (and have no plans to stop) so maybe I’m biased 😁

@Jellyandpeaches , I learnt how to pronounce English words (e.g. miscellaneous : /ˌmɪsəˈɫeɪniəs/ ) from dictionaries. If I couldn't make sense of it, I'd look up words I was already familiar with that might have the same sounds.

For Amalia, I might also look up Amelia and Mali.

With the Oxford example, I couldn't tell if the pp was saying Ox Ford or OX-ford or Ox-furd.

The IPA that link gives you is ( Oxford : /ˈɑksfɝd/ )
The stress is on Ox. The 2nd syllable rhymes with third ( third : /ˈθɝd/ )

Ox Ford would be /ˈɑks/ /ˈfɔɹd/.

I wouldn't quibble about the rhotic R, that's accent.

Is English not your first language @PleasantPedant? Is that why you learnt to pronounce words from dictionaries? That is admirable.

PP said she’d been shouted down for pronouncing the r in words. The example she gave was that she was corrected for saying Ox-ford instead of Ox-fud. It was fairly clear the problem was her rhotic accent and not emphasis in this case (imho). (I probably had an advantage too, as I recognised her username as that of a Scottish poster.)

I wasn’t reading it as a rhotic / non rhotic issue. I read it as someone saying Ox-ford (with or without the rhotic r), which isn’t correct, vs the closer pronunciation Ox-furd (with or without the rhotic r)

@AlcoholicAntibiotic

The pp had already said the problem was the r and that she had a rhotic accent. This was before she gave the example of Ox-ford vs Ox-fud, so it was reasonably clear I think.

I have been shouted down because I pronouncd R in words and told that I'm wrong, however much I defend the fact that it's a regional variation.

I speak with a rhotic accent.

Same. Masters in Voice and I’ve still had people patronise me on this thread.

Only on Mumsnet.

Same as @AlcoholicAntibiotic . I got the impression that she was insisting that the ford part was fɔɹd.

@Jellyandpeaches , how else would one learn new words?
Some words rarely get said in normal speech but appear regularly in print.
If I asked what a word meant I'd be told to look in a dictionary.

Spelling and grammar are the same in different accents aren’t they? You might have a point about dialect though.

Okay, I think you may have missed some of the pp’s earlier posts. ETA I just looked back and you can’t have missed them because you were asking her questions etc. I don’t know why you thought the problem wasn’t the r then 🤷‍♀️

I use Forvo.com or the pronunciation link that you find in some dictionaries when I’m unsure of the pronunciation of a rare word (but I really would like to get more familiar with IPA too).
These are more recent tools I know. Maybe I wasn’t as bothered about pronunciation when I was younger 🤔

I came from South of England to live on the West coast of Scotland when I was a child, 50 years ago. Most of the middle aged and old folk spoke Gaelic as their first language before learning English at school. I remember noticing that because there is no letter 'J' in the Gaelic alphabet when speaking English they pronounced words beginning with 'J' , such as 'Just' as 'Chust' making the 'J' into a 'ch,' sound as in 'church' . When saying the alphabet at school the kids would pronounce 'J' as ''gy' as it sounds in the beginning of the word 'gypsy,'instead of how I an incomer pronounced it as 'Jay'. Also plurals ending in 'S' for example 'Scissors' would be pronounced 'Scissorsush'. Sometimes plurals such as 'trousers' would be spoken of as 'a trouser' .Sadly these quirks of English spoken by native Gaelic speakers are dying out now, and the gen Z's and Alphas , even ones born and brought up here speak with an almost American twang, maybe picked up from TV, online etc. However there is a lot of investment in retaining/ regaining the Gaelic language and culture which means that more younger people are using Gaelic language, music etc, but a whole generation missed out in learning Gaelic ( my generation) because their parents were discouraged/ punished for speaking it outside the home. By the time I was in Highschool in 70's and 80's the revival had started, but there was still an attitude that Gaelic wasn't worth learning, because French and German would be more useful. It would be nothing short of a tradegy if Gaelic died out. It shows how quickly a language can come close to being lost in one or two generations.

You don't come across as patronizing. It seems that the person making that accusation has a chip on their shoulder, when they take exception to someone with specialist knowledge trying to educate them. I expect I come across as patronizing too!

@Jellyandpeaches , I've only seen ones on here.
I don't find Forvo reliable. That might be because of the words I was looking up.

Maybe I wasn’t as bothered about pronunciation when I was younger
You probably didn't get laughed at if you got it wrong.

@Wiseplumant That's very interesting about the absence of letter J in Gaelic. I've heard people from the islands saying things like chust/just and thought it was just down to their accent.
I had an uncle from Caithness who pronounced TH as D so he'd say dat for that or dis for this.

I find it really interesting too @Wiseplumant. I’m Irish not Scottish but the languages are related. There is no letter j in Irish either, but some dialects do have a j sound, so in Donegal for example the word Dia sounds like Jee-ah. I wonder does that happen in Scottish Gaelic at all? It sounds like it mightn’t?

I also have trouble with my th’s @RaraRachael. There are no th sounds (as pronounced in English) in modern Irish, though there were in Old Irish I believe, so I think when my ancestors were picking up English a few generations ago they approximated with a t or d sound. That pronunciation stuck around. My children are better than me at saying the English th though, probably because of cbeebies and youtube, which is a pity in a way.
The th letter combination does occur in the Irish language btw, but it’s pronounced differently than it is in English.

Sometimes I think a sound function would be handy on MN.

It would out me.

We'd have lots of 'I don't have an accent's in various strong accents.

This reminds me of a question I have. Is it common to say "how old is she? " or is it more "what age is she? " in the UK, or are both used equally? I would use the first.

In Scotland we use "stay" to mean live. I stay in Glasgow. She has stayed in Edinburgh for 3 years.

DH who is not Scottish thinks this is very odd.

Yes to this. I asked my English XMiL where her sister stayed. She looked at me very puzzled then said, "Do you mean where does she stay on holiday?"

And there's clap for pat, as in a dog. I once asked a wee girl if she wanted to clap my dog. She then proceeded to clap her hands in front of him.

"Feck" is extremely annoying and childish.

Why?
It’s commonplace where I live (Ireland). It has multiple meanings. It’s used as a minced oath instead of fuck, but is much, much milder. Maybe because there are no associated sexual connotations…it doesn’t have that meaning of fuck. No such thing as a motherfecker!

It can also mean to steal or to throw casually.
He fecked it over the wall means he threw it over the wall. He fecked it off the counter means he took/stole it.

Lots of info here:
www.thejournal.ie/readme/feck-meaning-origin-stan-carey-622374-Oct2012/