Sunday 12 September 2021

The UK's North/South divide.


For those who don't know about England's division of areas, she is divided into two parts; The North and The South.

'The North' is a large area situated to the north of London, that reaches as far as the Scottish border. The South includes London, and everything south of London

This video shows the natural reaction of a Southerner, when a Northerner comes south. 


42 comments:

  1. Oh My Goodness. So funny.
    I have to admit when watching some BBC shows I have the closed captions on so I can understand .

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    1. Catherine Tate is very funny, she manages to capture the stupidity of 'class' perfectly.

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  2. Ha-ha! I liked that video. However, speaking as a proud Yorkshireman, I think of "The North" as the land that once formed the ancient kingdom of Northumbria. The South lies below Chesterfield. There be dragons!

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    1. We Brits enjoy our North/South divide; it gives us something to banter about. Wasn't Chesterfield the old seat of Lord Stansgate; Anthony Wedgewood-Benn? I never detected his Northern accent, so maybe he was a Southerner in disguise!

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    2. That is right. From 1984, Tony did represent Chesterfield in parliament but that was after he had represented Bristol South East for many years. I believe that Bristol is a settlement somewhere "Down South".

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  3. hahaha, you brightened up my day!

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    1. She has such a wonderful dead-pan face. Very funny woman.

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  4. My daughter had a boyfriend from the North, but he didn't speak as clearly as the Northern Nanny in the video. I don't know if English people found him difficult to understand. It was difficult for us Americans. The video is funny.

    Love,
    Janie

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    1. My wife and I often turn to each other and ask if we understood what someone had said. Often we don't, but it's only accents from certain towns; Newcastle being one.

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  5. Haha …. Brilliant. The one where they mistakenly drive into Tottenham is good as well. XXXX

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    1. Is that the one where someone starts washing their windscreen at a traffic light? Totten-Ham is a dodgy place!

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    2. That’s the one. Lock the doors children …. We took a wrong turn and we’re in Tott-en-ham !!!! XXXX

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  6. We lived in the NE ( Morpeth)for 4 years in the mid 70s and I worked in Newcastle. A strong Geordie accent was quite hard to get used to! Lovely friendly people.

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    1. I think Geordie is amongst the most difficult to understand. Certain Irish accents are difficult, as well as Scottish.

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  7. Back in the 1980s we used to board students for the local EFL school, sent to the UK to learn English. One day our Spanish student asked to watch TV to help improve her understanding of everyday spoken English. When Coronation Street came on she turned to me and asked what language were they speaking. It hadn't occurred to me before then that the accent would seem so different to non English speakers.

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    1. Is there a specific Manx accent? I've not been there, so wouldn't know.

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    2. Oh yes definitely very distinctive. The vowel sounds are longer and there is a musical quality to the sentence rhythm.

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  8. There is another strange area of the UK - East Anglia - Norfolk and Suffolk - we are not North or South but sadly on the whole we don't talk funny anymore.
    Loved the Catherine Tate sketch!

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    1. The one word I remember being strange from my time in Ely (almost Norfolk), was 'Swimming Pool', where 'pool' was pronounced poo-el

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    2. We certainly don't say poo-el in Norfolk nor anything like it.

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    3. I remember it well, it used to amuse us. More Pool-ul, but said together; difficult to explain.

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  9. I have never lived furthr south than Wolverhampton and lost my accent years ago because of moving around. Still find Geordie impossible.

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    1. The furthest North I've lived was North Shropshire, where most people spoke with a Welsh Accent.

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  10. Brought up in Carlisle, it used to annoy me when people referred to places like Manchester as being "up north", that to us was the south.

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    1. Well, If you come from Carlisle, almost everywhere is in the South.

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  11. Ah! So that's why people from the south keep their distance from me!

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  12. Sunday night here and we are watching a good tv show. I am so looking forward to watching this clip. As you may know my partner comes from the north and we know reasonably closely know someone in Kent, never mind you to be in Brighton.

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    1. The North/South divide is all good natured fun. We actually all like each other (other than on the Football or Rugby pitch.

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  13. I'm a Brummie and when I took my barely-English-speaking Algerian boyfriend home to meet my family the look of horror on his face when my dad and brother started talking to him was a sight to behold. Just imagine The Scream!

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    1. My Mother-in-Law was Swedish, and she invented some very strange expressions; many of which we still use today!

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  14. It is the same here in Iowa - except the polarity is reversed; North superior/South is where the hicks come from. Then there are the Texans...who take only what they absolutely need from the rest of the USA (which is just about everything) and proudly proclaim their independence and self-sufficiency. And so the world turns. Thanks for the chuckles!

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    1. I've never known anyone who didn't think their native city/town/village was the best place in the world. The UK is also filled with places that apparently have a localised Micro-Climate, which makes it much warmer than all the surrounding areas. I leave them to their dreams.

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  15. Oh that is funny!! Such a difference in accents. I notice the BBC now doesn't discriminate and have announcers and reporters with a wealth of 'dialects'.

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    1. Diversification is the buzz-word. All accents, all nationalities, and all variations of 'gender'. The BBC has gone totally 'WOKE'.

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  16. For a non-Brit, some dialects are initially hard to understand. That said, the longer I am in England, conversing is easy. As a visitor, I would never think of criticizing an individual for their dialect. Dialects vary North to South in the US as well.

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    1. It's all a bit of fun in the UK; no-one is serious about accents. We just like to make jokes about it.

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  17. England is full of dialects and accents indiscernible one to another. I speak with received pronunciation (don't ask why) despite being a Northerner and it is one of my biggest problems living in Scotland. However re your answer to Frances above Scotland has three languages and many dialects (and many languages spoken by more recent Scots).

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    1. I remember when Rees-Mogg went electioneering in Scotland (accompanied by his nanny), they couldn't understand a word he said, nor could he understand them. He wasn't elected. I too am a 'received pronunciation' person. Schooling, and Surrey born, I suppose.

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  18. The first time that my daughter encountered a Geordie accent, she was at a total loss. Her husband was no help at all, laughing his ass off like he was.

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  19. Eeee, the spoilt bairns.

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