Free firty (3:30) - is this an accent or ignorant speak?

What I find offensive is the recent spate of adverts on TV, for example, the vacuum cleaner guy who has a Nottinghamshire dialect and speaks very slowly. It's as if they have been told to speak slowly and roughly so the plebs can understand!

I do cringe when I hear David Beckham speak and I wonder if he speaks that way when with the "Royals" he is so friendly with. Also how his children speak, not like him I guess.

Great rant, NemosMum!

I agree entirely with Nemosmum on this one. Though can't stand 'free firty' either.

Interesting that several posters refer to 'lazy, uneducated' speech, presumably 'lazy' is intended as a criticism of the speaker, is 'uneducated'?

As a teacher I've always tried to ensure that I provide an example of clear, comprehensible speech. I have never, however, implied that there is anything wrong with a pupil's accent or use of dialect words. To do so is to humiliate and disrespect the pupil, their family and their region.

I am originally from Yorkshire & still have traces of my accent despite not living there for 40 years. I have what I would describe "as well spoken" accent from years of telephone contact through my job (being aware that many would not be able to understand my true accent).

I now live in Devon, I'm sure my accent will become stronger again

My late DH was a Londoner, not a "free firty" or as he would say "I fink & I fought" to indicate some-one born in "sarf London" or East London (he lived in Bayswater as a child).

My DM at 88 still has her "telephone voice"

I love Regional accents & am sad to see them being watered down. I remember seeing an interview with some Asian teenagers from Rochdale who all had broad Lancashire accents

The "lazy" speech of the younger generations in this area contains many superfluous words, such as "like" in every sentence. I find this much more annoying than dropping aitches etc.

Oh dear! My husband has difficulty with 'th' and says 'firty' for thirty. He tries sometimes but just can't do it. Anyway he's 66 and is unlikely to change now. In the great scheme of things it doesn't bother me and it certainly doesn't bother him

However what did bother me was when we moved from Merseyside to Hertfordshire many years ago and one of the grandmothers at my daughters primary school insisted on trying to correct her accent when listening to her read. "No no it's 'barrth' not 'baath' and 'gararge' not 'garage'.

I'm with NemosMum. I don't see what it matters.
My upwardly mobile parents deliberately lost, almost when it came to my mother but 100% for my father, their Lancashire accent, which I think is a lovely warm sounding accent. I don't mind any accents as long as I can understand them and I like David Beckham's speech just because it's how he speaks and reflects where he comes from. Posh accents as in Made in Chelsea I just think are comical.

"free" means something entirely different to "three"

When my husband was working in London and asking people directions to where Harlesden was, nobody could tell him when this chap said oh! You mean Arlesden. We still laugh about it now and this was over 40 years ago ?

I have a friend who was incensed that her grandson was being taught old scots words at school ...."after me working so hard to have him speak good English" she said.Well I'm sorry but I love the regional variations in accent and the local words and I would hate to see them all go.If the only reason we ALL have to speak the same way..without accents or variations..and I love the irish "tree tirty",is SNOBBERY then its time it ended.I have no wish to sound like someone born 500 miles away ..or with an english accent or to say Barth instead of bath .Isn't it sad so many cant just be themselves and let the rest of us be who we want to be.

I think our own accents change during our lives. My mother was brought up in Drury Lane, me in South London, but I went to a convent school and worked in advertising - and without me realising it my accent changed. So much so that my sons can never understand how I speak the way I do when my mother doesn't. I normally just accept accents, however, I do cringe when one of the experts on The Chase always say firty fousand.

Its colloquial, but even so it is incorrect - "th" and "f" are two completely different sounds ..... I was born in Notting Hill where most people spoke with the "f"....I was taught at home and at school to pronounce words correctly which helped my career prospects enormously.

I'm often told by my sisters that I answer the phone with "my telephone voice". I'm very conscious of the way I speak at work and on the answer phone, obviously I must speak differently when we're all together.

I don't think it's a regional London thing because by no means all Londoners say it, although I do think it has become more common, (that is, more usual -- not referencing any kind of underclass!) as has the ugly glottal stop. (Bu'er instead of butter etc. )
My mother's family were working class but educated East Londoners who all went on to professional careers and as children they would have been sharply corrected by both their parents and teachers if they had said free firty. Or bu'er. Because to them it would have sounded uneducated.
If you listen to British films of the 40s and 50s yer lovable cockney character might have dropped his or her aitches but otherwise spoke in an accent we would consider almost middle class these days.
For example Barbara Windsor sounded quite different in the early Carry On films than she did more recently as the East Enders matriarch.
I'm a born cockney too so I can pontificate! --

Personally I don't like the use of "k" instead of "g" , as in somethink, nuffink, anyfink, grrr

Language does change all the time, so we do have to accept that various words change pronunciation. When I was a child many of my grandparents' generation still spoke of "a chimist's shop" not "a chemist's shop" and now even British people seem to prefer " a pharmacy".

However, as language is primarily a means of communication, I still feel we need a standard form of both the written and the spoken language.

I'm sure it was not only in Scotland that we who were children in the 1950s and 1960s could speak both a standard form of English and "broad Scots". A standard form for use at school, on formal occasions and when speaking to those from other parts of the country, broad Scots i.e. Doric Scots when speaking to those who used it, and broad Glesga when we went into Glasgow - the seven miles between Glasgow and Barrhead resulted in two different dialects, Glesga and Borrheid.

I think it depends too on what specific area a person comes from. Even with my 'uneducated' brain, I can pick up regional differences in my Essex/London accent when I hear it spoken by others.

I'm Yorkshire born and bred, and proud to be from a working class background, and to have a regional accent. If you speak pleasantly and clearly why is there an issue ? Of course people who are raised hearing things repeated constantly copy it. It doesn't mean people are thick or lazy they just aren't trying to be something they are not, and be false. I managed perfectly well working in finances

Isn't it interesting how some accents are seen as charming and interesting and others as common?

Whitewave Unless I am mistaken does the lady you mention not spell her name with an i not an e?

I think it is a lazy way to speak.

When I went to college in London from the north-east the head of English at my grammar school said to me that I must say 'my mother' instead of 'me mam' otherwise people would laugh at me. Well they never did but two girls in my group asked me to read from a paper so that they could laugh at me saying, 'Oh how we laff to see a giraffe go down the path to take a bath' , not parth or barth.

When I was a regular visitor to the highlands, they would say words which I had never heard of, such as 'jamp' instead of 'jumped'. Is that lazy? Offensive? Uneducated? I found it fascinating, as they did my way of speaking.