English and how it is spoke
 

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Hummm good question willow, I really dont have the answer to your question but i do think its good that we all have our own accents it make us all a little more identifiable if thats a word. I would say its all the Queen's english its just the accent thats different thats not what is said it how we say it.

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Is there anywhere in the country which can honestly claim to speak "proper" with no trace of an accent or are we all deviants from "The Queen's English" ?[/color][/QUOTE] dont honestly believe there is- think regional accents are great,it gives me some idea where a person is from- our own dialect has been eroded somewhat over the years,wether thats good or bad is up to the individual,i think its a shame. also i can honestly say that i can remember being called a DEVIANT willow :rofl38:

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Hi

Good question and always a good on going debate. I have found some interteresting website you may want to ponder on....


http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~lsp/main.html

or an even more quirky subject - Do Ducks have regional accents?

check it out here

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06...ional_accents/

::)

and/or is it possible to speak English without a accent ???????

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

i speaks proppa english :D

i do however like the accent on the old speak and spell machine ime almost on level 2 now :alright:

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Oh my i had one of those:o many many plus many xmas's ago, tho very true about his voice "please spell house"? tehehehe oh i feel really old now thanx Chav:eek: i also had speak & Maths too and still didn't do me any favours:(

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

In fact, the Northern accent is closer to Old English than the current Southern speak, in that it makes use of old forms like "thou" and thee". Even the BBC now uses Estuaryspeak, which sounds awful.

Mind you, when Prince Charles says "Ai'm going dine into tine to see a man abite a dawg" - what hope for the rest of us?

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

True point they have strange visions of us Northerners as well, the amount of times i've heard from southern counterparts "Do u still have cloth caps, whippets & clogs"? i dont know where they get the idea from :confused:

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

A few weeks ago while going for a drive with my parents we were listening to the radio and there is actually a man who is travelling the length of britain obtaining different accents for a tv programe. he mentioned that there are hundreds of different accents in england and that everyone everyday is subjected to a rare and different accent in there own home town, due to the many different races of people and how we nowadays speak our own accent.

take a look around you and see who you have living next door to you? are they english, asian, indian, from another county in england? ie from newcastle, london, yorkshire? if you speak to your neighbours you actually pick up their accent and mix it in with your own accent and thus bringing out a new accent!

have you noticed when you take a young child on holiday, say they make friends with another child from liverpool you come home after that holiday and the child speaks to a friend of yours who hasnt been on this holiday and believe it but the child will be speaking liverpudlian.
we lancashire people still got our "owd" accent but the more and more people who move up here with different accents will slowly change our accent into something that will not be as broad as what we can be now! :)

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

its been pointed out to me many times that i speak (broader) when talking to older lancastrians etc,something i was never aware of until told.anybody else noticed the same with themselves? or am i just a nutter?lol

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Oh i hope it doesn't happen to me then tehehehe i have a friend who has lived here most of her life but originally came from liverpool, she speaks rather lancastrian now but when she's in a mood or having a go, oh dear the birth accent comes straight out, least we know when to leave tehehe:)

My X husband was a southerner & moved up to lancs in his mid teens but he has a crossover of the 2 accents going at once so nobody from up here understood him nor did anyone down south tehehehe, so it can get very confusing.

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

no your not a nutter cashman! honest! :D lol

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Yeah i find that i get broader & use Lancastrian slang like 'th'owd' & when we refer to people like brothers or sister its 'our such a body' & o'er instead of over. My brother when he was a toddler he was very broad deep Lancastrian. Yeh its strange when u get it pointed out

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

maybe strange but be proud though!!!!!!:engsmil:

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Oh i am my sayin goes im Northern & im proud of it!!!! :)

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

yeh boo certainly am proud, just to wander a bit my nan used to say something that i still cant find out where it originated (thowd mangle side ot benk) i know what the benk was but beats me where the name comes from anybody know? :confused:

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Though Lancastrian borders have changed somewhat over the years Bolton was part of Lancs & now its Greater Manchester they have a regional accent of Manc & Lanc tehehehe but least as you said Babyboo about mixed regionals/race intergrated in places that variation accents get picked easily.

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Whats a benk Cashy?? though know what a mangle is tehehe

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

i think its funny really, my cousins who are 3 and 4 years old live in germany in the army barracks and the kids who live within army barracks actually have there own accent the reason being is that they move around so much and most of the army "families' are from different parts of the world they pick it up so easily! if one of them was to speak to me id probably need a translater to understand them and they are from lancashire too! they have a mixture of lancashire, newcaslte, liverpool, london, german, any accent you can think of! they have it! :D

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

the benk was in the back yard usually to the side of the window by the adjoining wall a large flat stone effort about waist high,aint very good at describing things so thatll have to do.lol

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Ahhhh right i get it now tehehehe cheers Cashy:)

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Oh gosh there is a lot of accents in one there:eek: i bet that is very confusing Babyboo

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

thats what i want to know willow the name was in use- the benk was not,can only hazard a guess! maybe for putting the damp clothes on either before or after mangaling them? owd bert may know? :confused:

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

I think it was connected to the man that BabyBoo mentioned, but in the other week's Sunday Times there was a report saying that regional accents are making a come back. There was also an example given of regional ways of saying cold. Our's was 'fleeing'. Which we say all the time, and I have never really thought of before.

Does it mean that it's so cold in Accrington that we don't need delousing because they have jumped off?

This flies in the face of the fear that with mass communication, and the Americanisation of our culture, we would all be speaking Estuaryspeak before very long, that awful Thameslink corridor garbage they speak in the south east.

After nearly half my life living away from Lancashire, I'm happy to report that my accent is returning. Though I guess I'm lucky, everything ever to leave my lips is the Queen's English, ie: mine.;)

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

I would rather have my own accent than the home counties idea of an accent. Its part of our identity and as such should remain so. If its good enough for Scousers Weegies Welsh and all other parts of the country then it should be good enough for us. Can you imagine the Worzels or Chas n Dave singing in proper English? There is a time and place for both Queens English And Llocal English we just need to make the right choice.

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Now that is a good example of why some people should have their tongues ripped out :rolleyes:

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

I love accents and, particularly, dialect. My favourite accent is the North East. I lived in Durham City for 3 years and the accent there, not quite as "raw" as Geordie, is very attractive. You have fabulous expressions like "Howay". My son when aged about 9 would say to me, when exasperated , "Howay man, mum" and then there's "canny", which can mean anything from clever and cute to being a know-all, depending on the context of the conversation and the tone of voice. And everybody is referred to as "pet", except men to men when it's "marra".

I now live quite near Warrington which, though now in Cheshire, was in Lancashire until 1974. The Warrington accent is not at all attractive, a sort of mixture of Lancs and Manchester, but it's odd words that always make me stop and think. An example is the word "bonny". All my life I've used bonny to mean good-looking, pretty etc. In Warrington it means fat. Never tell a Warrington lady she's a bonny girl or she'll be mortally offended. They also tend to miss out the word "to", as in "I'm goin' work".

Oh, and don't let Southerners tell you they have no accent or that theirs is superior. They all spoke pretty much like Lancastrians until about the 17th century when the "London" accent began to become fashionable - that's all it was, a fashion.

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Tehehehe thats some great examples of dialet & accents Westender specially found the quote funny though i bet it was quite confusing if you got caught up in the embarrassment for an innocent phraze :)

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Originally Posted by SPUGGIE J
Worzels or Chas n Dave singing in proper English?

Neils not into Chaz n Dave or the Worzels something for the future he he he

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

My dad was quite broad (as in dialect) and people often said I swapped tongue when talking to him. Working in Cheshire amongst the Knutsford set I often get pulled for my accent. In fact one manager actually said it was one of my strengths in that people mentioned to him that my accent came across as straight talking and people tended to believe what I said where they might not have done if it had been anyone else. Also dealing with a lot of southern people(an philipinos and Indians) in my job it is sometimes good to stick some dialect in the conversation just to confuse them a bit :)

I would say that I do find it easy to 'drop' teh accent when I need to though(i.e. when a big wig from down south joins a phone conference)

Ian

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Ian, you should be proud of your Lancashire accent. Don't "drop it" just because your talking too some southern shandy drinker :D

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

I was always putting my foot in it by saying people were bonny when I first moved here. I told a chap I worked with that I thought his little girl was "really bonny" and he got quite upset and kept saying "Well, she's big for her age but she's not fat". :D

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Entwisi, I work with a lady who is very much a "Knutsford Set" type (though I know Knutsford well, living very close to it, and it's not all that sophisticated). This lady speaks very, very precisely with a drawling accent that's more Westminster than Warrington (my office is in Warrington), is lady captain of her golf club and has a lifestyle like something out of "The Lady".

One day I was chatting to one of our typists, a nice woman who originates from one of the former large Council estates and has a broad Warrington accent. She was talking about her primary school, on the estate, and just happened to mention that the other lady was in the same class as her at school. "Oh yeah," she said, "She lived just round t'corner from me. Her dad worked on t'railway".

One never knows, does one? ;)

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Heh, No they don't. Knutsford actually has some really dodgy council estates. One thing that I find funny is that 95% of people are living hocked up to the eyeballs to keep up appearences. Very rarely do you see people leaving much cash when you read teh local obits.

Neil, I am proud of my accent. I drop it occasionally because thay ask for a technical overview and its hard enough to understand what I am saying without an accent nevermind Websphere for Lankies. :)

Ian

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

My cousin Bill (whom Cashman knows) has a curious accent - he has lived in the States for years, and his is part Lancs and part Yankee.

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Pendy now there is a confused accent.

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

What's wrong with the accent in the south east (or is that sarf east?), or lack thereof.

I don't talk like Chas and Dave, and I also don't talk like they do on the BBC, just normal english (no accent!)

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

There's nothing wrong with any of the many accents of the South East but the region does have varied accents. Cockney, of course, is very distinctive though a lot of Northerners don't know it from any other southern accent. I particularly like the Essex accent, and I mean "old" Essex, not the London overspill type. I had an uncle who was, originally, an Essex countryman. His accent was a little like the Suffolk one, and not dissimilar to "old" Kent. I can always remember him calling my dad, "Harry booy (boy)", a typical Essex expression. I have 2 friends from Surrey and their accent is different again, far more like the London accent but not as nasal. Oh, and there's a difference between North and South London too.

By the way, I just love the way Chas and Dave speak. Long live ALL accents! :) (I, of course, haven't got one. ;) )

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

can,t see owt wrong at all with regional accents, it defines differant areas and i hate everybody equally lol

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

There's no such thing as a definitive English accent. There are as many variations in the South-east as the rest of the country, some as irritatingly lazy to the ear as the Brummie accent is.

As for the Queen's English, that clipped, quietly delivered, slightly germanic lisp, is thankfully unique to her Majesty.

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

My Dad used t say to be when i was little.
Thara Bonny B****r when i'd done sommat daft.

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

I thought I'd heard or read somewhere that the purest form of English was spoken in Inverness, so I did a google and found the following:




Scottish Dialect http://www.talentscotland.com/uploads/2322/ES_1947A.jpgThe Scottish Dialect

Scotland’s rich variety of dialects contains some of the clearest and most melodic English spoken anywhere in the world.

Scotland has a wealth of dialects but the key thing for the newcomer to remember is that while all these rich dialects exist, the majority of Scots speak standard English with an intelligible Scottish accent.

Indeed, Scottish accents are the most popular among call centre users across the whole of the UK and it is said that the Highlanders from around Inverness speak the clearest and most melodious form of English anywhere in Britain.

The majority of Scots speak standard English

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

The play that I'm currently rehearsing for requires really broad accents. We are playing factory workers from 1945. I know that I'd be identified as a Lancashire lass from anywhere else but it's really hard trying to make it broader than it is.

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

That's true, East coast Scotland has some very precise accents. After having lived in Glasgow however, if you ever venture into the Gobals, don't forget your phrase book, you'll not understand a bloody word.;)

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

true that rindy ........i spent a week up in glasgow & came back with a brain more fuddled than when i went he he ...........but still think they are great people.

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

is that the rab c nesbit accent?

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

GC thats terrible Rab C Nessbit accent is weegie aka Glaswegien up Inverness and all highland areas they are tuechters. Ther eis another frase for them but I would be banned from the sight for saying it. :rolleyes:

Re: English and how it is spoke
 

oops sorry