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Accents

After years in the army I was pretty confident I could understand any accent, until we were sent to Belfast. The accent there was just incomprehensible. We had a bloke in our troop who was from Carrickfergus and we used him as an interpreter !
 
I guess the worse case of not understanding spoken 'English' was when a friends grandson, from Glasgow, visited him. My friend did warn me and when the lad spoke it confirmed what my friend had said. I never understood anything he said.
 
Same with my son-in-law from Dundee - he might just as well have been chewing a bag of pebbles when talking to me - I couldn't understand a word he said.

Maurice :cool:
 
I left Brum when I was 16 and moved to Sussex, where I lived for 10 years before emigrating to Canada. I've been here for 53 years. I consider my accent to a bit of a mix, but basically, it's mostly Brummie. I don't have a problem with most English speaking accents, however, Newfoundland, which is the most easterly part of Canada and was British territory until 1949, has the accent that stumps me some of the time. It's a blend of Irish, Cornish & Canadian English.
 
Don't shoot the messenger here, I am going back 45 years well before the PC police.
I worked with a guy nicknamed wobbly gob or marble mouth because no one could understand him and as he became excited it only got worse.
His family's history was French but he grew up in Brum
 
The fishing vessels from Brixham regularly fished the Grand Banks in the days of sailing ships. Salted cod was what principally landed. Brixham is known as the mother port of the country.
 
adap2it said:
I left Brum when I was 16 and moved to Sussex, where I lived for 10 years before emigrating to Canada. I've been here for 53 years. I consider my accent to a bit of a mix, but basically, it's mostly Brummie. I don't have a problem with most English speaking accents, however, Newfoundland, which is the most easterly part of Canada and was British territory until 1949, has the accent that stumps me some of the time. It's a blend of Irish, Cornish & Canadian English.
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In the late 70s, flying to Calgary from Germany, in a RAF VC10, we landed in Gander, Newfoundland. People were going about their business there and they didn't sound any different to any other Canadians that we met.
(My favourite people, in the whole world, by the way, are Canadians).
 
I know it`s taboo to mention politics on forum, but Jess Phillips mp for Yardley may well become the next leader of the Labour party. Though she hasn`t got a strong Brummy accent you can`t escape that soft Brummy twang. Go for it gal!:grinning:
 
Smudger said:
I know it`s taboo to mention politics on forum, but Jess Phillips mp for Yardley may well become the next leader of the Labour party. Though she hasn`t got a strong Brummy accent you can`t escape that soft Brummy twang. Go for it gal!:grinning:
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:)
 
sospiri said:
I'm now 82 and was almost 24 when I left Brum. Spent about 40 years in Dorset and 15 years in Crete, but I'm instantly identified as a Brummie even now.

No, your Honour, I've never been near the place, honest!

Guilty as charged! Send him down!

Maurice :cool:
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so they should:mad:
 
I was recently surprised to discover that an accent/pronunciation can affect your family history research. I knew that my 3 x great grandmother, Ann came, from the south of England. Specifically, according to the 1851 census, Cornwall/Devon and she was living on the Hagley Road. DNA placed her ancestry in Cornwall but how far back this is I don’t know as yet.

Ann was married to Benjamin Boughton who had been baptised at Edgbaston Old Church. Despite looking for all combinations there was no sign of the marriage in the Midlands or in Devon or Cornwall. Then I discovered Ann & Benjamin BOOTON! Married in Devon and the bride lived in Stoke Damerel. Definitely them as their daughter, Jane, was baptised some years later in Edgbaston.

As they seem to swap between Booton and Boughton on various records I imagine it depended on which of them gave the information.
 
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There are, I guess, many recorded anachronisms, based on dialects particularly when many people were illiterate.
Not in the same context, however, are the interpretations of foreign names when dealing with their new adopted countries officialdom.
Many Americans have 'anglicised' names which were given them when immigration clerks at Ellis Island dealt with them.
 
Rosie, the strangest one I saw was when the enumerator tried to translate Ballymacward from an elderly lady, with presumably a strong East Galway accent, put Bellymegherde!
 
my army mate "Johno", came from West Brom, and spoke with a deep Black Country twang, it was hilarious when in Germany ordering beer in Brummie German, "Garbanzie meer, einer bier bitter", in broad black country. Paul
 
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