What do you sound like ?

gillybob having lived down South for most of her life my mother-in-law's Northern origins were still obvious in her 'u' sounds which were much longer than the standard 'u' "oo" is just a way of indicating this. I still say a longer "u' on words like buses and butter. How else do you think we should indicate a northern accent? - and we don't pronounce "u" properly. Standard pronunciation is a short "u" think of the difference between how you say umbrella and bus

Indefinable Scots. My sons can 't hear it - they both have an indefinable English accent. But when I hear myself on an answerphone, it's perfectly clear to me. I was born in West of Scotland, to local Mum and Fifer Dad. We've lived in several parts of England so DSs were never in any place long enough to pick up a local accent. Biggest puzzle is 9-year-old GS who has a very 'posh' accent, quite different from his father and brother and his Northern Irish mother.

But we don't say "oop" trisher we say up with an "u" sound.

There is no "oo" . Even more

I love real accents of all kinds. "Posh" (RP) is not an accent, it's a deliberate non-accent and is more identified with a particular social group than anyone from a given region.

Anyone, with any accent can speak plainly and properly.

I've used "oop" for "up" when writing something gillybob it's just a way of indicating the word is to be pronounced with a Northern accent. Much as if I was writing something with a Somerset accent I might add the occasional "r" to words.

I think it's not so much that Northerners say 'oop' but that Southerners say 'ap'.

Christinefrance the purest "ENGLISH" accent is found in the highlands of Scotland around Inverness,I also get very irritated when people screw their faces up and complain about Scottish accents on TV or wherever ,they seem to think all the accents south of the border are better/easier to understand and thats simply not true

And speaking of Northerners and Southerners, where does the divide sit? I'm accentless (as I'm told) due to an army family background noving around throughout my childhood. I now live in the Black Country. Are we Midlanders Norf or Sarf, I wonder?

We Geordie's tend to be able to laugh at ourselves. I have no problem with anyone asking me to say "when the boat comes in" or any other silly tongue in cheek Geordie sayings.

But this "oop north" thing really puzzles (not offends) me as I have (hand on heart) never heard a Northerner use the word "oop" for "up".

annifrance
Often find Northerners have a chip on the shoulders about being Northerners
We Northerners don't have chips on our shoulders about being Northern, the vast majority of us wouldn't want to be anything else!
We may, however, sometimes get a bit 'narked' at the way some Southerners treat us, you know, 'all cloth cap and clogs'!

Born in and have never lived anywhere else apart from S.E. I'm told I sound like a Londoner but not a cockney which H truley is.
Mum moved here from Bristol when she was 15 and although I couldn't hear it everyone knew she was west country born even after 70 yrs.

Don't laugh, but I was recently told I had a refined accent, I was born in Liverpool moved 9 miles away from there in 1945. Have lived in the South, in my early twenties, when I joined the Navy.

I must say though, that the village I lived in as a child, when those children moved to school in the nearby town they. We were always asked to read at assemblies. We were always complemented on our speech.

I'm Hampshire born and bred so anything north of Surrey is Up North to me! I talk normally, it's everyone else who has an accent. Of course it is barth and carstle along with scon not scone.

In a lift the other day someone asked me if my accent was Australian!? I replied No, norf London mate!

I have a basic southern accent, with barth, carstle etc, although whenever I speak to anyone Welsh my own Welsh accent comes back strongly. I seem to adapt to wherever I am and whoever I'm with. My first husband was a north-Londoner, and my current husband is a total Eastender, my mother is German.......I'm a bit of a hybrid.

I used to pronounce words the Welsh way - tooth was sounded "tuth" as in "put;" saucepan was "sospan." Strangely, my German mother still pronounces them like that.

As previously mentioned, I'm another person with a large percentage of Cumbrian ( lived here since aged 1, but born in London), but with much Geordie/Northumberland input.

Essex which is obvious to all,lived in Norfolk for 9 years and some of the phrases have stuck but still obviously a furriner here.....sound like Pauline Quirk on phone from her Sharon days

Being from Kent originally but now in Gloucestershire I am told I sound 'posh', but when I get with my friend who is originally from Essex I no longer sound 'posh' ??

Southerner, RP and often called posh, quite often this is said as an insult and I would like to say to whomever, if I called you common how would that sit? Often find Northerners have a chip on the shoulders about being Northerners and it is so irritating as we are really all the same. Judge ye not lest ye be judged.

I have what I think Jeremy Hardy from Radio 4 described as sympathetic accent syndrome. It means my normal voice (no particular accent/ RP) tends to mimic any accent I hear. I really don't mean to and I'm not being rude or mocking.

I blame my mother for, as she put it, beating the local accent out of me. She was from the midlands and had gone to a private school as a perk of her father's job. She had been bullied for her local accent and taught herself how to 'talk proper'.

I was good at drama at school and could put on any accent required. Now if I am with a northern friend I have flat a's, with a London friend I get a bit cockney and slightly yokel if I am with family in the West Country. And if I visit family in South Wales I get lilt-y.

I really don't mean to do it!

My adult nephew is the only member of my southern family with a Mancunian accent. They moved to a Manchester suburb when he was eight and his accent changed almost overnight.

When I asked him how he mastered it so quickly he said it was either that or get his head kicked in!

Like you, NanKate, I grew up in the Midlands (Worcs in my case). I had a lisp and a roticism so had elocution lessons and everyone ever since has told me that I sound "educated". When DDs were 4 and 6 we moved from Canvey Island (Estuary Essex) to near Kendal and they picked up the most revolting cross-dialect, the worst of Sarfend/Cumbria!

RP and a bit posh - I might be one of the last generation to have experienced compulsory elocution lessons at school. But I've moved around a lot, and mixed in many different social groups, so I think I've picked up odd bits and pieces of other pronunciations on top. I generally damp down the poshness but have been known to go full memsahib when dealing with recalcitrant authority...

Born & bred in Surrey & never lived anywhere else- I was once told I sounded like Margot Leadbetter ( Good Life) so I have been ' dumbing down '- in my mother's words- ever since. A bath is a barth south of Watford !
I think I have a normal 'English' voice but I think we all do don't we??

I have a Cheshire accent, not the rural dairy farmer accent of East Cheshire, which can at times hold a bit of a Staffordshire/Midlands sound.
My accent is West Cheshire/Chester, with the fast speech of Scouse, due to working with Scousers for many years.
I'm definitely a "bath", "grass", "scon" person, which is the correct pronunciation.
Of course, there are those who insist that "barth" and "grarss" are correct; maybe they should remind themselves that their pronunciation rhymes with "arse"!
GrandmaMoira You're correct, civilisation does indeed end at Watford, if you're heading south of course!