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A 'brummie' accent will hold you back in life.

Alf:  I loved that link.  I've lived in Canada for 40 yrs and still have the accent, although some people look puzzled at times.  I am usually accused of being Australian or South African.  :o
Astonian: I am pure Brummie too, at least back to 1800.  Grew up within shouting distance of the Villa and got married at the Church next door (not in the football season, of course). I've never heard of a plaster bug but they sound remarkably like bed bugs to me and I know plenty about them. Killed enough of them in my youth. >:D
 
In the slums of Nechells where most of the house were built with bricks sand and cement,in the slum areas the cement was lacking so much that insects use to live in the brickwork joints thinking it was soil
To combat this you had to put Lime Wash on the walls to try to form a barrier but it was not much use,
night time you could just sit and watch them come out of the walls
 
Hi Dale, YESTHIS WAS A LITTLE RED BUG ,SLIGHTLY SMALLER THAN A LADY BIRD,WITHOUT ANY OTHER COLOUR ON IT,JUST BRIGHT RED , AND IT LIVED UNDER THE WALL PAPER , WHERE THE BREEDED ,THERE WAS HUNDREDS OF THEM THRIVING ON HEAT FROM BEHIND THE WALL, WHICH WAS THOMPSON,S THE BUTCHERS , SLAUGHTER HOUSE , AND WHEN YOU WAS ASLEEP THEY WOULD COME OUT,ALSO COCK ROACHES IN THE MASSES, , YOU COULDN, SEE YOUR WALLPAPER FOR THE SHINE OFF THE COCK ROACHES IT WAS LIKE A SHEET OF AMOUR ON THE WALL, ALSO ON THE STAIR CASE YOU COULD NOT WALK DOWN THE STAIRS, BECAUSE OF THE MASSES, DAD WOULD HAVE TO GET UP FOR WORK, WHOM WORKED AT CHARLES HARRIS,S IN LODGE ROAD, AS A BAKELITE MOULDER, HE WORKED THERE ALL HIS LIFE UNTIL HE DIED IN 1959 AT THE AGE OF 42, ANY WAY GETTING BACK TO THE PLASTER BUGS THE CORPORATION, HAD TO COME AND SPRAY ALL THE WALL,S IN EVERY HOUSE DOWN THE RIGHT HAND SIDE OF OF OUR TERRACE , WHICH WAS CROMWELL TERRACE THIS WAS IN THE EARLY FIFTIES , THE CORPORATION WOULD COME TWICE A YEAR, OUR HOUSE WAS 5/92 /LICHFILD ROAD , AND IN BETWEEN THAT PERIOD OUR DAD HAD TO GO TO BUCKINGHAM THE CHEMIST TO BUY SOME CHEMICALS TO TRY AND KEEP THEM DOWN AND INBETWEEN THAT WE HAD TO SWAT THEM WITH NEWS PAPER, S IN THE END MY MOM , WENT TO SEE HER DAD , WHOM WAS INVOLVED WITH THE BIG BOY AT THE BIG HOUSE IN COLMORE ROW , AND THEY MOVED HER OUT TO A POSH HOUSE IN LADY WOOD , MY MOM WAS THE ONLY CHILD AND DAUGHTER IN THE FAMILY OF ERNEST JELF , BEING THE SON OF WILLIAM GEORGE JELF THE RESTURANT , AND COFFEE KING ALONG WITH JOE LYON,S ANYWAY DALE AS I GOT OLDER I GOT A JOB WITH DIVIS,S THE BUILDER,S NEXT TO THE PICTURE HOUSE ON BRISTOL STREET HORSEFAIR , AND WE HAD TO GO AROUND TO THE OLD COUNCIL HOUSE,S ALL AROUND BALSALL HEATH TO DO THE PROPERTY REPAIRS,S AND REPLASTER SOME BED ROOMS WALL,S AND SEE THESE THINGS AGAIN, BUT OVER THE YEARS THESE DAM THINGS HAVE DISAPPEARED, I SURPOSE WITH THE INTRDUCTION OF PLASTER BOARDS AND SKIMMING PLASTER THIS HAS REDUCED AND ELIMIATED THEM AND BY THE WAY MY MOM WAS POSH GOOD LOOKING AND EDUCATED, AND YOU TO STAGE DANCE ALL OVER THE COUNTRY AND DANCED AT THE ASTON HIPPODROME, AND HAD PRIVATE EDUCATION FROM THE AGE OF FIVE RIGHT UP TO LEAVING SCHOOL AGE , SHE HAD THE CHOICE TO MARRY A BUSSINESS MAN , NAMELY MR PATTISON , OF THE LONG STANDING CATERING BUSSINESS,IN B,HAM WHICH IS STILL GOING STRONG IN OUR GREAT CITY OF BRUM IN DIGBETH , PATTISON ,AND HUGHE,S WHEN SHE WAS YOUNG, INSTEAD SHE RAN OF WITH A GOLD DIGGER AND ALCHIE FROM ASTON, DALE , SORRY FOR GETTING CARRIED AWAY , I THINK THAT BREED OF BUG BECAME EXSTINT JUST LIKE RUPERT MENTIONED ABOUT THE OLD BOBBY HOWLER, JUST LIKE OUR COMMON BEETLE HIS NOW DISAPPEARING, AND OUR DEAR OLD SPARROW,S BESST WISHES ASTONIAN ,;;;;;
 
Thanks Robert & Jean and if you can find a better Forum for Family History help let me know, but I don't think you will ^-^

Nice to have you on board and Jean my Sister was Married at Aston Church in 1964
 
I read that Adrian Chiles has got the job of fronting Nationwide.

well done to him a Brummie who isn't ashamed of his accent
 
Thanks Astonian - a very interesting reply to my question. Your former insect problems sound truly disgusting. There are some things about the olden days that nobody could possibly miss, aren't there?

We have not had bedbugs in New Zealand but now that cheap international travel has become so widespread, the backpackers hostels in New Zealand and Australia are reporting that bedbugs have arrived in the last year or two in the backpacks and sleeping bags of the roving travellers and now have to be treated. Lordy lordy, what else are these young wanderers bringing into the country?

What bad luck your mother made the wrong choice of partner. She wasn't the first and she won't be the last! Hope her descendants had better luck.

Dale
 
Well of course most people here are going to say how wonderful the 'Brummie' accent is and in all fairness a GOOD Brummie accent is even quite pleasent but the Brummie ones heavily laced with Black Country...oh dear.
 
I AM PROUD OF HOW HOW TALK AND SOUND CLOSE ON 59 YEARS OF AGE NOW I AINT GOING TO CHANGE AND I FIND ITS A GOOD TALKING POINT WHEN I MEET ANYONE ELSE WITH THE BRUMMIE ACCENT DOWN HERE IN WALES. AND I CAN SAY THERE OF LOTS OF US ABOUT
JOHNEDWARD
 
John lived in Caswell Bay for 6 months and Cardiff 6 months for 3 years then settled in Cardiff for the rest of my stay.

I met my lady in Newport and we are now in Suffolk 18 years, we have been together 24 years shes lost her Welsh accent.

I'll send you a PM later
 
Some months ago when on holiday some Norwegians (seated not far from some black country folk) began to converse with each other thinking that they were from Norway, both sides were amazed to find the similarities in their languages. TRUE STORY. So it looks like they where more pillaged than they thought.
 
Brummies don't smile enough, Brummies don't speak English correctly, etc. All windups in my opinion. When you leave Britain it is amazing how none of this matters. People love an accent from somewhere else in North America. I work on the phone all the time and people say "Love your accent" and mean it.

My ears perk up when I hear a Brummie accent on TV and the people who are speaking are usually very highly educated and know their "stuff" and so that puts the stories of a "Brummie accent holding you back in your career" nonsense where it belongs in the realm of rubbish spouting.
 
Better speaking as we do, rather than the 'plummies', i.e. people who say Parkistarn for Pakistan and Irarq for Iraq (shouldn't it, then, be Arfgharnistarn?) They don't know what they're on about. And the Birmingham accent is totally different to the Black Country accent.
 
I Entirely Agee fully With Harborne These TV actors
Haven,t Got A Clue
They Speak The Black Yam . Yam Tongue Lingo
And They Really Think Its Brummie
Black Country Lingo Is Entirely Different To Ours ,
Where Did OUR MARGRET , Get The Idea That It Meant HOME
But There Is Parts In This Country Where They Don,t Like Brummies
WORCESTER DISLIKES BRUMMIES The walsh Dont Like Brummies .
 
I started this thread and it was the Brummie accent that was the topic not the people.

For anyone to say they do not like a section of people who came from one of our cities or that other people do not like Brummies appears to me to be slightly childish.

Some accents offend my ears but it is the accent I dislike not the people,
I was born in the Potteries and even though we came here when I was 8 years old my parents never lost their accent and even though I am extremely proud of being a Potter/Brummie I do not really like the Stoke accent but the people are great.
I can do a great Potteries accent but their are not many actors who get it right.
 
Reading this post brought back memories for me. I have never lived in the Birmingham area, but my grandparents were from there, and had two children there. I could never figure out why they talk funny, as I didn't know they had grown up in a different part of the country. I think my aunt used to say, chilren instead of children. Is that right. My aunt and uncle were wonderful people. Thinking about it now, maybe my uncle was from that area too, or else he picked up the accent from my aunt.
 
I have already told this tale before, but unable to locate it on the forum, so for our newer members I will repeat it...
Around 1991, I wil my family took a day trip to Blackpool...and no matter what time of year it is, it always seems to be windy and wet....while I was waiting for my wife to get me and the nippers a few doughnuts, these two old ladies came over to me and started to talk about the weather, I replied saying that every time I come here it always rains.....when I had finished saying what I said...one of the old girls turned to the other and ask what I had said....her reply to her was "I DON'T KNOW I THINK HE IS
FOREIGN".....I was standing right next to her when she told her that.....I felt like kicking her in her pension book.....:)
 
There are different accents all over the place. I was born in Brum but my mothers folks were from Wolverhampton and when we visited I found it difficult to understand them. They used to say things like 'giz a fake', meaning pass the cigarettes. Home there was um.
Go to Deavon and it's different again and about the same struggle. It's the same in the States. You would not associate the accent of someone from, say, South Carolina (a kind of sing song English) with what you are accustomed to from the media.
I was in Brum for a visit in the mid 70s and was suprised by the accent of a Jamaican girl who we spoke too. I was expecting something different but she spoke like a Brummie, which afterall was only correct she had been born there and schooled there. I think she thought we were Americans. Nice girl, polite and obviously well brought up. There I was thinking that I still had a Brum accent at least arekid.
 
Esteemed fellow Brummies. Am a recent newcomer as such to the forum, nevertheless, perusing this particular thread about the Brummie accent etc, I have found it fascinating. I never realised just how many fellow Brummies have had the exact same experience as myself living down here in the south (London) for now on 37 years ? I get the same template response every single time, 'You're from somewhere up north. Where are you from, Liverpool ? Manchester ?' Liverpool is always first and there's no denying, if one really listens to the the way Brummies and Scousers speak, though they differ in some ways, they do have a very similar lilt in the way they deliver their speech : plus the common, northern speak 'bath' (not barth) and 'bus' as in a deep 'buzz' as we used to say in Selly Park. I good Scouse buddy of mine down here in London unbelievably receives the mirror image experience to me : he sez (Brummie-not 'says' ) 'Chrissie laa ! They sez (just like Brummie speak) to me - so where are you from then - Birmingham ?' (??!!)
Every time I go back up, it never fails to hit me though just how much the Brummie accent varies from district to district. Small wonder the rest of the country struggles with it. I must say though that the 'northern ear' is a tad more discerning than its southern counterpart : A Scouser can spot a Brummie -vica versa : as can a Mancunian or Yorkshire or the East Midlands or the north east. Southerners nowadays perceive/hear a generic, northern accent which covers everywhere from (practically) Coventry to Carlisle !?
Birmingham - a unique place if there ever was one ! SPF4EVER
 
SPF4EVER,

You've resurrected a thread I had completely forgotten about - and so had most other members I surmise. But it is now slowly becoming more irrelevant, thank goodness, as many incomers can't even speak English! I can't say that it ever kept me back in any of my careers and I've also lived in Crete now for more than twelve years, where we have a few Midlanders - most other Brits can't tell the difference between Brummies, Black Countryites or even those from the Potteries.

All of my children were born in Bournemouth, a place with no noticeable accent, yet a three week holiday with their Brummie cousins when they were of junior school age had them coming back with broad Brummie accents, which disappeared again after a few weeks of Dorset!

I just wish I could underestand my Dundee-born son-in-law, though most of the rest of the family can! :-) :-) :-)

Maurice
 
No truer word was spoken Maurice. And how analogous it must be for you in Crete as I know (though born and bred Selly Park but being of Greek descent) how the Athenian Greeks (being from the capital) hear Cretans, Rhodians and Cypriots and say 'Oh, they're from some island somewhere !' just as the southern Brits do with us Brummies. You're so right though about children born south being sent north to spend some time with their 'Brummie' family. My daughter (London born and bred) heads north to Brum and returns a WEEK later and it's (Brummie) UP (not 'ap') and BUZ (not 'bas' !)
I have sadly noticed on recent visits to Brum though that some youngsters struggle to speak properly as in cogent, coherent English but with a Brummie accent : it all sounds like a nasal exorcism where words are ejected in an emetic expurgence akin to vomiting or sloshed French?! What on earth happened to the real Brummie accent in real English ?? Yes, we spoke with Brummie accents at school but in crystal clear, coherent English !? The times they are a changing indeed :-( SPF4EVER
 
I left Brum when I was 16, my parents moved to Sussex. I emigrated to Canada when I was 26. I still have a Brummie accent. I am in my 51st year on this side of the pond. Spending my winters in the US, were known as "Snowbirds", and down here, I am constantly reminded of my accent. They have no idea that I have a Brummie accent, in fact, most say Australia, NZ, South Africa. After I shake my head a few times, it becomes Irish, Scottish and then English finally appears. When I tell them that I've been over here for 50 years, they say, "well, you didn't lose your accent, how come?" I reply "I practice every day".
Dave A
 
SPF4EVER,

My other half's Greek teacher comes from Ierapetra on the south coast of Crete and a mere 45 minutes drive from us just a little west of Aghios Nikolaos on the North coast, yet our village locals can spot the difference in the way he has taught her, as can visiting Athenians (one old lady has a summer house behind us which she visits). A bit like us spotting the difference between Black Country & Brummie accents.

Dave,

I'm 80, lived in Dorset for over 40 years, and a year in Geordieland, plus the last 12 years here, but most people still spot my Brummie accent, yet I wasn't quite 24 when I left and never went back for more than a day until 1988. But I do love your "practice"response! :-)

Maurice
 
Some observations from preceding posts.
I can understand people from other countries equating a 'brummie accent' with South Africa; the South Africans with a Dutch ancestry do have some similar sounding words.
It is surprising how quickly some people pick up a new accent and as Sospiri says soon loose it when returning to their usual haunt.
Years ago Beryl Reid, some of the cast of 'Crossroads' and one or two others gave a quite understandable brummie accent.
I understand the comment by SP4, some of my American friends had great difficulty with the accent of Adrian Childs during the football World Cup. It was likened to someone talking with a mouthful of spaghetti. :D
 
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