Do you adopt different accents, posh, rough etc?
 

we all do

posh one
rough one
regular one

?

Posher on the phone - in a work situation - doesn't everyone?

I've naturally got a bit of a slightly camp/londoner accent but as my boyfriend's from birmingham I find myself adopting the Brummie accent when I go up there.

why?

My accent's quite conflicted, I had to go to speech therapy when I was little so I've got quite a normal accent at times but it slips into a black country accent often. If I'm talking on the phone and situations like that then I'll try to speak posh sicne my accent can be difficult to understand sometimes.

Nah, mine is generally the same in every situation. I suppose it can be a little more reserved on the phone though.

i find when i speak to posh people, i speak a bit posher back.
otherwise just normal all the time.

Do we all? No we dont. I use the same accent all the time.

So when do you change accents LT and why?

Do you really need to ask?

I am curious about the perception that posh is somehow better.

I would doubt that.


My accent changes when i am with my parents, for example or when I am on the phone, or if I was at a football match in Glasgow.

Phone voice - Usually miserable cause I hate answering the phone
People like pizza guy, shopping assitants, teachers etc - I go all coy and say thanks a ridiculous amount of times
Then If i'm with my friends I sound more common :P

Doubt all you want, Thomas.

Why change it for different people?

you must speak different to your Mum than you do at work or in the pub?

I communicate with my mother by thought, she died a few years ago.

Next.

You know as well as I do that - in business - a good, well spoken telephone manner is desirable!

I find my accent changes unintentionally. My grandparents are quite posh so when I'm with them I usually pronounce all my 'T's and generally dumb down my accent. When I'm with my close family, friends or people with a strong accent I speak pretty normal, and if I'm in something like an interview for college or a job or something, again, I dumb down my accent.

I don't know why, I don't actually mean to, it just happens :laugh:

I take it you mean play down your accent as in softening it as opposed to dumbing it down, in a lot of peoples eyes the Brum/West Midlands accents sort of dumbs down its owner.

Stereotypical I know but its true people perceive brummie speakers as thickos, I quite like it though.

im always posh on the phone if im speaking to someone i dont know

My accent makes me seem like I'm a first-language Welsh speaker so I get quite a lot of "Ohhh tell me what ____ is in Welsh!" and stuff (I'm not, just the basics).

I do put on a posh voice on the phone (to banks, college etc) it just seems to happen naturally then after I think "WTH was I doing that for?!" For example, saying "yes" properly as I always say "yerrr" :P

I think i talk differently on the phone...other than that, not really.

Though when i lived in greece, I started sounding a little...I dont know...foreign.. Picked up a lot of how they speak over there, was very strange coming back to england :laugh:

not if it sounds uppity and fake it isnt

Not uppity or fake - just your best voice - not lazy!

Yeah that's probably a better word actually. I agree, when I listen to Adrian Chiles on Match of the Day he sounds like a right thicko! I obviously can't really tell when it comes to how I sound because I'm so used to it, but yeah, we're just a collective of thicko's here :D

Agree.