I’ve read and a heard a bit about the differences between the South and the North of England. I’d like to know how they perceive each other and how real the differences are. What lead to both the perceptions and the reality?
I was surprised to learn that in the sitcom Frasier, the (Southern English) actress playing Daphne changed her accent to a Northern one. In the show ER, they almost had the Neela character change from the actress’ Northern accent to a Southern one. Are there such strong expectations that a Southern physiotherapist and a Northern doctor are unrealistic?
Obviously, the accents are different. One main difference is how flat vowels are, with “a” being almost pronounced like an “o” by some Southerners (e.g.: the BBC presenter Mishal Husain who announces “tolks” between groups).
By surely it’s not only the accents that are different.
The U.K. has a wide variety of accents and we’re perversely proud of them. Compare Ian Paisley with Rab C Nesbitt with Margaret Thatcher with Neil Kinnock. There’s as much an East-West divide as a North-South. Someone from Hull - sorry, 'Ull - speaks very differently to someone from Liverpool.
As Quartz has pointed out, the oft-reported North/South divide is merely the broadest and most easily caricatured feature of the fact that England is a rather glorious patchwork of different regional accents, cultures and attitudes that have evolved over a few centuries.
In practical terms, if you visit England and travel around a bit, there’s nothing you need to know and all you will notice are the different accents. Most won’t give rise to any serious difficulties in comprehension, but one or two will be a challenge - the Newcastle ‘Geordie’ accent can be difficult even for English people to understand, and the Liverpool ‘Scouse’ accent can take some decoding.
Speaking in very general terms, the North is associated with a less affluent and less sophisticated way of life, but with the redeeming feature of being more plain-speaking, less pretentious, and more warm and friendly. The South is associated with wealth or privilege and aspirations towards higher status and pretentiousness, but also with a ‘stand-offish’ or ‘snobbish’ attitude that excludes outsiders.
The North is most typically associated with the industrial heritage of the country, and the ‘hard labour’ of the mines and the factories that were the engine of the industrial revolution and the country’s manufacturing strength, particularly during the Victorian era and the period up to WW2. The South is most typically associated with the agrarian economy and farming, and with the less labour-intensive service and financial industries that have gradually become the country’s main source of wealth ever since we forgot how to invent and manufacture things.
The North is typically depicted as the home of the proud manual worker, maybe not blessed with the greatest education but plain, honest, fair-minded and content with simple pleasures. The South is typically depicted as the home of the more refined and cultured types, with aspirations to the arts and education, but hopelessly delusional and prone to airs and graces that are easily mocked and deserve to be.
- speaks very differently to someone from Liverpool.