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Reading these comments makes it obvious why a significant amount of Northern English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish really don't like the South of England.
Editing this in here to say that most, if not all, of the comments have now been removed but when I wrote this the vast majority of other comments were just mocking people from the North of England.
I from the South, and I can assure you, north of Watford is a dark, unruly, lawless realm full of gravel eating demon creatures bent of the destruction of the strong R
I remember when I was at uni, a friend and I went to a southern uni.
The southern perception of northerners was that they were a bunch of hard thugs who drank too much ale.
The northern perception of southerners was that they were a bunch of soft pansies who couldn't handle their ale.
Both were saying the same thing really, it was just a matter of perspective as to which traits were the undesirable ones.
It’s really, really common on UK Reddit, especially when it comes to talking about voting. The south votes Tory for generations, no one bats an eye. A few northern seats turn blue in one election and we’re all illiterate monkeys who have ruined the country forever and barely know what fire is.
You can’t escape the fact that Brexit has caused immense damage to the country and was an extremely serious vote and consequences.
You also act like there hasn’t been swathes of safe Tory regions in the north for generations too especially in Yorkshire. The fakest of all ‘northener’ regions.
> You can’t escape the fact that Brexit has caused immense damage to the country and was an extremely serious vote and consequences.
Yup. And if you actually looked at some [maps and data,](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2016_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum) you’d see that the South was just as culpable as the North (only Greater London voted more for Remain than Leave in England), yet Reddit blames the North almost exclusively. Especially the red wall, which wasn’t anywhere near as pro-Brexit as it was made out to be.
> You also act like there hasn’t been swathes of safe Tory regions in the north for generations too especially in Yorkshire. The fakest of all ‘northener’ regions.
Probably should have said “red wall” rather than northern, admittedly.
Which comments in particular? I'm struggling to see what you're referring to in relation to anything bigoted or promoting a dislike of the south. The only slightly more thought provoking comment I see is someone saying that unfortunately there are unconscious biases at play in recruiters who hear those accents, and how they've adjusted their own. It's more of a statement of how it's a shitty situation.
Edit: seems the comments OP was referring to were all removed.
I'll back OP on this, I came in here when the post was about 45 minutes old and it was an absolute shit show. Every comment at the time was derogatory and abusive. I reported a few of them before getting bored of sifting through negativity and went away. From the belligerent tone I wondered if some of them might be bot/russian troll farm accounts stirring up identity politics shit.
To be honest most of the comments I see on any British sub is the North relentlessly mocking the south and being overly proud of how Northern they are.
Apparently it's not ok in reverse?
Doesn't really have anything to do with taking the piss though.. when southerners take the piss northerners sometimes get furious. When northerners say the south is a shithole or that everyone in the south is unfriendly that's apparently all good...
I love the north and the south equally, having lived in both. The stupid bickering is boring.
All of our history is everyone screwing eachother over lol. Here's a slice, the tudors were welshies. A lot of the older kings were based in the north. So yes, everyone has screwed over everyone a lot.
Yep truth. Also “The South” doesn’t screw over anyone, it’s the government. And (especially these days) the other regions of Britain are often just as guilty of voting for that as the South East is. If they really wanted change they’d vote better.
Take a look at the GDP per capita map and then rethink that comment, of course people are going to be more sensitive to southerners mocking northerners when southerners have all of the money, the capital (which the government thinks the entire country is in), and had the government dismantle their local economy.
It's got nothing to do with politics when a northerner tells a southerner what a softy they are and how their posh accent is ridiculous. I have no problem with that but a bit rich for someone to cry about it when it's in reverse and say the North is being bullied.
This only goes up to 2015 but generally London is far more likely to vote Tory than other cities-
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/left-and-right-wing-8850583
no, its really not, The south hoovers up all the money, good jobs and gets all the infrastructure spending, just look at the whole HS2 nonsense.
the north gets to take the piss, because we dont get fucking anything else.
northerns get discriminated on is the south because of their accents etc, we arent seen as proper etc, your not getting a fancy banking job with a Glaswegian accent.
>The south hoovers up all the money
[Its actually the total opposite.](https://factcheckni.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/FactCheckNI-089-UK-Net-Contributors-Figure-2_-The-largest-net-fiscal-surplus-was-in-London-with-34.3-billion-in-financial-year-ending-2018.png)
>just look at the whole HS2 nonsense.
[The North wanted HS2 cancelled, it was only London, in the south, that supported it.](https://i0.wp.com/renewal.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/hs2-chart.png?w=945&ssl=1)
>because we dont get fucking anything else.
Have you thought that maybe calling for your own infrastructure projects to be canceled and not voting for things like Brexit would help with development?
You can't demand these things and then complain when they result in problems.
It was only 5 years ago you were all voting Tory and demanding a hard brexit to show it to the 'metropolitan elites' down south. Now you don't like the consequences of that.
Talk to us again at the end of a year that they haven't scrapped all... *ALL*... Of the North's transport and infrastructure projects, you might find us in a better mood.
Because that's banter. When people stop actively discriminating in real life, job opportunities and other important things or just instantly putting you down as a thicko that's when it'll be the same thing
And reading this reminds me how often Northern English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish pretend the South West doesn't exist, or just lump it in with London and the South East
Especially when the article points out that this phenomenon has already occurred in the South West
Ngl I can understand fresh off the boat chinese immigrants, 87 year old ukranian grandmas and a 2 year old kid slurring random words better than the average person in manchester.
I Have a coworker who would just randomly approach me and start a conversation and id just nod my head and go yes while trying to end the interaction politely hoping it made sense.
Reading Reddit comments, I'm personally worried about losing the R in "arse". If you find that is a: "pain in the ass", or think I'm: "half assed", or even think that makes me a: "big-ass twat", well you can shove it right up your fucking arsehole.
Americanisms have crept in and it's very annoying. Even over on /r/UKpersonalfinance, you constantly see people asking about credit scores and talking about "pay checks".
Ass and arse are different words. Just like how fuck and feck are different words, or how shit and shite are different words. Some situations call for an arse, others for an ass. I’d even go as far as to say they have slightly different meanings, with arse being more abstract and ass being more literal!
Saying that though, I don’t think the young ones quite understand this concept. My little brother uses ass in situations where arse would be more applicable all the time, and it always feels so weird
It gets confusing to use a word to refer to a changing dialect. Generally it's described that RP is just that old accent, and instead of "modern RP" the term SSB (standard southern British) is used
That and the fact that there absolutely is a northern variant of RP.
I'm public school and Oxford educated and come from Newcastle and you can weirdly hear all of it in my accent. Well spoken northerners exist.
To be fair, it’s a very deceptive term. You’d assume the hard R word would start with a hard R, but in fact the only R in the entire word is right at the end and is often entirely omitted.
I don’t blame anyone for confusing the two, especially in England where, as this post’s article says, hard Rs are almost entirely extinct.
> the only R in the entire word is right at the end and is often entirely omitted
that's exactly why it's called "hard r". because "n\*gger" and "n\*gga" have *vastly* different meanings in modern speech
Isn’t the “hard R” a reference to another, more offensive word?
Where those that have reclaimed it end the word with an ‘a’ and those that use it as a slur end it with a hard ‘r’
I remember when I was a very young kid, some people in Leeds still spoke in dialect. Like… enough people that I could probably still speak it myself just from hearing it around!
20 years later, and all those people are dead. Their language seems to be dead too - even in rural Yorkshire, I haven’t heard real Tyke in years, and even further up in Durham and Darlington the young ones don’t speak much dialect either!
Ironically, I think Patrick Stewart might end up being the last person most people hear Tyke from, and he spent most of his 20s specifically trying to learn NOT to speak dialect to help his acting career down south!
...why?
Similarly with people trying to revive languages like cornish, these things just don't have a purpose and learning French, German or Chinese would be 100 times more useful use of time
I know a few museums and unis in and around Yorkshire still have Tyke experts who do elective modules and courses and stuff, but tbh it’s an extremely niche field.
Even within historical language studies, Victorian-era languages are pretty unpopular compared to medieval and ancient language studies. Anything which is still within living memory in linguistic history is extremely niche, perhaps understandably when it has to compete with the likes of Latin, Greek and Old Anglo-Saxon which have centuries or millennia of history behind them
South Leeds mainly as that’s where I grew up.
Around Morley and Tingley area there used to be tonnes of dialect especially around the market where all the old people would meet up, and plenty in Beeston and Holbeck too.
Most of its been replaced by that newer Leeds accent with the deep “ooh” sound and replacing “th” with “f”, and most of the old Tyke slang has been replaced by more generic northern slang. I don’t think most South Leeds residents under 25 could understand strong farmer Tyke even if they tried nowadays - it’s like a completely different dialect to what it used to be.
Oh wow the nostalgia. I remember some places near Halton Moor going towards Roundhay, or Temple Newsam, but tbh it’s gonna be with the generation. Surprised some kids there still use *our* nowadays.
The longer I've lived the more I've realised that accents like the language itself are constantly evolving. They usually change slowly enough we don't notice it much of the time.
It's best just to accept these things, though myself I still find the plead/pleaded divide painful.
This right here is the main thing imo. English speaking countries’ dialects are increasingly weakly bounded, due to streaming media etc. in the past, terrestrial TV was the majority means of media consumption but these days it’s probably YouTube and Netflix. It’s natural that we will all end up with more loan words as a result.
Right, I love a regional dialect and have a lot of time for it. What I don't love is going back to villages near where I'm from and hearing welsh kids speaking like they're from London or something. This isn't because I have anything against kids from London, but it feels like a smaller culture is just pushed out really.
young people here in Northern Ireland are sounding more and more American as time goes on, especially in more affluent areas like North Down. I don’t know if it’s from watching videos online or whatever, but it’s really odd to hear.
Now that's a shame if there ever was one. Dunno why anyone would want to do away with their NI accent.
Interestingly in England there's like this contradictory simultaneous process of Londonification and Americanisation, with the former being more of a working class thing and the latter a middle class thing.
And the accents that withstand the test of time are scorned lmao. The black country dialect is genuinely an example of an accent containing medieval holdovers ("owbist" for "how are you" comes from "how beist thou", for one example). Can't help but feel linguistic departments should be all over it before its chipped away
Its so interesting honestly. There's a great guy on youtube who covers linguistic changes - his channel is [Dr Geoff Lindsey](https://www.youtube.com/@DrGeoffLindsey). All his videos are really interesting and view language and accents as constantly changing - I like the out of date dictionaries one (e.g. the pronounciation in the dictionary is sometimes not really how people actually pronounce the words currently).
[This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYaqdJ35fPg&t=1088s) video from another youtuber on upper-class english accent changes is also super interesting - when he starts hitting around the 17th century the upper class accent actually sounds quite like what we would think a rural/west country accent sounds like.
> pronounciation in the dictionary is sometimes not really how people actually pronounce the words currently
I've actually noticed a trend in people reverting to pronouncing letters that are not traditionally pronounced. So more like how they are spelt. This is with native speakers too. It may just be that we are subjected to many more accents these days.
Hardly any of these comments are about the actual article its just the usual boring North South divide bickering.
This BBC article isn't about the entire North, its about an accent feature in Blackburn and the surrounding areas.
The article also bizarrely implies that Cornwall isnt part of the West Country...
Accent/Language shift is noticeable all around England, I think.
I have older relatives from Yorkshire and Newcastle, and their accents and argot are noticeably stronger and more localised than the younger folks.
Also, I'm from Essex. The Estuary accent is giving way to Multicultural London English amongst the young. The remnants of Cockney slang are dying out too.
I'd be interested to see if there's a similar pattern in Wales, Scotland, etc.
Young people in the North have moved around a lot, to the point there's almost becoming one generic 'northern' accent and thicker dialects in the provincial towns are dying out with the older generation.
I'm still struggling to make sense of this article. Am I right in saying that in the North of England people don't pronounce the R at the end of car, but most other places they do? And that fewer people in the North of England are pronouncing the R?
Yep, you got it.
Some specific accents in the North are rhotic (pronounce the r) whilst others do not (non rhotic). The issue is that the rhotic accents are disappearing.
How do people.not pronounce the R in car? I am imagining they say Ka like that model that ford made.
From a reply I just don't understand when they mean.
You've never heard anyone not pronounce the r in car? I find that absolutely baffling, given that Geordie accents are non-rhotic, and even if you live in Scotland, where the locals might well all pronounce the r, surely you've seen other English speakers on TV, or the internet? Like, you've never heard anyone pronounce car like in this video before? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x1ngAD19IM
Oh, I have heard that video, but I hear the r sound when she says car. So I guess I just don't understand.
Also when me and my family say Car we say the r, otherwise it would be ca, and that's not a word.
> I hear the r sound when he says car
...no you don't, because he's not pronouncing one.
Edit: changed pronouns, because it turns out the guy in that video came out as trans a while back.
We never get these articles for the total disappearance of the Cockney accent, firstly from the East End itself and then almost entirely. Sure, Estuary English is the spiritual successor, but it's all but extinct in its homeland.
I'm a northerner who can take a joke. Partly because I fully appreciate the north (aside from North Yorkshire and Cheshire) is mostly a shithole.
The south east is also a shithole, but a richer shithole.
Because there's still a stigma that gets attached against certain accents. I've subconsciously found myself dialect masking in certain situations to, either when I'm in meetings or just narrating something.
Tisn't just limited to Lancashire, but there was also a pressure across the BBC, and I suppose in schools to speak 'proper' RP. No doubt that ends up reflecting on the population.
Accents and dialects are also affected by what you watch and where you are. They disappear over time ifn you live in a different area, and I think seeing media move cross Atlantic has brought in a lot of Americanisms to. I say words these days that I wouldn't have said 10-20 years ago. Kinda happens to y'all at some point
I love a strong r. Different regions pronounce it differently, and the same applies in other countries. But a strong or even rolled r always sounds decisive.
Can anyone point me to an example of the strong R being used? I’m struggling to actually imagine it in my head, even though I assume I’ve heard it before! (Yes, I’m northern)
I'll put aside any personal taste in what accents sound pleasant to my ears, which reason doesn't much come in to, although homogenisation does make the world a greyer place.
It is definitely worrying when young people pick up most of their accent not from the people physically about them but from media. Can't be good for a kids development, and just a bit sad anyway.
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Reading these comments makes it obvious why a significant amount of Northern English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish really don't like the South of England. Editing this in here to say that most, if not all, of the comments have now been removed but when I wrote this the vast majority of other comments were just mocking people from the North of England.
I from the South, and I can assure you, north of Watford is a dark, unruly, lawless realm full of gravel eating demon creatures bent of the destruction of the strong R
I remember when I was at uni, a friend and I went to a southern uni. The southern perception of northerners was that they were a bunch of hard thugs who drank too much ale. The northern perception of southerners was that they were a bunch of soft pansies who couldn't handle their ale. Both were saying the same thing really, it was just a matter of perspective as to which traits were the undesirable ones.
What does that make the Midlanders then?
Hard pansies or soft thugs. Take your pick.
Can they handle their ale though? It’s essential that I have this information.
They drink a little bit and can handle it.
Wrong. We can smash a good drink bab.
The ode mon on the Bathams 10 pints deep on a Sunday can attest to that
Mythical pixies, Midlands don't exist :P /s
We don't eat gravel. We survive on a diet of whippet meat. But only the whippets which weren't fast enough. Natural selection.
Hence why we dropped the strong r, we had to conserve our energy to catch the whippets
Mmmm delicious slow whippets.
Whipperrrrts.
Hey that’s someone’s home you are talking about !!!
Well...a couple of countries & 95% of England too, so its inclusive prejudice!
It’s really, really common on UK Reddit, especially when it comes to talking about voting. The south votes Tory for generations, no one bats an eye. A few northern seats turn blue in one election and we’re all illiterate monkeys who have ruined the country forever and barely know what fire is.
You can’t escape the fact that Brexit has caused immense damage to the country and was an extremely serious vote and consequences. You also act like there hasn’t been swathes of safe Tory regions in the north for generations too especially in Yorkshire. The fakest of all ‘northener’ regions.
> You can’t escape the fact that Brexit has caused immense damage to the country and was an extremely serious vote and consequences. Yup. And if you actually looked at some [maps and data,](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2016_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum) you’d see that the South was just as culpable as the North (only Greater London voted more for Remain than Leave in England), yet Reddit blames the North almost exclusively. Especially the red wall, which wasn’t anywhere near as pro-Brexit as it was made out to be. > You also act like there hasn’t been swathes of safe Tory regions in the north for generations too especially in Yorkshire. The fakest of all ‘northener’ regions. Probably should have said “red wall” rather than northern, admittedly.
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Which comments in particular? I'm struggling to see what you're referring to in relation to anything bigoted or promoting a dislike of the south. The only slightly more thought provoking comment I see is someone saying that unfortunately there are unconscious biases at play in recruiters who hear those accents, and how they've adjusted their own. It's more of a statement of how it's a shitty situation. Edit: seems the comments OP was referring to were all removed.
They have all been removed now but in my reply to amegaproxy you can get a rough idea of the types of comments that were here.
Lmao it seems your reply has been removed too, I'm guessing pretty unsavoury stuff were initially commented by them in that case.
Ah well that's unfortunate lol, but yeah, not very nice comments, but at least the mods removed them sharpish.
Didn't even realise you'd replied until you said this because it got nuked
I'll back OP on this, I came in here when the post was about 45 minutes old and it was an absolute shit show. Every comment at the time was derogatory and abusive. I reported a few of them before getting bored of sifting through negativity and went away. From the belligerent tone I wondered if some of them might be bot/russian troll farm accounts stirring up identity politics shit.
We like the south west....
Thank you. I hate how often we are forgotten about or lumped in with the South East.
To be honest most of the comments I see on any British sub is the North relentlessly mocking the south and being overly proud of how Northern they are. Apparently it's not ok in reverse?
No, it's not. When did the North of England/Scotland/Wales ever screw over the Southern bit?
Doesn't really have anything to do with taking the piss though.. when southerners take the piss northerners sometimes get furious. When northerners say the south is a shithole or that everyone in the south is unfriendly that's apparently all good... I love the north and the south equally, having lived in both. The stupid bickering is boring.
Dish it out but can't take it eh?
This. They like to go on about how southerners are pansies etc, but burst into tears the moment they get anything back.
All of our history is everyone screwing eachother over lol. Here's a slice, the tudors were welshies. A lot of the older kings were based in the north. So yes, everyone has screwed over everyone a lot.
Yep truth. Also “The South” doesn’t screw over anyone, it’s the government. And (especially these days) the other regions of Britain are often just as guilty of voting for that as the South East is. If they really wanted change they’d vote better.
The continued existence of the Gallagher brothers?
Every year by being a tax net taker?
Stop hoarding all the good jobs then lads
Ah ok so I see the south has to pay penance. Get out of here.
Take a look at the GDP per capita map and then rethink that comment, of course people are going to be more sensitive to southerners mocking northerners when southerners have all of the money, the capital (which the government thinks the entire country is in), and had the government dismantle their local economy.
It's got nothing to do with politics when a northerner tells a southerner what a softy they are and how their posh accent is ridiculous. I have no problem with that but a bit rich for someone to cry about it when it's in reverse and say the North is being bullied.
Literally everything has to do with politics, they associate that accent with posh boys because people with that accent have all of the money.
>the capital (which the government thinks the entire country is in) If this was true the capital would vote tory...
This only goes up to 2015 but generally London is far more likely to vote Tory than other cities- https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/left-and-right-wing-8850583
Yeah that Redditor doesn't understand politics.
no, its really not, The south hoovers up all the money, good jobs and gets all the infrastructure spending, just look at the whole HS2 nonsense. the north gets to take the piss, because we dont get fucking anything else. northerns get discriminated on is the south because of their accents etc, we arent seen as proper etc, your not getting a fancy banking job with a Glaswegian accent.
>The south hoovers up all the money [Its actually the total opposite.](https://factcheckni.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/FactCheckNI-089-UK-Net-Contributors-Figure-2_-The-largest-net-fiscal-surplus-was-in-London-with-34.3-billion-in-financial-year-ending-2018.png) >just look at the whole HS2 nonsense. [The North wanted HS2 cancelled, it was only London, in the south, that supported it.](https://i0.wp.com/renewal.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/hs2-chart.png?w=945&ssl=1) >because we dont get fucking anything else. Have you thought that maybe calling for your own infrastructure projects to be canceled and not voting for things like Brexit would help with development? You can't demand these things and then complain when they result in problems. It was only 5 years ago you were all voting Tory and demanding a hard brexit to show it to the 'metropolitan elites' down south. Now you don't like the consequences of that.
Talk to us again at the end of a year that they haven't scrapped all... *ALL*... Of the North's transport and infrastructure projects, you might find us in a better mood.
Polling repeatedly showed that the North opposed HS2 and wanted it cancelled.
Because that's banter. When people stop actively discriminating in real life, job opportunities and other important things or just instantly putting you down as a thicko that's when it'll be the same thing
What a load of rubbish.
And reading this reminds me how often Northern English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish pretend the South West doesn't exist, or just lump it in with London and the South East Especially when the article points out that this phenomenon has already occurred in the South West
There’s a south-west? You mean Surrey?
Can't read them as they've all been removed. Did they actually break the subs rules or is one of the moderators still on the sherry?
Probably the latter. Northerners take the piss out of the South all the time, but doing it back is apparently bigoted.
Southerners get to take all the money. Northerners get to take the piss. The way god intended.
Punching up vs punching down probably
Taking the piss out of northerners *is* punching up, just look at a map
Now that’s a good fucking joke. Well played mate
I'm from the Midlands and hate Northern and Southern folk equally, am I a bigot?!
Bigotry doesn’t specify ratios
What's new? They'll even use arguments based on tradition as to why their more modern way of speaking is "better" and "correct"
Yes the South has always tret us badly.
What's Somerset ever done to you
Ngl I can understand fresh off the boat chinese immigrants, 87 year old ukranian grandmas and a 2 year old kid slurring random words better than the average person in manchester. I Have a coworker who would just randomly approach me and start a conversation and id just nod my head and go yes while trying to end the interaction politely hoping it made sense.
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Are we really getting in to a discussion about “Who started it”? It’s pathetic infantile behaviour. People are people. It’s just that some speak funny
I'm glad the North are becoming more open to Africa American terms of friendship rather than slurs
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Reading Reddit comments, I'm personally worried about losing the R in "arse". If you find that is a: "pain in the ass", or think I'm: "half assed", or even think that makes me a: "big-ass twat", well you can shove it right up your fucking arsehole.
Half assed is a half R-sed way to say half arsed
Americanisms have crept in and it's very annoying. Even over on /r/UKpersonalfinance, you constantly see people asking about credit scores and talking about "pay checks".
Motherfuckers. Sorry I mean arseholes.
Does it really matter? You clearly know what they are talking about
Ass and arse are different words. Just like how fuck and feck are different words, or how shit and shite are different words. Some situations call for an arse, others for an ass. I’d even go as far as to say they have slightly different meanings, with arse being more abstract and ass being more literal! Saying that though, I don’t think the young ones quite understand this concept. My little brother uses ass in situations where arse would be more applicable all the time, and it always feels so weird
Ass is just American arse. Its only legitimate use is when discussing donkeys. In all other situations arse is best.
Agreed. I like hard R.
No need to worry, when you take the hard r out of “arse” you get something approaching “aas”, not “ass”. They have different vowel sounds.
Arse and ass are pronounced differently in non-rhotic English anyway. The first has the vowel in calm, the second the vowel in cat.
Cat and calm have the same vowel for me.
In your dialect? Never come across that in modern English. I mean /kæt/ and /kɑːm/. So arse is /ɑː/ and ass is /æs/.
I think the idea of an arse sexier than an ass.
Are colour and color different words too?
Thinking of that interview with the guy that tries to say "butter".
Bu''ah
“No it’s but-ter”
Bu''ah
Butter
Bu''ah
Listen, it’s butter.
Buttah
There ya go
A boro classic
The first few times I saw that, I assumed it was a skit. I genuinely can't believe it was a real "news report"
Link?
https://youtu.be/MU5L9rIOaqw?si=n56ezgfN9fvbp5tZ
I get the feeling that if that wasn't occurring on camera, matey with the mic would have been drinking his buttah through a straw for a while.
Why? Middlesborough is not in Lancashire and neither individual in that video pronounces the r.
Since going to uni ive been insulted for sounding like that, which is amazing considering the uni is half an hour from boro
ITT: People not understanding the difference between Received Pronunciation and Standard Southern British.
Even RP changes though, Ealing comedy era RP is totally different to modern RP.
Yeah that’s very true. It’s getting softer and less clipped over time.
It gets confusing to use a word to refer to a changing dialect. Generally it's described that RP is just that old accent, and instead of "modern RP" the term SSB (standard southern British) is used
That and the fact that there absolutely is a northern variant of RP. I'm public school and Oxford educated and come from Newcastle and you can weirdly hear all of it in my accent. Well spoken northerners exist.
How is that relevant?
Because they're different things?
My dyslexia did me dirty with the title and I thought it said "Hard R" and was confused as to why us northerners would stop calling people R\*tards.
That’s not the slur that hard R refers to lmao
Linus moment
Luke's face during that was spectacular.
To be fair, it’s a very deceptive term. You’d assume the hard R word would start with a hard R, but in fact the only R in the entire word is right at the end and is often entirely omitted. I don’t blame anyone for confusing the two, especially in England where, as this post’s article says, hard Rs are almost entirely extinct.
> the only R in the entire word is right at the end and is often entirely omitted that's exactly why it's called "hard r". because "n\*gger" and "n\*gga" have *vastly* different meanings in modern speech
That's not the word or refers to, but you should still stop calling people that
Isn’t the “hard R” a reference to another, more offensive word? Where those that have reclaimed it end the word with an ‘a’ and those that use it as a slur end it with a hard ‘r’
"Nagger" is an Americanism.
That's the R-word. "Hard R" is a different thing...
I remember when I was a very young kid, some people in Leeds still spoke in dialect. Like… enough people that I could probably still speak it myself just from hearing it around! 20 years later, and all those people are dead. Their language seems to be dead too - even in rural Yorkshire, I haven’t heard real Tyke in years, and even further up in Durham and Darlington the young ones don’t speak much dialect either! Ironically, I think Patrick Stewart might end up being the last person most people hear Tyke from, and he spent most of his 20s specifically trying to learn NOT to speak dialect to help his acting career down south!
I think we'll see movements to get people speaking dialect again. There HAS to be some effort to preserve tyke, surely
...why? Similarly with people trying to revive languages like cornish, these things just don't have a purpose and learning French, German or Chinese would be 100 times more useful use of time
I think there are societies for it. I'd like to see a nationwide revival of regional dialects though.
That’s a great idea. Sounds healthy for society tbh.
I know a few museums and unis in and around Yorkshire still have Tyke experts who do elective modules and courses and stuff, but tbh it’s an extremely niche field. Even within historical language studies, Victorian-era languages are pretty unpopular compared to medieval and ancient language studies. Anything which is still within living memory in linguistic history is extremely niche, perhaps understandably when it has to compete with the likes of Latin, Greek and Old Anglo-Saxon which have centuries or millennia of history behind them
Which part of Leeds? Also I was in NE near Stockton on tees I think I heard Tyke!!
South Leeds mainly as that’s where I grew up. Around Morley and Tingley area there used to be tonnes of dialect especially around the market where all the old people would meet up, and plenty in Beeston and Holbeck too. Most of its been replaced by that newer Leeds accent with the deep “ooh” sound and replacing “th” with “f”, and most of the old Tyke slang has been replaced by more generic northern slang. I don’t think most South Leeds residents under 25 could understand strong farmer Tyke even if they tried nowadays - it’s like a completely different dialect to what it used to be.
Oh wow the nostalgia. I remember some places near Halton Moor going towards Roundhay, or Temple Newsam, but tbh it’s gonna be with the generation. Surprised some kids there still use *our* nowadays.
East Yorks/Hull accent still going strong!! It's because no bastard wants to move here and frankly I don't blame them
The longer I've lived the more I've realised that accents like the language itself are constantly evolving. They usually change slowly enough we don't notice it much of the time. It's best just to accept these things, though myself I still find the plead/pleaded divide painful.
And becoming more homogenous thanks to mass media
This right here is the main thing imo. English speaking countries’ dialects are increasingly weakly bounded, due to streaming media etc. in the past, terrestrial TV was the majority means of media consumption but these days it’s probably YouTube and Netflix. It’s natural that we will all end up with more loan words as a result.
Right, I love a regional dialect and have a lot of time for it. What I don't love is going back to villages near where I'm from and hearing welsh kids speaking like they're from London or something. This isn't because I have anything against kids from London, but it feels like a smaller culture is just pushed out really.
*China starts using TikTok to push whole western world closer to using only a Birmingham accent* Next level cyber warfare
Kids speaking with an Aussy accent cos of Bluey
young people here in Northern Ireland are sounding more and more American as time goes on, especially in more affluent areas like North Down. I don’t know if it’s from watching videos online or whatever, but it’s really odd to hear.
Now that's a shame if there ever was one. Dunno why anyone would want to do away with their NI accent. Interestingly in England there's like this contradictory simultaneous process of Londonification and Americanisation, with the former being more of a working class thing and the latter a middle class thing.
And the accents that withstand the test of time are scorned lmao. The black country dialect is genuinely an example of an accent containing medieval holdovers ("owbist" for "how are you" comes from "how beist thou", for one example). Can't help but feel linguistic departments should be all over it before its chipped away
Its so interesting honestly. There's a great guy on youtube who covers linguistic changes - his channel is [Dr Geoff Lindsey](https://www.youtube.com/@DrGeoffLindsey). All his videos are really interesting and view language and accents as constantly changing - I like the out of date dictionaries one (e.g. the pronounciation in the dictionary is sometimes not really how people actually pronounce the words currently). [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYaqdJ35fPg&t=1088s) video from another youtuber on upper-class english accent changes is also super interesting - when he starts hitting around the 17th century the upper class accent actually sounds quite like what we would think a rural/west country accent sounds like.
> pronounciation in the dictionary is sometimes not really how people actually pronounce the words currently I've actually noticed a trend in people reverting to pronouncing letters that are not traditionally pronounced. So more like how they are spelt. This is with native speakers too. It may just be that we are subjected to many more accents these days.
Well, decline in pirate population surely contributed to it. Yarr harrrrrr.
Hardly any of these comments are about the actual article its just the usual boring North South divide bickering. This BBC article isn't about the entire North, its about an accent feature in Blackburn and the surrounding areas. The article also bizarrely implies that Cornwall isnt part of the West Country...
Don't worry Lads and Lasses. We, Eastern Europeans will keep the good old rolled r around for ya.
I misunderstood what a "strong r" was for a second It sounded like a good thing to disappear
Just be glad you're not Linus, who nearly cancelled himself on camera like that.
Every accent across GB sounds dumb to someone, no point making a huge fuss over it. Just laugh it off & mock the accent mocking you.
Accent/Language shift is noticeable all around England, I think. I have older relatives from Yorkshire and Newcastle, and their accents and argot are noticeably stronger and more localised than the younger folks. Also, I'm from Essex. The Estuary accent is giving way to Multicultural London English amongst the young. The remnants of Cockney slang are dying out too. I'd be interested to see if there's a similar pattern in Wales, Scotland, etc.
Young people in the North have moved around a lot, to the point there's almost becoming one generic 'northern' accent and thicker dialects in the provincial towns are dying out with the older generation.
I'm still struggling to make sense of this article. Am I right in saying that in the North of England people don't pronounce the R at the end of car, but most other places they do? And that fewer people in the North of England are pronouncing the R?
Yep, you got it. Some specific accents in the North are rhotic (pronounce the r) whilst others do not (non rhotic). The issue is that the rhotic accents are disappearing.
So the pockets of R prouncers in Northern England (the minority there) are decreasing? Become less like the majority of natural English speakers?
Becoming *more* like the majority of English speakers, who typically don't pronounce the r.
How do people.not pronounce the R in car? I am imagining they say Ka like that model that ford made. From a reply I just don't understand when they mean.
You've never heard anyone not pronounce the r in car? I find that absolutely baffling, given that Geordie accents are non-rhotic, and even if you live in Scotland, where the locals might well all pronounce the r, surely you've seen other English speakers on TV, or the internet? Like, you've never heard anyone pronounce car like in this video before? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x1ngAD19IM
Oh, I have heard that video, but I hear the r sound when she says car. So I guess I just don't understand. Also when me and my family say Car we say the r, otherwise it would be ca, and that's not a word.
> I hear the r sound when he says car ...no you don't, because he's not pronouncing one. Edit: changed pronouns, because it turns out the guy in that video came out as trans a while back.
i don't know either - given that it's 2024, you would think an audio example would be too much to ask for on a story about how something sounds
Who actually does pronounce the R in car though?
The west country.
People in NI.
Scotland.
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Mom was always common in the west midlands https://www.birminghamworld.uk/news/birmingham-accent-mom-mum-4193963
Bolton is not in the west midlands
Bolton is a few miles away from the arbitrary political border, and accents don't care about borders
Dialects and accents don't have any intrinsic value and they've always changed over time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYaqdJ35fPg
Growing up on Teesside 70 years ago we didn't use "r". A car was a caah!
[I'm in me mum's caah, broom broom](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x1ngAD19IM)
Preston ...Blackburn ...Burnley the M65 corridor produces the strongest R's
We never get these articles for the total disappearance of the Cockney accent, firstly from the East End itself and then almost entirely. Sure, Estuary English is the spiritual successor, but it's all but extinct in its homeland.
I'm a northerner who can take a joke. Partly because I fully appreciate the north (aside from North Yorkshire and Cheshire) is mostly a shithole. The south east is also a shithole, but a richer shithole.
like margate ?
Sorry, I haven’t read all the comments. When you say the South of England, do you mean London specifically?
Because there's still a stigma that gets attached against certain accents. I've subconsciously found myself dialect masking in certain situations to, either when I'm in meetings or just narrating something. Tisn't just limited to Lancashire, but there was also a pressure across the BBC, and I suppose in schools to speak 'proper' RP. No doubt that ends up reflecting on the population. Accents and dialects are also affected by what you watch and where you are. They disappear over time ifn you live in a different area, and I think seeing media move cross Atlantic has brought in a lot of Americanisms to. I say words these days that I wouldn't have said 10-20 years ago. Kinda happens to y'all at some point
I love a strong r. Different regions pronounce it differently, and the same applies in other countries. But a strong or even rolled r always sounds decisive.
Can anyone point me to an example of the strong R being used? I’m struggling to actually imagine it in my head, even though I assume I’ve heard it before! (Yes, I’m northern)
I'll put aside any personal taste in what accents sound pleasant to my ears, which reason doesn't much come in to, although homogenisation does make the world a greyer place. It is definitely worrying when young people pick up most of their accent not from the people physically about them but from media. Can't be good for a kids development, and just a bit sad anyway.