[Natalie.]

Do you think if people have strong accents they are at a disadvantage for things? jobs etc
Do you have stereotypes about certain accents?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...y-dialect.html

[Niamh.]

Depends on the job I guess, if you're going for a job that requires you to deal with the public then I think it could be a disadvantage because the employer will want someone who's easily understandable

[Verbal]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Depends on the job I guess, if you're going for a job that requires you to tell with the public then I think it could be a disadvantage because the employer will want someone who's easily understandable

People with strong accents, geordies, scousers etc. do very well in service type jobs, because they come across as approachable and friendly. Your average Joe will feel much more at home sharing a joke with someone that sounds like they've just stepped out of Brookside than someone who has just stepped off the set of Made in Chelsea.

Of course, if you're going to be serving champagne and tea cakes in first class thats a different matter.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Verbal

People with strong accents, geordies, scousers etc. do very well in service type jobs, because they come across as approachable and friendly. Your average Joe will feel much more at home sharing a joke with someone that sounds like they've just stepped out of Brookside than someone who has just stepped off the set of Made in Chelsea.

Of course, if you're going to be serving champagne and tea cakes in first class thats a different matter.

Where in my post did I say any of that? I said people who are easily understandable, you can be from Liverpool and still be easy to understand

[Verbal]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Where in my post did I say any of that? I said people who are easily understandable, you can be from Liverpool and still be easy to understand

The thread is about strong accents, you said they could be a disadvantage. I disagreed.

Give me strength.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Verbal

The thread is about strong accents, you said they could be a disadvantage. I disagreed.

Give me strength.

I didn't however say that anyone from the North of England shouldn't have a job in customer service like your post in reply to mine implied

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Depends on the job I guess, if you're going for a job that requires you to deal with the public then I think it could be a disadvantage because the employer will want someone who's easily understandable

I agree. If you're going to employ someone to speak to people from all over, they need to be quite easy to understand. I've struggled with people on the phone sometimes. I like regional accents, they're colourful and interesting... but sometimes they're hard to understand and in a professional enviroment I'd say it could be a disadvantage.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Livia

I agree. If you're going to employ someone to speak to people from all over, they need to be quite easy to understand. I've struggled with people on the phone sometimes. I like regional accents, they're colourful and interesting... but sometimes they're hard to understand and in a professional enviroment I'd say it could be a disadvantage.

Yeah, I'm not saying the accents are bad, you can still speak in your accent but be understandable. I remember when I was working in Boston years ago, I had to slow my voice down by around 5 times to save having to repeat every sentence 74 times I didn't lose my accent while doing that though

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Yeah, I'm not saying the accents are bad, you can still speak in your accent but be understandable. I remember when I was working in Boston years ago, I had to slow my voice down by around 5 times to save having to repeat every sentence 74 times I didn't lose my accent while doing that though

Oh you bloody Irish with your lilting accents... you can get away with anything with you speak with an Irish accent, that's my take on it.

Accents are good. A poor vocabulary and a slack jaw, they're the things that annoy me, and you don't have to have a particular accent to sound common and a bit thick.

[AnnieK]

Before my brother was a Pilot he worked as an Air Traffic Controller and they made his have eloqution lessons to get rid of his accent as foriegn pilots wouldn't understand him. He now sounds like Prince William! If you met him you wouldn't know he was a Manc...

Originally Posted by anniek76

Before my brother was a Pilot he worked as an Air Traffic Controller and they made his have eloqution lessons to get rid of his accent as foriegn pilots wouldn't understand him. He now sounds like Prince William! If you met him you wouldn't know he was a Manc...

Sounds like something the government should implement nationwide.

[AnnieK]

Originally Posted by Jesus.

Sounds like something the government should implement nationwide.

I don't think so....

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Jesus.

Sounds like something the government should implement nationwide.

I'd probably feel the same if I lived in Birmingham.

Originally Posted by Livia

I'd probably feel the same if I lived in Birmingham.

I meant nationwide to eradicate manc from the island. Although if they wish to take Brummie from us as well, there wouldn't be many tears.

[Kyle]

I find people who have regional accents down to earth and approachable. That's how it is really in South Yorkshire. Accents to me is one piece of an identity and there's nowt better than being somewhere and instantly knowing where people are from when you speak to them. It helps build a rapport I feel.

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Simple Minds

I find people who have regional accents down to earth and approachable. That's how it is really in South Yorkshire. Accents to me is one piece of an identity and there's nowt better than being somewhere and instantly knowing where people are from when you speak to them. It helps build a rapport I feel.

I think that people are people, no matter where they come from or what accent they have. Some are good, some are bad... having a particular accent doesn't make you more or less of a person

Judging people on how they speak and assuming their accent says everything about them, whatever that accent is, seems a rather provincial viewpoint to me.

[Kizzy]

Worra load of ald s***!

[Kizzy]

Call centers are used in some towns specifically as the accents there are considered calming, I think it's geordies.
So I would say employers prefer colloquial accents to a degree.

[arista]

This makes sense
as its not liked

[Kizzy]

oo sez? nowt wrong wi an accent, dunt mean yer fick!

Most organisations customer service base is in India... that might be why most struggle, nothing to do with any issue with black country accents.

[Natalie.]

It's always Scots and Geordies when I phone my phone company. I can understand them but the Scots sometimes can't understand me

[Kizzy]

This just perpetuates the myth that people who have trained their accent away to be left with some souless middle england twang are more employable,
I don't think that's true.

[Lee.]

There's a thread where you can listen to people's accents.

[mizzy25]

I am actually a proper Geordie but you would be surprised how many different accents there are from up here. Charlotte off Geordie shore is not a Geordie and hasn't got a proper Geordie accent (imo) 10 minutes up the road from me is a place called Blyth again their accents are different to mine. I used to get took for Scottish when I went abroad but the funny thing is I find it very hard to understand some Scottish say from Glasgow. As for call centres well last wed I was on the phone all day getting my computer fixed firstly to someone oin the phillpines whose accent was sort of American with a kind of south African twang which I couldn't understand very well. ThenI rang someone else and it was someone with I would say maybe a Pakistani accent I was on the phone a good 2 hours to him and by the end he was flirting with me lol so I did understand him and he was very helpful.

[King Gizzard]

Thankfully I didn't inherit the regional accent here, I have kind of a neutral accent

The accent here is dumb as ****. It's basically this (not Matthew Horne) http://www.channel4.com/programmes/u...ht/4od#3595840