Ah bay a Brummie
16 October 2007I’m annoyed!
I’ve just been accused of being from Birmingham and having a Birmingham accent, which got a very strong NO on both counts. I’m not from Birmingham. I’ve never lived in Birmingham. I don’t sound like I’m from Birmingham.
Now there’s nothing wrong with a Brummie accent for those that are from there (and I have some good friends from Birmingham). But I’m not and I don’t like people saying I am. I’m not even technically from the Black Country, although I grew up nearby so I will say that my accent is probably nearer to that. Because I don’t have a large town or city with which to identify my accent I tend to describe it as generically ‘Midlands’, as I have a mix of Black Country type West Midlands with North Midlands and the odd bit of a Welsh accent. I admit that’s probably very confusing to pinpoint, but it is my own!
And what is it about the Black Country and Brummie accents that’s so confusing to people? They’re clearly not the same by any stretch of the imagination – Black Country has a sing-song quality (must be all the hills) which you don’t find in Brummie, and Brummie uses the long vowel sounds in past, last etc (pahst, pahst), whereas Black Country uses the shorter, more northern sound. There are lots of more subtle differences too, but this wasn’t going to be an analysis of the two accents, just a chance to let off some steam! And it’s not as if I go around saying all southerners sound the same (which they do) …
Ta-ra a bit!
[...] even manged to crowbar in a reference to the Black Country, although with a Birmingham accent [see my previous post on accents]. Oh and we had an organ recital in the middle of the show. Not that it was planned, but the organ [...]