Ah yes, accents
I'd forgotten about that. Not many people know this, but I am originally from Norfolk. Which, as many people know, has a rather odd accent. When my family moved North up to Yorkshire, our belongings weren't the only thing to come with us. I brought my accent as well.

An accent which was pure broad Norfolk, and if I wasn't 5 years old, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between me and a local farmer strolling the boundaries of his fields with a shotgun waiting to yell "'Ere you! Orf moy larnd!" at any miscreant who dared breach his bush.

So, now having the accent described, imagine carrying this North to Sheffield. Not a place known for being exactly the most tolerant of places in the 1980s. Especially in school, and as we all know, kids can be right little bastards, and the ones in my school were no exception. The usual insults of "Farmer Giles" abounded, and I learned very quickly kids lack in two important areas- being kind to others, and originality. I tried to imitate the accent, oh I tried, but it just sounded false. So, instead, I modified my accent to my dulcet tones of today- i.e. no accent whatsoever.

It's a shame really, but every now and then I do catch myself dropping into my old accent, or I am being asked to do it by the more backward colleagues of mine on my desk. That stopped after a while, probably because I started swearing, a lot. But these days, I still have not been able to imitate the Yorkshire accent, or any of the local dialects. Barnsley? A complete lost cause. Sheffield accent? Oh dear... the last time I tried imitating a Yorkshire accent, I sounded like Peter Kaye, and I have no wish to sound like a 2nd-rate comedian who obsesses over garlic bread. So, back to this...

Oddly enough though, when I went to uni in Warrington I picked up the accent no trouble. I don't use it mind, because it sounds like the unholy union of Scouse and Manc- and no-one wants that.
( jim_bob can herd cats., Mon 19 Jan 2009, 13:45, 4 replies)

"i.e. no accent whatsoever. "
As far as i can tell that perfectly sums up the Sheffield accent. I haven't spent much time over there, i admit, but when i have been there i haven't noticed anything too accent-y.

I live in Hull myself, but my mum's a bizarre mix of London and Switzerland and my dad's a bizarre mix of London, Cambridge-University-don'tchaknow and Blackpool. This, coupled with my out-right refusal to develop a proper Hull accent (something even i have trouble understanding sometimes), lead to me developing a rather out-of-place accent that seems to be based somewhere in North Yorkshire. Very strange.
(MrTrent cannot think of a clever sig., Mon 19 Jan 2009, 14:44, closed)

Kirk, coke
The Hull accent is so strong but those in the surrounding East Riding really don't have anything distinguishing, it's lame.
( monkeybananaraffle, Mon 19 Jan 2009, 19:44, closed)

Me too (sort of)
Despite being brought up in Telford (where the local accent is a strange hybrid of Brummy and Welsh) as a child I had a ridiculously posh accent. No idea why because my parents didn't.

As you can imagine at school I took a lot of stick for my voice, being called "posh" and "stuck up" (despite coming from a solid working class background). So I too modified my accent. I no longer sound posh, but neither did I adopt a Telford accent (thank god!) I now sound like I'm from . . . well, nowhere. It's just a generic English accent. And I kind of hate it sometimes, to the point of changing my voice to fit in with my surroundings.

The latest example of this was when I was in Peckham, doing a job. I went into the Woolworths (remember them?) to buy a drink. The til lady gave me my change and I said to her "Any chaaarnce of a receipt, laarve?" in the most hideous South-London brogue you can imagine!
(MrC. Having the most boring username on b3ta since 2004, Mon 19 Jan 2009, 15:04, closed)

I wasn't aware I had an accent.

(King Baby Duck more than a ceiling, Mon 19 Jan 2009, 19:21, closed)