Categorisation of UK regions

[pluk]

This is one of the more mind bending ways to chop up the UK: How many names does a bread roll need‽

I am completely under a roll named Vienna, yet I have never once in my life heard of that term for a roll. How odd.
Very soft one - bap
Anything slightly firmer to full on crispy - roll.

Growing up on the north banks of the Thames in Essex we technically seem to be east but it very much feels like south east and now a London suberb consumed by the sprawl.

The worst of it is we get the atrocious BBC London news and not the lovely look east.

 

[rob666]

Teacakes are amusing...massive variety by local area.
All called teacakes...currant buns, non currant sweet bread rolls, plain unsweetened round bread rolls, flat round bread rolls.
All teacakes.
And then, there are Tunnocks.
The best ones.

 

[Matt.GC]

I suppose the best way to categorise the country's regions is thus-

If you put jam on your scone (and pronounce it "sc-on") before the cream you are civilised.

If you put the cream on your scone (and pronounce it "sc-own") before the jam then you are a savage.

 

[Matt N]

Trust me, you will have an accent even if it's very mild. Someone with keen ears somewhere else on the country will be able to tell. Unless you live in Downton Abbey, it won't be RP. RP is proper King/Jacob Reece-Mogg/1930's BBC continuity announcer stuff. Been trying to hide mine for years as was always told by parents and teachers that the local accent makes you sound "thick" so try to tame it as much as possible. Now I pretty much sound like that Professor Alex Cooper (but obviously not saying clever stuff).

I definitely don’t have a “proper”, King’s English style RP accent, but I’d say I’m definitely closer to RP than any other regional accent in the UK. My whole family and most people who’ve ever met me say I’m “accentless”, I don’t have a rhotic accent and don’t roll my r’s at all, unlike many people in my area, and I use the more South East-style long a (bar-th rather than bath) so I’m not really sure what else would give me a South West accent other than maybe some little, minute “isms”. I don’t think I have a strong or particularly noticeable South West accent, put it that way.

I once watched a video about British regional accents, and there was one described as “contemporary RP”, which is basically RP but slightly less formal than “proper” RP; a generic British accent, really. I thought this described my accent quite well.

None of my immediate family have overly strong accents. My sister, like me, is pretty accentless. My dad is quite accentless but has the odd London/South East speech quirk from having grown up in Kent; for instance, he occasionally pronounces the “th” sound as “f” and doesn’t pronounce the “h” sound, so as an example, “your health” becomes “your ‘elf” and “truth” becomes “troof”. He occasionally pronounces my full name, Matthew, as “Maffew”. My mum probably has the strongest South West accent out of us, but even hers isn’t ridiculously strong; she describes her accent as “an eclectic mix of Newport, Bristol and Forest”, and I wouldn’t say my mum had a properly strong Forest of Dean/South West accent compared to some people around here.

 

[Matt.GC]

I definitely don’t have a “proper”, King’s English style RP accent, but I’d say I’m definitely closer to RP than any other regional accent in the UK. My whole family and most people who’ve ever met me say I’m “accentless”, I don’t have a rhotic accent and don’t my r’s at all, unlike many people in my area, and I use the more South East-style long a (bar-th rather than bath) so I’m not really sure what else would give me a South West accent other than maybe some little, minute “isms”. I don’t think I have a strong or particularly noticeable South West accent, put it that way.

It's your "isms" that people from far afield will be able to pick up on. Doesn't have to be a rhotic R or strong. I don't think there's really such thing as a typical British accent, you just have to look at Americans having at go one to see that. "Accentless" is something of a pseudoword, as by definition if you speak a language you will have an accent to it.

But you do live practically on the Welsh and West Midlands border up there, and you live with people who have weak accents from elsewhere in the UK, and exposed outside of your household to weak local accents as well. Plus access to media, particularly the internet, is diluting regional accents anyway and has done for decades. So I can see where you're coming from. The accent down here is quite weak, stronger in the more older people. I have a very weak north Bristolian accent (but still use the same words I always have), and my partner has a weak Somerset one. So our kids, who use the internet heavily, have very weak accents as a result. They use their mother's language (like calling dinner lunch) as she's a local, and not mine. So I get bullied for the way I talk by my own children in my own bloody house! Just as well I love them all.