# Types of English accents. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 21, 2003, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/types-of-english-accents/196598 "2003-08-21T04:22:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![everton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@everton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/everton)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/types-of-english-accents/196598/61 "2003-08-26T01:36:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by meenie7 \* > Ok, now I’m curious…does anyone know what the accent from Kent is like? Specifically Cranbrook, Kent (which is near Tunbridge Wells, I think). [Royal Tunbridge Wells](http://www.visittunbridgewells.com/), to give it its full name, is Received Pronunciation Central, archetypally the most conservative town in the whole of England. It may not have been that way when your dad’s ancestor left of course. I was there for a wedding a couple of summers ago and found it a very pretty town. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/types-of-english-accents/196598/62 "2003-08-26T03:37:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by everton \* > \*\*No it varies quite a bit, but if somebody was to explain their accent to you they might identify it by place to avoid complicating the issue or to make it easier to remember where they claimed to be from. > > A person from Liverpool might be described as having a Scouse accent; someone from Newcastle-upon-Tyne\* might be said to have a Geordie accent; a Londoner might have a Cockney accent etc. > > 'scuse the spelling nitpick, but I suspect your friend was from Belper. > > \*There are several places called Newcastle. N-on-Tyne is the biggest and best known, and is usually just abbreviated to Newcastle. \*\* Yeah, I had a hard time reading what he wrote, so it is probably Belper. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Gui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@El\_Gui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Gui)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/types-of-english-accents/196598/63 "2003-08-26T06:47:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by everton \* > **Jane Horrocks is from nearby in [the Rossendale Valley](http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?G2M?X=385500&Y=422500&A=Y&Z=5) (although she cranks it up a bit for Bubble).** I seem to recall Bubble’s accent labeled as rural Lankashire(sp?)? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/types-of-english-accents/196598/64 "2003-08-26T08:26:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by everton \* > **I recall jjimm explaining that the show is set in the Cotswolds on the other side of the country.** (The Chilterns, actually). 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![everton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@everton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/everton)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/types-of-english-accents/196598/65 "2003-08-26T10:34:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by El Gui \* > I seem to recall Bubble’s accent labeled as rural Lankashire(sp?)? Yes, the Rossendale Valley is in Lancashire. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by jjimm_ > (The Chilterns, actually). Gulp. Blame the beer. Alice’s accent doesn’t sound like anyone I’ve spoken to from that area (my brother used to live in Chesham, btw), but I seem to recall that Pam Ayres is from Oxfordshire, so maybe that’s right? ---
**Author:** ![F\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a183cd/32.png) [@F\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F_P)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/types-of-english-accents/196598/66 "2003-08-26T10:42:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by cowgirl \* > \*\*Know any good movies featuring non-recieved-English-speaking-English people that we could get over here? \*\* Both [Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels](http://www.imdb.com/Title?0120735) and [Snatch](http://www.imdb.com/Title?0208092) are both set in London and many of the cast have genuine local accents (not Brad Pitt’s gypsy of course ;)). ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/types-of-english-accents/196598/67 "2003-08-26T11:11:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by everton \* > \*\*Gulp. Blame the beer. Alice’s accent doesn’t sound like anyone I’ve spoken to from that area (my brother used to live in Chesham, btw), but I seem to recall that Pam Ayres is from Oxfordshire, so maybe that’s right? \*\* There are a lot of immigrants to the area with Lunnun type accents, as well as middle-class types with RP, that are eroding the proper Oxfordshire accent. Chesham’s Buckinghamshire (IIRC) and closer to London, so the rural accent would probably have been eroded quicker. However, in the village where I grew up, most of the people spoke like Pam Ayres (well, she was exaggerating it). You can tell Oxfordshire from other ooh-arr accents by the peculiar vowels: Post becomes paste. Boy becomes bee. Loud becomes laid. How becomes ay. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/types-of-english-accents/196598/68 "2003-08-26T11:16:24Z")
So, who can translate this from Oxfordshire dialect: Ay laid did the paste bee shate? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![everton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@everton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/everton)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/types-of-english-accents/196598/69 "2003-08-26T11:30:59Z")
“How loud did the post boy (=postman?) shout?” would be my guess. I can just hear it in the “I wish I’d looked after me teeth” stylee. Chesham (or Trumpton as my dad called it whenever he went to stay) _is_ in Bucks and is indeed full of immigrants from The Smoke due to it being on the Met line. ---
**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:** [August 26, 2003, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/types-of-english-accents/196598/70 "2003-08-26T14:48:30Z")
On the subject of Black Country accents I have been told that , because this area is actually made up of a collection of villages and small towns, that there are many accents. It has been said that a resident of that area can almost say to the nearest street where somebody was born just by hearing them speak. I had an uncle from there and his accent was very pronounced , sometimes I had difficulty understanding him. Accents do change in a very small area . I was born and raised in Coventry and that accent is different to Birmingham twenty miles to the west and Leicester twenty miles to the north east. To clear up something for our US friends , when we talk of the Black Country ( west of Birmingham) this has nothing to do with race or colour of the inhabitants but to the fact that this is a very industrialized area . The “black” comes from the industrial pollution of the past which has been mainly eradicated. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/types-of-english-accents/196598/71 "2003-08-26T17:18:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by everton \* > **[Billy Elliot](http://us.imdb.com/Title?0249462): Set in Newcastle.** Isn’t it Durham? ---
**Author:** ![everton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@everton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/everton)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/types-of-english-accents/196598/72 "2003-08-26T17:59:39Z")
[This site](http://www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/hollywood_on_tyne/billy_elliot.shtml) says it was shot all over the North East, and although it mentions Easington, there are towns of that name in Northumberland and Cleveland as well as Durham and it doesn’t say which one. There is an Easington Colliery in Co. Durham though, so you’re surely right. Jamie Bell is apparently from Billingham near Middlesbrough, so technically his accent isn’t quite a Geordie one, but his gran is played by Jean Heywood who’s from Blyth, so hers is. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/types-of-english-accents/196598.md?page=3)