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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To wish DH would stop being a mockney?

27 replies

docket · 15/02/2010 11:12

DH hails from Devon and when we met at Uni I would say he didn't really have a regional accent.

We live in London and have done for some years and he now talks like Jamie Oliver. Okay, he doesn't pepper conversations with 'pukka' but doing = doo-in', having = 'avin', my bag = me bag, other = uvva, you get the picture.

I have nothing against a London accent or any other accent for that matter it's just that this seems like such an affectation, and a ridiculous one at that.

So, AIBU?

OP posts:

BariatricObama · 15/02/2010 11:14

tbh sounds like you just don't like him very much

ooojimaflip · 15/02/2010 11:21

innit

BariatricObama · 15/02/2010 11:22

[dons pearly queen outfit and starts playing the old joanna]

KurriKurri · 15/02/2010 11:23

maybe he's just picked up an accent. Some people do more so than others.

My DH is Scottish, we live in England, when we are at home his accent is considerably less strong because he works and lives with English accented people, when he goes up to Scotland his accent becomes quite broad again.

Its not an affectation - quite normal I think.

liath · 15/02/2010 11:23

I think some people tend to adopt accents more easily than others, DH picked up more than a hint of Australian when we lived there and does that hidiously embarassing thing where he orders indian food in a slightly Indian accent, ditto chinese..... It's just the way he is.

notwavingjustironing · 15/02/2010 11:23

push him down the apples and pears

PuppyMonkey · 15/02/2010 11:25

Whenever I've moved to a new place, I seem to pick up the local accent really quickly... when I lived in Leeds I went all Yarkshire, for example. Maybe you're dh is the same. Or maybe he just does it to annoy you! Sounds like that's working.

PuppyMonkey · 15/02/2010 11:26

PMSL at ordering indian food in an Indian accent.

BariatricObama · 15/02/2010 11:27

really liath! i would have to leave him.

WhereYouLeftIt · 15/02/2010 11:28

Some people pick up other languages easily. Some people slip in and out of non-native accents easily. If he's surrounded by workmates with this kind of accent, he's probably just absorbed it. My accent is Scottish, but I live in the Midlands and I say a few words differently now (after 20 years!). Some started as a joke that stuck, some have just crept in.

If he were doing it deliberately for effect, that would be an affectation and you would not BU, but if it has just quietly crept into his pronunciation, maybe YABU.

Original poster

docket · 15/02/2010 11:29

DH does that ordering Indian food thing! I am harsh then, he is just susceptible...

OP posts:

nickschick · 15/02/2010 11:31

My dh is a genuine cock cockney and he does have the accent but it really comes out when hes drunk or v annoyed .....

So when ds2 came home late picture the scene
'where u been then eh? yer muvvas been worried sick .....yer avin a bobble u lad'......me and dsx3 were like this >>>>

KurriKurri · 15/02/2010 11:31

Get him to practice saying 'the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain' until you can take him out into society.

liath · 15/02/2010 11:36

The worst thing DH does is when we're in Italian restaurents he speaks with an Italian accent to the waiters and throws in a few Italian words for good effect. And now he's teaching the kids to do the same . There's a lovely place round the corner that is really family friendly and I now have to steel myself for meals there peppered with "ciao bellas" and "bon appetitos" from DH AND THE KIDS. Argh. No wonder I usually get more drunk than would normally be acceptable for a family meal out at 5pm....

piratecat · 15/02/2010 11:37

lol @ indian ordering.

I am one of those very annoying people who picks up accents, I embarrass myself.

MarineIguana · 15/02/2010 11:45

Oh no liath! I think I would have to make my feelings obvious by hiding under the table!

But re the mockney... YANBU - IMO - because it's the sort of thing I could also get annoyed about, but, I think you can get past it if you try not to see it as an affectation. I'm English and have been in Scotland for many years now and I have picked some vowels and phrases up, and even sometimes say "ch" which sounds like the worst affectation ever, but really it's just that I hear it all the time and it gets absorbed. I really don't mean to.

For a long time DP's sneezes irritated me because they are SO loud and he does a kind of giant roar with each one and it always seemed to me like he was trying to get attention and make a point about how terribly ill he was. But one time I said (trying to calmy disguise my annoyance!) "Do you have to sneeze like that?" and he said "yes, I know it's silly but I can't help it, that's how they come out". And now I don't mind. (Though they still do make me jump out of my skin...)

So chances are your DH really isn't being affected. (Though maybe he is if he's generally a pretentious twerp, but that's another issue...)

MarineIguana · 15/02/2010 11:46

oops "ch" was meant to be "och"

MaggieMaeve · 15/02/2010 11:51

I do hear you,,,,that could be annoying, but in his defence I have a theory which you may or may not believe!

I think if you hail from a completely different area from the one you're now living in, the 'anchor' of your own accent isn't as strong a protection from picking up the local accent. does that make any sense?

I have a 'nice' irish accent,but when I lived in london I picked up a bit of a lorraine chase twang. I seemed to pick up the more obvious and exaggerated pronounciations around me. Oddly though, I could live in the roughest part of dublin for 20 years and my accent wouldn't change. It's something that interests me. I'm fascinated by linguistics. I would love to understand the subject more. I'm sure there is a label for this 'phenomenon'

MaggieMaeve · 15/02/2010 11:54

ps, when I lived in England and I was nervous, My accent went one way or the other in extremes. Either totally Lorraine Chase, or totally Henry Kelly, and neither were like how I would speak if I were on my own with my children and relaxed. It was as though I became too self-conscious to speak naturally. It was nerves. A sort of not fitting in, having a different accent from the moment you open your mouth can make you more self-conscious than average.

I was always very self-conscious about complaining when I lived in the uk. I would try to fake a UK accent when I needed to complain about anything!!

If I'm complaining here, where my accent is local, I just open my mouth and out comes my complaint... dykwim?

missismac · 15/02/2010 11:58

Oh MarineIguana - my DH does ridiculous loud sneezes too - they make me jump violently and my ears ring. My response has been identical to yours. So glad to know I'm not alone.

Incidentally I pick up accents easily too, am originally from the midlands, but have lived in London for 20yrs. Sometimes DH (a 'real' londoner) picks me up for 'sounding like Pauline Fowler' - I can't help it, I just don't know I'm doing it. I must be the female equivalent of OP's DH!

Original poster

docket · 15/02/2010 12:06

Awww I feel mean now!

MarineIguana I think you are right, perhaps the problem is me thinking he puts it on when actually he can't help it.

OP posts:

Fluffyone · 15/02/2010 12:09

I pick up accents as well, I think it's protective camouflage that I developed when I was moving around as an RAF kid. I spend a month in Australia and I'm lost.
However, does anyone else find Jamie Oliver excrutiatingly irritating, because he is speaking mockney? If your OH sounds like him then I'm surprised he's still in one piece. I know for a fact that Jamie Oliver didn't sound like that when he was younger, as we have a friend in common from his "yoof". So I get extremely irritated when I listen to him. Particularly as he has resurrected words and phrases that genuine cockneys hadn't used for decades. Honestly, I can't bear to watch him on telly, it's too affected.

twotimes · 15/02/2010 12:12

Actually Maggie you are spot on. It's known that some people modify/adapt their accents to blend in with the people around them, whereas some speak with a stronger original accent in order to stand out!

tbf though, I think this thread is sooooooooo funny, liath I think your dh is quality. What did you do when he first pulled the indian accent in the restaurant? That was class.

Dockey yanbu (well you slightly are) but my dh does come from london and occasionally slips into it and it pisses me off (I think i'm slightly prejudiced against eastender sounding cockneys to be fair - or the jamie oliver ones )

groundhogs · 15/02/2010 13:14

next time he does it, ask him how clearly you can hear the Bow Bells in !

I used to work with a Watford boy, that was all apples and pears and stuff, I used to rib him rotten!

My dad only ever spoke in a soft scottish accent when talking with his mum. The first time he took my mother home to meet his mum, she was extremely .

MaggieMaeve · 15/02/2010 14:11

twotimes! phew, I used to hear myself doing it, and think... What! why? am I possessed by alfie moon! arhghg

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