# Please explain different UK accents to me. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 13, 2005, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-different-uk-accents-to-me/330888 "2005-11-13T20:58:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2005, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-different-uk-accents-to-me/330888/81 "2005-11-16T13:40:36Z")
Perhaps a good way to start hearing the different English accents (I’ll leave Scottish, Welsh, and Irish accents to somebody else) would be with the most obvious distinctions. The really big divide is between northern and southern accents - southern accents, such as the examples in the OP, have the long “a” in words like “pass” and “bath”, so they sound like “pahss” and “bahth”. Most northern accents have a short “a” there, the vowel sounding not too different from (most) American accents. Even Jane Leeves gets that one right when she does Daphne’s northern accent. Another difference is that most English accents are non-rhotic (they don’t pronounce the "r"s), but west country and Lancashire accents are rhotic (and East Anglia? I admit I’m not very familiar with those ones). ---
**Author:** ![ddgryphon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8c91f0/32.png) [@ddgryphon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ddgryphon)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2005, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-different-uk-accents-to-me/330888/82 "2005-11-16T15:46:20Z")
I missed the post if anyone replied to someone asking about Daphne and her brother from “Frasier” – What are those accents and what are the actors accents? I have a specific one: Ending “a” as “er” which I remember first hearing on “Space: 1999” as “Moon Base Alpher” instead of “Moon Base Alpha” I’ve since also noted that some American East Coast (Boston particularly) can also do this: as in “Martha park the car” which in Bostonian is “Marther Pawk the caw” What area(s) gives us the “er” for “a” and is there a non-“r” accent in Great Britain that is similar to the American “w” for “r”? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2005, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-different-uk-accents-to-me/330888/83 "2005-11-16T16:11:30Z")
ddgryphon writes: \> . . . Daphne and her brother from “Frasier” . . . As I said in an earlier post, her brother Simon is played by Anthony LaPaglia, who hails from Adelaide, Australia and is known mostly for playing New Yorkers of Italian-American descent. Whoever cast him as her brother should give up casting and find a new profession. He was presumably trying to do a Manchester accent. Who knows what it actually sounded like. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2005, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-different-uk-accents-to-me/330888/84 "2005-11-16T16:24:53Z")
He sounded like he was trying to do a working class London accent, but it was a curiously strangled effort. Not quite in the Dick van Dyke league though. Addition to the northern vs. southern rule I mentioned above - northeners use a short “u” so that “luck” is pronounced like “look”. Down south, “luck” sounds something like “lahk” or even “lack”. ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2005, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-different-uk-accents-to-me/330888/85 "2005-11-16T16:39:33Z")
> [@Usram](#): > > Addition to the northern vs. southern rule I mentioned above - northeners use a short “u” so that “luck” is pronounced like “look”. Down south, “luck” sounds something like “lahk” or even “lack”. This is a feature of my Coventry accent. When I say “bus” it is said almost with pursed lips,to give a very short “U” sound. Not so much now, but years ago I would laugh at certain BBC announcers who would pronounce my home town as “Caventry” ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2005, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-different-uk-accents-to-me/330888/86 "2005-11-16T16:46:05Z")
Coventry’s up north, isn’t it? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2005, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-different-uk-accents-to-me/330888/87 "2005-11-16T17:26:03Z")
> [@Rayne Man](#): > > Nigel Kennedy (the violinist) has also changed his accent. I have seen a clip of him when he was about 10 year’s old and he spoke very posh. Now he uses a terrible mock Cockney accent. He’s always had that mockney accent when it’s suited him. ---
**Author:** ![Foaming\_Cleanser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Foaming\_Cleanser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foaming_Cleanser)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2005, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-different-uk-accents-to-me/330888/88 "2005-11-16T17:48:39Z")
It’s easier now for Queen Elizabeth to get the oil changed in her Rolls at Wal-Mart than in years past, according to [this](http://www.nature.com/news/2000/001221/pf/001221-9_pf.html). > [@](#): > > Jonathan Harrington of Macquarie University, Sydney, and his colleagues have analysed the vowel sounds from every Christmas broadcast made by Elizabeth II from the 1950s through to the 1980s. “There has been a drift in the Queen’s accent towards one that is characteristic of speakers who are younger and/or lower in the social hierarchy,” they now report in Nature. IMO, the rot started when BBC radio no longer required its newsreaders to stand at the microphone and wear coat and tails. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2005, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-different-uk-accents-to-me/330888/89 "2005-11-16T17:59:11Z")
> [@](#): > > Addition to the northern vs. southern rule I mentioned above - northeners use a short “u” so that “luck” is pronounced like “look”. 😕 I don’t think that this is right. Every Northern accent that I’ve heard pronounces look and luck in completely different ways. The actual “oo” sound in look is pronounced, as opposed to the southern variant that pronounces it more like “luck”. Another characteristic of some northern accents is an inability to pronounce the “s” sound correctly. Bus becomes buzz, for instance. Even fellow northerners take the mick out of me for that one. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2005, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-different-uk-accents-to-me/330888/90 "2005-11-16T18:10:57Z")
OK, OK, northern “luck” sounds like southern “look”. But that’s not much use to an American who isn’t sure which is which. There’s a tendency in these discussions to end up talking at cross purposes because we’re not using a phonetic alphabet. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2005, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-different-uk-accents-to-me/330888/91 "2005-11-16T19:16:10Z")
Fascinating thread And I just want to say that I have to watch “Extras” with closed captioning turned on. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-different-uk-accents-to-me/330888.md?page=4)