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One in four have accents mocked at work – survey

stuaxo 4y ago
The UK is a hierarchical society enforced by those at every level. It's ingrained, having certain accents is an advantage.
- nirimda 4y ago
  Is it much different than the US? I hear a lot of anecdotes suggesting people with certain accents in the US getting criticised (even when it's not a proxy for race - e.g. Boston or southern accents), whereas accents closer to General American seem to have a social advantage. Some Americans even maintain two accents.
  - Ocerge 4y ago
    Having grown up in Central Texas, I absolutely have a Texas drawl in my back pocket whenever I want it, but generally my accent is just standard American + overuse of "y'all". The drawl comes out usually for comedic effect or if I recently talked to my dad on the phone. I don't think I've considered either aspect of my accent advantageous. I might feel differently if my accent was deeply southern, however.
    - arethuza 4y ago
      I have to say that being from the UK (and a class oblivious Scot) I found people in Texas referring to me as "sir" deeply disturbing.
- TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
  Exactly this. The more north in UK you come from, the less class status you have by default. I am honestly surprised that BBC needed a survey for that.
  - arethuza 4y ago
    "The more north in UK you come from, the less class status you have by default." As someone who comes from the North East of Scotland I'm not sure I'd agree with that... then again I might be blissfully unaware of my lowly status in life.
    - was_a_dev 4y ago
      My partner and I both grew up in Yorkshire, and she has a strong Yorkshire accent. She trained to be a doctor in Nottingham, where she was typically undermined by other doctors and patients due to her accent and the percieved professionalism that is lacking with that accent. We now live in the North East, and she hasn't had a repeated experience from anyone local - just those with a more 'southernly' accent. The respect she's given is night and day in difference. In conversation with her colleagues, I asked if the inverse was true for them. Did their southern accent cause a barrier with the patients in the North East? None of her colleagues could comprehend the question, let alone could provide a clear answer.
  - toyg 4y ago
    > I am honestly surprised that BBC needed a survey for that. Obviously they don't, what they need is to occasionally justify activity to redress the well-known imbalance. One might argue this need is at its highest, in a climate where the last 5 prime ministers are Oxford graduates.
prvit 4y ago
Yeah, of course. This doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s heard how some of these people talk. Ridiculous accents and the mockery of them are a proud British tradition.
- dazc 4y ago
  You are correct, of course, but as a Northerner who has lived in in the South for over 10 years, the best advice I could give any young person would be to try and lose your regional accent as soon as you are able. Few, other than a close circle of friends, will openly mock you but the silent majority will judge you as soon as you utter a word.
  - butler14 4y ago
    I got this in London as a midlander, too. People assume because I am from between London and Manchester I must be a brummie.
doingtheiroming 4y ago
This is getting traction because the London media class has noticed people taking the mickey out of their adoption of the vocal fry from their New York brethren. They don't want regionals laughing at them. It's vitally important that Southerners keep talking in silly accents. It's useful to spot people who are going to try to steal your stuff using emails.
obayesshelton 4y ago
Sounds like discrimination
toyg 4y ago
In a normal country, this sort of post could be liquidated with a comment like "People often do not grow up, and keep using playground-bullying jokes. News at 11." But - the UK is deeply and relentlessly classist. Accents are one of the instruments that ruling classes use to keep the hoi polloi "in their place". So this issue gets highlighted routinely - and there has been a real effort to address the problem, particularly by Labour governments (starting with the Blair ones) and particularly in state-controlled media.
- willyt 4y ago
  Hmmm, are you British? Perhaps you could give some examples? I don't think the UK is relentlessly classist and accents work both ways because having an accent that is too posh in Britain is also a disadvantage. We used to tease someone at work who had a posh accent; they pronounced Diet Coke as 'Daat coake'. Everyone makes little jokes all the time in the workplace, but if anything we possibly went a bit to far in teasing that person because we felt she was fair game being from a privileged background. You can often tell from an accent when someone has been privately educated; there are many situations where this might not be an advantage so these people also try to suppress their accents. The dim witted but arrogant privately educated schoolboy is a British cultural meme. Having an accent from a different region can be a disadvantage just because in some regions you literally would not be able to understand what people are talking about among themselves because you don't understand a) the regional use of dialect and b) the local topics of conversation that will have specific regional words.
  - antihero 4y ago
    Obviously it's important to emphasise kindness and respect, but with regards to light-hearted jabs, it's important to note the direction you’re punching. If you are mocking someone who’s had a magnitude more opportunity and investment and education more than you, it isn’t hugely a problem for them. If it goes the other way toward someone who’s had to massively struggle to get where they are it undermines them. A punch is a punch, but surely Mike Tyson punching a pensioner is worse than the opposite? Power dynamics are the same actions having different outcomes. I’m British and I love a good bit of banter as it shows trust, but taken too far or done with any significant power asymmetry becomes toxic very quickly. I guess perhaps fitting the working-class box is "cooler" in popular culture, though. Here's another example: Interactions with the police. As someone who, whilst though I grew up poor, is white, eloquent and has a Surrey accent, the various times I've been arrested I've been able to deftly fit into the "good citizen who's made a mistake box" and got off with minimal consequences. If I talked like I was from the estate or had a darker complexion, these interactions would sway toward the "bloody criminal" box and I would have had the book thrown at me.
pjc50 4y ago
For better or worse, the prevalence of US media and the "melting pot" effect of larger cities is gradually flattening out British accents and slang. But at the same time, the country also runs on prejudice and going to the right school. (Rishi Sunak is celebrating the achievement of being the first UK PM from a minority background - he went to one of the less popular Oxford colleges https://cherwell.org/2022/10/25/diversity-triumphs-uk-finally-has-pm-from-lincoln-college/ https://cherwell.org/2022/10/25/diversity-triumphs-uk-finall... )
- mynameishere 4y ago
  Disraeli was from a minority background, and in the same sort of overclass way.
- hnbad 4y ago
  I came across an article the other day claiming that some American kids were actually picking up an Australian accent (and a few Australian slang words like "dunny") over the pandemic thanks to the Australian kids' show Bluey being available on Disney+ in the US. I wouldn't be totally surprised if that effect was real.
  - TheHappyOddish 4y ago
    That's fine by us, we mock the American accent relentlessly!
dmos62 4y ago
I'd like to know more about UK accents. From what I hear, during colonization of North America, UK spoke similarly to how US speaks now, but since then US accents stayed somewhat the same, while UK accents drifted a lot. Apparently, at a certain time in history, in UK, it was posh to speak differently. Was that a form of classism?
- pjc50 4y ago
  The opening scene of My Fair Lady where Henry Higgins the linguist is able to spot which area of London someone comes from by a few words in their accent is a slight exaggeration, but not much. The UK developed hyper-regional accents (unavoidable in the pre-mass-media age), and poshness being a particular set of families who socialise with each other and are educated together converged on its own accent. Especially among people who've been to Oxford or Cambridge. This effect got magnified by the early BBC being based in southern England and comprised of educated people, leading to a distinctive "BBC English". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation (Also factor in the bans at various times on speaking Gaelic or Welsh; children were being beaten for speaking Welsh at school well into the 1970s, but the plan to extinguish the language never quite succeeded.)
  - Doctor_Fegg 4y ago
    Growing up in the 1980s, I could tell from their accent whether a child came from Oakham (where I lived), Whissendine (five miles away), or Melton Mowbray (five miles beyond that). 30/40 years later the differences are still there, but increasingly ironed out by the spread of a generic southern English accent. Where I now live in rural Oxfordshire, the traditional local accent is a definite minority, particularly in those under 40. There are little tell-tale vowels and phrases if you look closely for them, but they're more like variations on a common accent. That said, Midlands and northern accents seem to be fairly resilient, at least for now.
  - toyg 4y ago
    > but the plan to extinguish [Welsh] never quite succeeded Political winds just revived what was effectively a dead language, in the nick of time.
giantg2 4y ago
Or you could be from Philly and have people are fun of you everywhere you go for the use of "jawn" and "water".
- kcplate 4y ago
  Oh yeah, the Philly is strong and distinct. My accent isn’t Deep South thick, but it’s there. I’ve embraced my use of “ain’t”, “y’all”, “fixin to”, and “whatnot”. When poked fun at, I generally respond with a “bless your heart”. Which people misunderstand as politeness.
kolleykibber 4y ago
If you want to understand how messed up the UK class/accent system is and how damaging for all sides, there's an episode of below deck med. It plays out between a private school chef and a northern stewardess.
throwaway22032 4y ago
I find this article amusing because the clue is right there in the name. Received Pronunciation is just that, received. You can learn it, in fact it has been and continues to be taught both in schools, in elocution lessons, and in educational videos online. I sincerely doubt that this is a purely UK based phenomenon. The example that comes to mind is the stereotypical "black man with white accent" from US sitcoms. I don't know how that works in the real world, but I'd feel fairly confident in placing a bet that there aren't many white collar CEOs who sound like they're from the hood.
- Balero 4y ago
  The onus should not be on a person changing an important part of themselves because of some classist people. To many people their accent is an important part of who they are, part of their identity and one that can't simply be switched out for 8 hours a day.
  - throwaway22032 4y ago
    I agree. RP is part of an identity. One which can be adopted. In fact, I'd probably go as far as to say that one of the reasons it has the cachet it does is precisely because of that, because of what it's not.
  - nells 4y ago
    I don’t know why the onus should be on classist people stopping being classist. One may as well say that it is part of their character.
KaiserPro 4y ago
oi hent had that praablem boh. I cun talk loike I do at hum, withoout much hoohar.[1] I have lost my "cuntree" accent, because that shit is a far bigger impediment to getting a job than actual class. (and in some cases race, but thats more complex) but, for those who are outside of the UK and want to understand, its hard to translate. There are three things that you are judged on here in the UK, and they are all sort of related to class: o Your clothes o your attitude o your accent All of these are proxies for class. The most important thing to be aware of is that race is not normally a signifier for class. to use a recent example: Rishi, our new prime minister, is posh as fuck. Posher, but not by much, than Liz truss. However less posh than Boris, as he is a no fooling aristocrat. If we compare Rishi to Priti Patel, former Home secretary, who is middle-middle class at best. The differentiator is accent, not wealth. Rishi is richer than the king, but thats not why he's posh. That is not to say that race is not a factor. its just nowhere near as big of a thing as it is in america. The advantage is that you can change your class, its much harder to change your race. However your class at the time of your birth leaves an inprint/set of habits that are difficult to overcome. I do know someone who was raised on a london estate with a strong SAAAAAF LAAANDEN accent, who now is a QC/KC (senior lawyer) and has a received pronunciation accent. It wasnt until I met her parents and sister that I realised how much she'd changed. [1] https://youtu.be/Feb-CdHBXc8?t=114 https://youtu.be/Feb-CdHBXc8?t=114 Although the mum has quite a soft central norfolk possibly norwich accent.
- idkwhoiam 4y ago
  Are foreigners assigned a class too or is it a native thing only?
  - toyg 4y ago
    Like gaijins in Japan, foreigners in UK are not typically expected to participate in the system at all.
    - dreen 4y ago
      I spent the last 15 years in London and I strongly disagree. Not only are foreigners judged (perhaps subconsciously) on how British they can be, where you came from initially matters a great deal as well, which is why I worked on loosing my Eastern European accent. That being said, over those 15 years, I was only openly discriminated against once.
darraghenright 4y ago
In my experience, there's a cohort of middle-aged British men out there who absolutely cannot help but demonstrate their "oirish" accent as soon as they are in Ireland or meet an Irish person. It's a bit weird but I try to take it as an endearment. That said, Irish people tend to be very fond of accent mimickery too.
- MaxPengwing 4y ago
  When I moved to Ireland in 2014 I made the mistake of having an Oxbridge accent, and there was quite a few people who did not take kindly to that. One train station attendee put up a gone for lunch sign in my face mid sentence, and it wasn't even past breakfast time. I was being perfectly courteous and was just having some trouble understanding how to charge my leap card. That's when I realised, Oxbridge is not good if you want people to not instantly dislike you in Ireland.
  - smcl 4y ago
    I think many with strong "regional" accents would trade a minor train station inconvenience over lifelong pay disparity and diminished career prospects.
  - blibble 4y ago
    what is an oxbridge accent? cambridgeshire and oxfordshire accents are rather different most of the students attending won't be from either as someone who did attend: I can count the amount of people I met that spoke RP on one hand
    - smcl 4y ago
      Haven't personally heard of an "Oxbridge accent" but my brain filled it in subconsciously.
  - darraghenright 4y ago
    Ouch, well that wasn't very nice, sorry to hear that. Since you mentioned using a Leap card a few years ago I'm guessing you were in Dublin. I live in Cork, we're much friendlier down here! How have you found your experiences since? My partner is from the East Midlands and of course her accent is quite different, but on a couple of occasions my partner has gotten an angry scowl from some random old man, usually in some small-town pub. I thought anti-English sentiment had gone the way of the dodo — when I was a kid it was more common — but I guess it's still hanging on in places :(
donohoe 4y ago
Let’s not forget that mocking accents is not unique to the UK.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
numbsafari 4y ago
My first work trip to the UK was my first trip to the UK period. After clearing customs, I managed to get the rest of the way through the airport, through “the tube”, onto a train to the midlands, a taxi ride, and checked into my hotel with hardly any talking. The front desk person dutifully told me that the restaurant was closed, but room service available (this is pre door dash, et. al.). I got to my room and unpacked, with the TV playing in the background, as was my way back then and now. I did some stretching, and then decided to order some dinner. I picked up the phone, dialed the room service number, and after I was greeted by a pleasant “Room Service?” I immediately felt my body wanting to reply with terribly Monty Python voice of American’s trying to sound British. I couldn’t stop myself. I could just feel it wanting to happen. So I hung up. Confused, and somewhat alarmed because I had 3 days of corporate training to perform and that’s not going to go well if I have an accent trying to break out of me like a teenage boy’s voice breaking uncontrollably, I turned off the TV and tried practicing talking. Even alone in my room, it took me a few minutes to try and get it under control. I grew up moving quite a bit between places with people from all over, so I don’t, myself, have a particularly stable accent. It was especially true when I was younger. I finally worked myself up to remake that call to room service, and I managed to force myself speak with a right proper American accent…
- hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
  I feel you! Sometimes when I hear Brits (or Scots!) speaking, I just can't help myself.
- TYPE_FASTER 4y ago
  I've noticed myself unintentionally using similar accent/mannerisms/colloquialisms, and found out it's called the chameleon effect: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10402679/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10402679/
- ASalazarMX 4y ago
  This is beautiful. As a native Spanish speaker, hearing very different Spanish accents makes me want want to imitate them, and I have to confess, it's part novelty and part mocking. Spaniards are most fun to imitate, because they have more phonemes than us Latin Americans. The differentiate they Vs and Bs, and their Ss and Zs, but we don't, so we mock ourselves more by mocking them.
bArray 4y ago
> They said those with northern English or Midlands accents were more likely to worry about the way they spoke. > Many of those who were mocked for the way they spoke admitted anxiety over their future career prospects because of perceived prejudiced attitudes. The biggest concern for northerners regarding their future careers is the continued and unchecked concentration of power and wealth towards London and other major cities. Their accent is close to the least of their worries.
- pjc50 4y ago
  > continued and unchecked concentration of power and wealth towards London and other major cities. Potato, potahto. The concentration of power and the prejudice are not unrelated. But also, when you say "other major cities" .. the number 2 and 3, Manchester and Birmingham, both count as "northerner". Power is really just being focused on London and Tory marginal constituencies. Those are the places that really get attention. #4 city is supposedly "Leeds-Bradford", which I don't like as a definition and Bradford is blighted by a literal crater as well as the usual urban problems.
Octabrain 4y ago
I am astonished by what I am reading in the comments. I've been living in the UK for almost 6 years now and not a single time I've felt I've been judged or mistreated because of my accent or even my lack of language skills the first year I was here. Worth mentioning that I definitely don't look like I am native (I am from Africa). Worth mentioning too that I have not been living in a bubble, exposed myself to a short set of interactions. Mind boggling.
- JetSetWilly 4y ago
  People with foreign accents typically escape the ladder of judgement. I think it is well observed that people with various American or Australian or European accents aren't really pigeonholed to some specific class on basis of their accent alone.
- blibble 4y ago
  as someone who went to a bad school in a poor area with a regional accent, now working mostly with people who went to independent schools in the South East: I think I've had one person very mildly comment on my accent in my professional career (pronunciation of "garage") I wouldn't pay that much attention to the comments as it's almost entirely the usual set of "UK bad" professional contrarians (not to say that the class system still isn't prevalent, it definitely is, but not in the way they say)
kypro 4y ago
I'm working class as f - raised to communicate with a strong regional accent, using regional slang, combined of course with at least one or two profanities per sentence. I view the phase, "what's up, dickhead?" as friendly way to greet a friend. I don't know anyone in my family who works a middle class job. You're either unemployed or postman around here. Growing up my school was so bad you were lucky to leave with a few GCSEs. In general you were far more likely to leave with a kid or a smoking addiction. My whole adult life has been a learning experience. I remember first being confused when people mocked how I spoke in university. It wasn't just one or two people either, literally everyone I spoke with would comment on how I spoke. In terms of work, I'm not sure how it's impacted my ability to find work, but I don't think it's helped. Several years ago when I was still learning how to not be working class I had an interview in which I was asked a question I knew I knew the answer to, but just couldn't quite recall. I said something like, "fuck, I know this but can't remember". I didn't swear consciously, it's just automatic, but the interviewer lost it and terminated the interview on the spot saying I was wasting his time. That really upset me as I was having a hard enough time finding work as it was. At one point in my career I ended up working for a start-up incubator in London which was interesting. Everyone there was unbelievably well spoken and while at that point I was starting to get good at not coming across as working class I did get comments whenever we'd go out drinking because I'd temporarily find it difficult to speak proper. Not nasty comments or anything though - they were all really nice - but people obviously noticed and were confused why someone in real life was talking like they were on Jeremy Kyle. I think the hardest part of it is having to self-censor my sense of humour because what I deem offensive or unacceptable is completely out of whack with those I work with. My humour seems to be quite mean which I think is normal for working class people. Like I can joke about literally anything with school friends, but I have to be very careful with jokes at work. Calling someone a gayboy as a joke for doing something a bit gay is unacceptable for example. I also don't seem to know when people are being mean. Middle class people tend to be very easily offended and will hold in their feelings so it's hard to know if you're offending them. I'm not used to that. Growing up people would speak very plainly with each other so that's by far the hardest part for me. I think I'm quite an extreme example of this class divide though. I'm also not sure what the answer is. I judge people who speak like myself force more harshly than anyone I work with. Unlike people I work with I know people from my background are generally trashy.
BrandoElFollito 4y ago
I would not be surprised if the issue of accents being a discriminant (positive or negative) was common everywhere. In France we have a "standard" accent (the one you hear on TV or on the national radio) which corresponds more or less to Paris and the surrounding regions. Someone speaking with this accent is "neutral". We then have an accent that is not related to a region but to the kind of neighborhood called "cité" with large buildings with working class inhabitants (and immigrants). It puts you either in the "homies" category, or in the "touch luck to find a better job" one. People who come from these places, when they want to move up with jobs, will aggressively work on loosing this accent. Finally, there are the regional accents that are not very visible outside of the region. The southern one is very distinctive and a northern one has been made famous by the movie "Welcome to the Sticks". They tend to vanish if you come from these regions but live/work away from it because there is a gradual move towards the "neutral" accent. people who use it, however, are not really discriminated (this is rather a folklori accent), but you do not hear it much. there are exceptions such as one of our prime ministers. Then there is a specific posh accent which has strongly fallen out of fashion and people who were raised with it actively try to use the "neutral" one as well.

The UK is a hierarchical society enforced by those at every level. It's ingrained, having certain accents is an advantage.

nirimda 4y ago
Is it much different than the US? I hear a lot of anecdotes suggesting people with certain accents in the US getting criticised (even when it's not a proxy for race - e.g. Boston or southern accents), whereas accents closer to General American seem to have a social advantage. Some Americans even maintain two accents.
- Ocerge 4y ago
  Having grown up in Central Texas, I absolutely have a Texas drawl in my back pocket whenever I want it, but generally my accent is just standard American + overuse of "y'all". The drawl comes out usually for comedic effect or if I recently talked to my dad on the phone. I don't think I've considered either aspect of my accent advantageous. I might feel differently if my accent was deeply southern, however.
  - arethuza 4y ago
    I have to say that being from the UK (and a class oblivious Scot) I found people in Texas referring to me as "sir" deeply disturbing.
TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
Exactly this. The more north in UK you come from, the less class status you have by default. I am honestly surprised that BBC needed a survey for that.
- arethuza 4y ago
  "The more north in UK you come from, the less class status you have by default." As someone who comes from the North East of Scotland I'm not sure I'd agree with that... then again I might be blissfully unaware of my lowly status in life.
  - was_a_dev 4y ago
    My partner and I both grew up in Yorkshire, and she has a strong Yorkshire accent. She trained to be a doctor in Nottingham, where she was typically undermined by other doctors and patients due to her accent and the percieved professionalism that is lacking with that accent. We now live in the North East, and she hasn't had a repeated experience from anyone local - just those with a more 'southernly' accent. The respect she's given is night and day in difference. In conversation with her colleagues, I asked if the inverse was true for them. Did their southern accent cause a barrier with the patients in the North East? None of her colleagues could comprehend the question, let alone could provide a clear answer.
- toyg 4y ago
  > I am honestly surprised that BBC needed a survey for that. Obviously they don't, what they need is to occasionally justify activity to redress the well-known imbalance. One might argue this need is at its highest, in a climate where the last 5 prime ministers are Oxford graduates.

prvit 4y ago

Yeah, of course. This doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s heard how some of these people talk. Ridiculous accents and the mockery of them are a proud British tradition.

dazc 4y ago
You are correct, of course, but as a Northerner who has lived in in the South for over 10 years, the best advice I could give any young person would be to try and lose your regional accent as soon as you are able. Few, other than a close circle of friends, will openly mock you but the silent majority will judge you as soon as you utter a word.
- butler14 4y ago
  I got this in London as a midlander, too. People assume because I am from between London and Manchester I must be a brummie.

doingtheiroming 4y ago

This is getting traction because the London media class has noticed people taking the mickey out of their adoption of the vocal fry from their New York brethren. They don't want regionals laughing at them. It's vitally important that Southerners keep talking in silly accents. It's useful to spot people who are going to try to steal your stuff using emails.

obayesshelton 4y ago

Sounds like discrimination

toyg 4y ago

In a normal country, this sort of post could be liquidated with a comment like "People often do not grow up, and keep using playground-bullying jokes. News at 11." But - the UK is deeply and relentlessly classist. Accents are one of the instruments that ruling classes use to keep the hoi polloi "in their place". So this issue gets highlighted routinely - and there has been a real effort to address the problem, particularly by Labour governments (starting with the Blair ones) and particularly in state-controlled media.

willyt 4y ago
Hmmm, are you British? Perhaps you could give some examples? I don't think the UK is relentlessly classist and accents work both ways because having an accent that is too posh in Britain is also a disadvantage. We used to tease someone at work who had a posh accent; they pronounced Diet Coke as 'Daat coake'. Everyone makes little jokes all the time in the workplace, but if anything we possibly went a bit to far in teasing that person because we felt she was fair game being from a privileged background. You can often tell from an accent when someone has been privately educated; there are many situations where this might not be an advantage so these people also try to suppress their accents. The dim witted but arrogant privately educated schoolboy is a British cultural meme. Having an accent from a different region can be a disadvantage just because in some regions you literally would not be able to understand what people are talking about among themselves because you don't understand a) the regional use of dialect and b) the local topics of conversation that will have specific regional words.
- antihero 4y ago
  Obviously it's important to emphasise kindness and respect, but with regards to light-hearted jabs, it's important to note the direction you’re punching. If you are mocking someone who’s had a magnitude more opportunity and investment and education more than you, it isn’t hugely a problem for them. If it goes the other way toward someone who’s had to massively struggle to get where they are it undermines them. A punch is a punch, but surely Mike Tyson punching a pensioner is worse than the opposite? Power dynamics are the same actions having different outcomes. I’m British and I love a good bit of banter as it shows trust, but taken too far or done with any significant power asymmetry becomes toxic very quickly. I guess perhaps fitting the working-class box is "cooler" in popular culture, though. Here's another example: Interactions with the police. As someone who, whilst though I grew up poor, is white, eloquent and has a Surrey accent, the various times I've been arrested I've been able to deftly fit into the "good citizen who's made a mistake box" and got off with minimal consequences. If I talked like I was from the estate or had a darker complexion, these interactions would sway toward the "bloody criminal" box and I would have had the book thrown at me.

pjc50 4y ago

For better or worse, the prevalence of US media and the "melting pot" effect of larger cities is gradually flattening out British accents and slang. But at the same time, the country also runs on prejudice and going to the right school. (Rishi Sunak is celebrating the achievement of being the first UK PM from a minority background - he went to one of the less popular Oxford colleges https://cherwell.org/2022/10/25/diversity-triumphs-uk-finally-has-pm-from-lincoln-college/ https://cherwell.org/2022/10/25/diversity-triumphs-uk-finall... )

mynameishere 4y ago
Disraeli was from a minority background, and in the same sort of overclass way.
hnbad 4y ago
I came across an article the other day claiming that some American kids were actually picking up an Australian accent (and a few Australian slang words like "dunny") over the pandemic thanks to the Australian kids' show Bluey being available on Disney+ in the US. I wouldn't be totally surprised if that effect was real.
- TheHappyOddish 4y ago
  That's fine by us, we mock the American accent relentlessly!

dmos62 4y ago

I'd like to know more about UK accents. From what I hear, during colonization of North America, UK spoke similarly to how US speaks now, but since then US accents stayed somewhat the same, while UK accents drifted a lot. Apparently, at a certain time in history, in UK, it was posh to speak differently. Was that a form of classism?

pjc50 4y ago
The opening scene of My Fair Lady where Henry Higgins the linguist is able to spot which area of London someone comes from by a few words in their accent is a slight exaggeration, but not much. The UK developed hyper-regional accents (unavoidable in the pre-mass-media age), and poshness being a particular set of families who socialise with each other and are educated together converged on its own accent. Especially among people who've been to Oxford or Cambridge. This effect got magnified by the early BBC being based in southern England and comprised of educated people, leading to a distinctive "BBC English". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation (Also factor in the bans at various times on speaking Gaelic or Welsh; children were being beaten for speaking Welsh at school well into the 1970s, but the plan to extinguish the language never quite succeeded.)
- Doctor_Fegg 4y ago
  Growing up in the 1980s, I could tell from their accent whether a child came from Oakham (where I lived), Whissendine (five miles away), or Melton Mowbray (five miles beyond that). 30/40 years later the differences are still there, but increasingly ironed out by the spread of a generic southern English accent. Where I now live in rural Oxfordshire, the traditional local accent is a definite minority, particularly in those under 40. There are little tell-tale vowels and phrases if you look closely for them, but they're more like variations on a common accent. That said, Midlands and northern accents seem to be fairly resilient, at least for now.
- toyg 4y ago
  > but the plan to extinguish [Welsh] never quite succeeded Political winds just revived what was effectively a dead language, in the nick of time.

giantg2 4y ago

Or you could be from Philly and have people are fun of you everywhere you go for the use of "jawn" and "water".

kcplate 4y ago
Oh yeah, the Philly is strong and distinct. My accent isn’t Deep South thick, but it’s there. I’ve embraced my use of “ain’t”, “y’all”, “fixin to”, and “whatnot”. When poked fun at, I generally respond with a “bless your heart”. Which people misunderstand as politeness.

kolleykibber 4y ago

If you want to understand how messed up the UK class/accent system is and how damaging for all sides, there's an episode of below deck med. It plays out between a private school chef and a northern stewardess.

throwaway22032 4y ago

I find this article amusing because the clue is right there in the name. Received Pronunciation is just that, received. You can learn it, in fact it has been and continues to be taught both in schools, in elocution lessons, and in educational videos online. I sincerely doubt that this is a purely UK based phenomenon. The example that comes to mind is the stereotypical "black man with white accent" from US sitcoms. I don't know how that works in the real world, but I'd feel fairly confident in placing a bet that there aren't many white collar CEOs who sound like they're from the hood.

Balero 4y ago
The onus should not be on a person changing an important part of themselves because of some classist people. To many people their accent is an important part of who they are, part of their identity and one that can't simply be switched out for 8 hours a day.
- throwaway22032 4y ago
  I agree. RP is part of an identity. One which can be adopted. In fact, I'd probably go as far as to say that one of the reasons it has the cachet it does is precisely because of that, because of what it's not.
- nells 4y ago
  I don’t know why the onus should be on classist people stopping being classist. One may as well say that it is part of their character.

KaiserPro 4y ago

oi hent had that praablem boh. I cun talk loike I do at hum, withoout much hoohar.[1] I have lost my "cuntree" accent, because that shit is a far bigger impediment to getting a job than actual class. (and in some cases race, but thats more complex) but, for those who are outside of the UK and want to understand, its hard to translate. There are three things that you are judged on here in the UK, and they are all sort of related to class: o Your clothes o your attitude o your accent All of these are proxies for class. The most important thing to be aware of is that race is not normally a signifier for class. to use a recent example: Rishi, our new prime minister, is posh as fuck. Posher, but not by much, than Liz truss. However less posh than Boris, as he is a no fooling aristocrat. If we compare Rishi to Priti Patel, former Home secretary, who is middle-middle class at best. The differentiator is accent, not wealth. Rishi is richer than the king, but thats not why he's posh. That is not to say that race is not a factor. its just nowhere near as big of a thing as it is in america. The advantage is that you can change your class, its much harder to change your race. However your class at the time of your birth leaves an inprint/set of habits that are difficult to overcome. I do know someone who was raised on a london estate with a strong SAAAAAF LAAANDEN accent, who now is a QC/KC (senior lawyer) and has a received pronunciation accent. It wasnt until I met her parents and sister that I realised how much she'd changed. [1] https://youtu.be/Feb-CdHBXc8?t=114 https://youtu.be/Feb-CdHBXc8?t=114 Although the mum has quite a soft central norfolk possibly norwich accent.

idkwhoiam 4y ago
Are foreigners assigned a class too or is it a native thing only?
- toyg 4y ago
  Like gaijins in Japan, foreigners in UK are not typically expected to participate in the system at all.
  - dreen 4y ago
    I spent the last 15 years in London and I strongly disagree. Not only are foreigners judged (perhaps subconsciously) on how British they can be, where you came from initially matters a great deal as well, which is why I worked on loosing my Eastern European accent. That being said, over those 15 years, I was only openly discriminated against once.

darraghenright 4y ago

In my experience, there's a cohort of middle-aged British men out there who absolutely cannot help but demonstrate their "oirish" accent as soon as they are in Ireland or meet an Irish person. It's a bit weird but I try to take it as an endearment. That said, Irish people tend to be very fond of accent mimickery too.

MaxPengwing 4y ago
When I moved to Ireland in 2014 I made the mistake of having an Oxbridge accent, and there was quite a few people who did not take kindly to that. One train station attendee put up a gone for lunch sign in my face mid sentence, and it wasn't even past breakfast time. I was being perfectly courteous and was just having some trouble understanding how to charge my leap card. That's when I realised, Oxbridge is not good if you want people to not instantly dislike you in Ireland.
- smcl 4y ago
  I think many with strong "regional" accents would trade a minor train station inconvenience over lifelong pay disparity and diminished career prospects.
- blibble 4y ago
  what is an oxbridge accent? cambridgeshire and oxfordshire accents are rather different most of the students attending won't be from either as someone who did attend: I can count the amount of people I met that spoke RP on one hand
  - smcl 4y ago
    Haven't personally heard of an "Oxbridge accent" but my brain filled it in subconsciously.
- darraghenright 4y ago
  Ouch, well that wasn't very nice, sorry to hear that. Since you mentioned using a Leap card a few years ago I'm guessing you were in Dublin. I live in Cork, we're much friendlier down here! How have you found your experiences since? My partner is from the East Midlands and of course her accent is quite different, but on a couple of occasions my partner has gotten an angry scowl from some random old man, usually in some small-town pub. I thought anti-English sentiment had gone the way of the dodo — when I was a kid it was more common — but I guess it's still hanging on in places :(

donohoe 4y ago

Let’s not forget that mocking accents is not unique to the UK.

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numbsafari 4y ago

My first work trip to the UK was my first trip to the UK period. After clearing customs, I managed to get the rest of the way through the airport, through “the tube”, onto a train to the midlands, a taxi ride, and checked into my hotel with hardly any talking. The front desk person dutifully told me that the restaurant was closed, but room service available (this is pre door dash, et. al.). I got to my room and unpacked, with the TV playing in the background, as was my way back then and now. I did some stretching, and then decided to order some dinner. I picked up the phone, dialed the room service number, and after I was greeted by a pleasant “Room Service?” I immediately felt my body wanting to reply with terribly Monty Python voice of American’s trying to sound British. I couldn’t stop myself. I could just feel it wanting to happen. So I hung up. Confused, and somewhat alarmed because I had 3 days of corporate training to perform and that’s not going to go well if I have an accent trying to break out of me like a teenage boy’s voice breaking uncontrollably, I turned off the TV and tried practicing talking. Even alone in my room, it took me a few minutes to try and get it under control. I grew up moving quite a bit between places with people from all over, so I don’t, myself, have a particularly stable accent. It was especially true when I was younger. I finally worked myself up to remake that call to room service, and I managed to force myself speak with a right proper American accent…

hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
I feel you! Sometimes when I hear Brits (or Scots!) speaking, I just can't help myself.
TYPE_FASTER 4y ago
I've noticed myself unintentionally using similar accent/mannerisms/colloquialisms, and found out it's called the chameleon effect: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10402679/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10402679/
ASalazarMX 4y ago
This is beautiful. As a native Spanish speaker, hearing very different Spanish accents makes me want want to imitate them, and I have to confess, it's part novelty and part mocking. Spaniards are most fun to imitate, because they have more phonemes than us Latin Americans. The differentiate they Vs and Bs, and their Ss and Zs, but we don't, so we mock ourselves more by mocking them.

bArray 4y ago

> They said those with northern English or Midlands accents were more likely to worry about the way they spoke. > Many of those who were mocked for the way they spoke admitted anxiety over their future career prospects because of perceived prejudiced attitudes. The biggest concern for northerners regarding their future careers is the continued and unchecked concentration of power and wealth towards London and other major cities. Their accent is close to the least of their worries.

pjc50 4y ago
> continued and unchecked concentration of power and wealth towards London and other major cities. Potato, potahto. The concentration of power and the prejudice are not unrelated. But also, when you say "other major cities" .. the number 2 and 3, Manchester and Birmingham, both count as "northerner". Power is really just being focused on London and Tory marginal constituencies. Those are the places that really get attention. #4 city is supposedly "Leeds-Bradford", which I don't like as a definition and Bradford is blighted by a literal crater as well as the usual urban problems.

Octabrain 4y ago

I am astonished by what I am reading in the comments. I've been living in the UK for almost 6 years now and not a single time I've felt I've been judged or mistreated because of my accent or even my lack of language skills the first year I was here. Worth mentioning that I definitely don't look like I am native (I am from Africa). Worth mentioning too that I have not been living in a bubble, exposed myself to a short set of interactions. Mind boggling.

JetSetWilly 4y ago
People with foreign accents typically escape the ladder of judgement. I think it is well observed that people with various American or Australian or European accents aren't really pigeonholed to some specific class on basis of their accent alone.
blibble 4y ago
as someone who went to a bad school in a poor area with a regional accent, now working mostly with people who went to independent schools in the South East: I think I've had one person very mildly comment on my accent in my professional career (pronunciation of "garage") I wouldn't pay that much attention to the comments as it's almost entirely the usual set of "UK bad" professional contrarians (not to say that the class system still isn't prevalent, it definitely is, but not in the way they say)

kypro 4y ago

I'm working class as f - raised to communicate with a strong regional accent, using regional slang, combined of course with at least one or two profanities per sentence. I view the phase, "what's up, dickhead?" as friendly way to greet a friend. I don't know anyone in my family who works a middle class job. You're either unemployed or postman around here. Growing up my school was so bad you were lucky to leave with a few GCSEs. In general you were far more likely to leave with a kid or a smoking addiction. My whole adult life has been a learning experience. I remember first being confused when people mocked how I spoke in university. It wasn't just one or two people either, literally everyone I spoke with would comment on how I spoke. In terms of work, I'm not sure how it's impacted my ability to find work, but I don't think it's helped. Several years ago when I was still learning how to not be working class I had an interview in which I was asked a question I knew I knew the answer to, but just couldn't quite recall. I said something like, "fuck, I know this but can't remember". I didn't swear consciously, it's just automatic, but the interviewer lost it and terminated the interview on the spot saying I was wasting his time. That really upset me as I was having a hard enough time finding work as it was. At one point in my career I ended up working for a start-up incubator in London which was interesting. Everyone there was unbelievably well spoken and while at that point I was starting to get good at not coming across as working class I did get comments whenever we'd go out drinking because I'd temporarily find it difficult to speak proper. Not nasty comments or anything though - they were all really nice - but people obviously noticed and were confused why someone in real life was talking like they were on Jeremy Kyle. I think the hardest part of it is having to self-censor my sense of humour because what I deem offensive or unacceptable is completely out of whack with those I work with. My humour seems to be quite mean which I think is normal for working class people. Like I can joke about literally anything with school friends, but I have to be very careful with jokes at work. Calling someone a gayboy as a joke for doing something a bit gay is unacceptable for example. I also don't seem to know when people are being mean. Middle class people tend to be very easily offended and will hold in their feelings so it's hard to know if you're offending them. I'm not used to that. Growing up people would speak very plainly with each other so that's by far the hardest part for me. I think I'm quite an extreme example of this class divide though. I'm also not sure what the answer is. I judge people who speak like myself force more harshly than anyone I work with. Unlike people I work with I know people from my background are generally trashy.

BrandoElFollito 4y ago

I would not be surprised if the issue of accents being a discriminant (positive or negative) was common everywhere. In France we have a "standard" accent (the one you hear on TV or on the national radio) which corresponds more or less to Paris and the surrounding regions. Someone speaking with this accent is "neutral". We then have an accent that is not related to a region but to the kind of neighborhood called "cité" with large buildings with working class inhabitants (and immigrants). It puts you either in the "homies" category, or in the "touch luck to find a better job" one. People who come from these places, when they want to move up with jobs, will aggressively work on loosing this accent. Finally, there are the regional accents that are not very visible outside of the region. The southern one is very distinctive and a northern one has been made famous by the movie "Welcome to the Sticks". They tend to vanish if you come from these regions but live/work away from it because there is a gradual move towards the "neutral" accent. people who use it, however, are not really discriminated (this is rather a folklori accent), but you do not hear it much. there are exceptions such as one of our prime ministers. Then there is a specific posh accent which has strongly fallen out of fashion and people who were raised with it actively try to use the "neutral" one as well.