What's the most wanky thing you have ever done?!

[lardylegs123]

I cringe when I think of this. First year of university, and I was studying Languages. I'm from a working class, Scottish family and was the first ever to go to university. Mother's Day comes and I thought it would be a nice idea to write out the card entirely in the languages I've been studying I thought mum would be so impressed, but she just looked at me and said 'but Lardylegs, I cannae understand a word'.
I think I was too busy being a pretentious dick, that I'd forgotten about this mere detail

I do think some people are 'accent sponges'. I lived and worked with some girls from Wolverhampton for a few months once and ended up talking like them. I was not trying to fit in with them or anything, nor did I covet the midlands twang - it did just happen!

I know quite a few women who have had their “common” accent trained out of them by their mother in laws.

Not me, but this has to be the wankiest comment ever. A guy I was dating went to his younger sister's graduation at Oxford Uni. The next time I saw him he said, "I made a Proust joke and everybody laughed. [pause] That would never happen in London!"

Tosser.

As an angst-ridden teen, I used to listen to, and love Marillion. Listened to some of their stuff again recently - god it’s wanky pretentious shite! Lol

I'm a northern accent sponge. I spent a week with fellow students from up Newcastle way, I came home with the accent. It wore off after about a week.

I must be really wanky. I am autistic and moved about a lot as a kid. I changed/change my accent frequently to suit my situation. Masking I suppose but I didn't realise that for another 30 odd years.

Why is it all about accents?

I once wrote a poem to a woman I really fancied. It was actually quite a good poem and I still like it, but in hindsight maybe I should have just kept it to myself.

Reader, I did not get that woman.

Im terrible for accents. I pick them up so easily. I must sound like a right knob cause I only have to speak to someone a few times and it starts. I have to make a conscious effort to keep my natural accent when I'm away.

@ssd me too

I’m an accent sponge! I lost my Brummie accent within a week when I moved to the south as a child. On holiday once I befriended a boy from Ireland and by the end of the two weeks my parents couldn’t understand a word I was saying as I had a thick Cork accent . Totally natural and not at all affected. Although now I’m an adult I have awareness of it and can reign it in so I don’t sound like a twat or that I’m mocking people!

I'm an accent sponge and now you all have me wondering if people think I'm a pretentious twat! At the moment I have a strange mix of predominantly irish, English and Australian from spending years in each country but I can't hear it myself.

When I came back to England after 5 years in France I went to an agency and during the interview the recruiter told me my English was excellent. Turns out that 5 years of speaking French or speaking English with only French people led me to pick up their accent. There were no other native English speakers at the company where I worked and I never met any ex-pats. According to friends the french part of my accent is gone now but I still can't shake the much earlier Australian twang I picked up.

I was doing a buffet and DH had asked me for a specific thing he liked.
I went to Sainsburys and at the checkout I realised that I had forgotten the ingredients for this dish. No problem said the checkout lady, I will ask someone to get them for you, she summons a colleague and they ask what I need
“quails eggs and caviar please”
The look on their faces said it all (working class town in West Yorkshire)

@worktrip

Why is it all about accents?

It's how conversation develops. One person mentions accents, lots of others relate to it.

My children were heading for the playground in the park after going to the ice cream shop. They had all wanted to try lemon sorbet after I said it was really nice so we got sorbet rather than ice cream. I saw them heading off and shouted, "Children, come and eat your sorbet first!" and it came out in such a wanky way like I though sorbet was special. I was cringing!

One of colleagues definitely thinks my getting a dishwasher is wanky. Both very northern. Both very working class. I treated myself because my houses hot water is an awkward and expensive faff, but to her it's a wanky move. To me it's been a god send and I wear my dishwasher wanker badge with glee.

At least it wasn't gooseberry 'n cinnamon yoghurt, Ship.

Decided that 13 year old me would look the height of sophistication with a pocket watch looking back I must have looked a right twat at the bus stop just whipping it out

In my friends case she hadn't just lost her northern vowels, she sounded like a 1950's television announcer. That's why it was wanky.

I think dropping "yes, as a business owner", "ah yes we love [wanky expensive small plates restaurant]" and other such nonsense in a ridiculous accent into conversation when I went to pick up my recently-cleaned engagement ring so they'd know I wasn't a scruff and deserved my lovely (and valuable - inherited!) ring. I'd gone in after a day of WFH in leggings and a jumper and I looked a mess so I came over all Hyacinth out of embarrassment.

Accents change everyone!!

I thought it would be really helpful if I brought my affirmation hypnobirth cards with me to the hospital when I was having ds. I remember a midwife trying to show them to me in the final hour but they were covered in bits of poo and I got really angry with her and told her I never wanted to see them again!

@troobleflooble - I think you mean effect change. (Pedantic but true.)

With regards to accents, it is a known thing.

It's called convergence and divergence. If you like someone (or some place) your accent can change to sound more like said persons (or accent from said place)

If you dislike a person / place then your own accent can become stronger.

(It's much more technical than this but I studied it 20 years ago!)

@Notallowedtobesick

One of colleagues definitely thinks my getting a dishwasher is wanky. Both very northern. Both very working class. I treated myself because my houses hot water is an awkward and expensive faff, but to her it's a wanky move. To me it's been a god send and I wear my dishwasher wanker badge with glee.

This reminds me of a friend but with a tumble dryer. I'm not saying you're wanky, but she was and every sentence she had to work the 'the tumble dryer' into it in this theatrical posh voice as though she was wowing everyone with her sophistication at owning one (it once even made its way into a Facebook post that had nothing to do with clothes or the need to dry them).

I used to sit there and inwardly roll my eyes as someone who came from a small developing nation where tumble dryers, while certainly not the norm, were a lot more common that there are in the UK, and nothing to brag about.