Diversity of accents on the Cut.

[Gybe Ho]

One pleasant surprise of narrow boating culture for me is the diversity and predominance of regional English accents heard on the Cut. The mainstream media don't seem to truly reflect England and instead we get a diet that over represents London and Estuary English accents plus international accents.

 

Why is this? It is because the canal network routes through old industrial areas with strong accents and people who strolled along the tow path as a child are more likely to buy a narrow boat or is it a media bias that fails to convey the balance of spoken English onto the airways?

[ditchcrawler]

1 minute ago, Gybe Ho said:

One pleasant surprise of narrow boating culture for me is the diversity and predominance of regional English accents heard on the Cut. The mainstream media don't seem to truly reflect England and instead we get a diet that over represents London and Estuary English accents plus international accents.

 

Why is this? It is because the canal network routes through old industrial areas with strong accents and people who strolled along the tow path as a child are more likely to buy a narrow boat or is it a media bias that fails to convey the balance of spoken English onto the airways?

How long have you been cruising the canals to come up with this conclusion ?

[Gybe Ho]

3 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

How long have you been cruising the canals to come up with this conclusion ?

 

Am I wrong?

[IanM]

I reckon you’re thinking too much about this. Surely you meet people with different accents all the time in every day life or do you actually just watch TV and YouTube all the time as your posts suggest and don’t actually talk to people?

 

 

[ditchcrawler]

22 minutes ago, Gybe Ho said:

 

Am I wrong?

I would say yes

[Peanut]

17 minutes ago, Gybe Ho said:

 

Am I wrong?

Yes you are wrong, you have an idea, that is not a fact. It needs to be tested to see if it is so. But you seem to be starting with a large confirmation bias.

[Slim]

10 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I would say yes

Stolen my line.

[Graham Davis]

10 minutes ago, Peanut said:

Yes you are wrong, you have an idea, that is not a fact. It needs to be tested to see if it is so. But you seem to be starting with a large confirmation bias.

Or confrontational?

[Gybe Ho]

9 minutes ago, IanM said:

... Surely you meet people with different accents all the time in every day life...

 

 

 

No. The people I meet daily speak with local accents and I can typically place them in my country or the 3 neighbouring counties. Is your experience different?

 

Anyhow what I am discovering about the narrowboating community is that more speak with a stronger regional accents than would be expected in modern day Britain.

2 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

Or confrontational?

 

What is confrontational about wondering if growing up in an area of the UK with canals leads to people taking up narrowboating?

[Peanut]

Just now, Graham Davis said:

Or confrontational?

Oh no, I don't do that, life is too short. Confirmation bias it is, looking to prove your theory right. You have to try to prove the opposite, and when you can't do that, then your hypothesis may be right.

[Graham Davis]

Just now, Peanut said:

Oh no, I don't do that, life is too short. Confirmation bias it is, looking to prove your theory right. You have to try to prove the opposite, and when you can't do that, then your hypothesis may be right.

That poster has history of being confrontational!

[Gybe Ho]

Just now, Graham Davis said:

That poster has history of being confrontational!

 

And which section of this forum do you post in the majority of the time?

[nicknorman]

15 minutes ago, Gybe Ho said:

 

No. The people I meet daily speak with local accents and I can typically place them in my country or the 3 neighbouring counties. Is your experience different?

 

Anyhow what I am discovering about the narrowboating community is that more speak with a stronger regional accents than would be expected in modern day Britain.

 

What is confrontational about wondering if growing up in an area of the UK with canals leads to people taking up narrowboating?

I think it will depend on which sort of boaters you speak to. It is a myth to imagine that “the boating community” is some sort of homogeneous group. In fact we/they are as diverse as any other random selection of people.

 

I think I will start with a massive generalisation that working class /poorer people tend to have regional accents whereas middle class wealthy people tend not to. And another massive generalisation that quite a lot of people live aboard because they can’t afford to buy or rent a house (I did say it was a generalisation, so calm down at the back!). So if you wander around looking for towpath-dwellers, you are likely to find more regional accents. If you engage with private holiday boaters at locks, you are more likely to find regionless “BBC” accents. It’s not rocket science!

[MtB]

I travel far a wide fixing boilers. I'm just as likely to find my customer in their house has a strong local accent as a boater I might meet out somewhere on the cut. 

[blackrose]

59 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I would say yes

 

Me too. I can't see how it's possible to say that the mainstream media don't truly reflect England and instead we get a diet that over represents London and Estuary English accents. That may have been true 20 years ago, but not anymore.

 

Next he'll be saying that black people aren't represented in the mainstream media and in TV adverts! 🤣

Edited August 27 by blackrose

[MtB]

1 minute ago, blackrose said:

 

Me too. I can't see how it's possible to say that the mainstream media don't truly reflect England and instead we get a diet that over represents London and Estuary English accents. That may have been true 20 years ago, but not anymore.

 

True. Nowadays we get over-represention on the BBC of Scottish and Irish accents added in. 

 

I've NEVER heard someone with say, a strong Berkshire accent on the BBC, not even on Radio Berkshire. Although Nicky Campbell's phone-in programme on the R5 can turn up an excellent selection of local accents I notice. 

[nicknorman]

33 minutes ago, MtB said:

I travel far a wide fixing boilers. I'm just as likely to find my customer in their house has a strong local accent as a boater I might meet out somewhere on the cut. 

Yes, however that is not relevant to my point (if it was intended to be).

[MtB]

8 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Yes, however that is not relevant to my point (if it was intended to be).

 

My sincere apologies...

 

 

 

[Gybe Ho]

1 hour ago, nicknorman said:

I think it will depend on which sort of boaters you speak to. It is a myth to imagine that “the boating community” is some sort of homogeneous group. In fact we/they are as diverse as any other random selection of people.

 

I think I will start with a massive generalisation that working class /poorer people tend to have regional accents whereas middle class wealthy people tend not to. And another massive generalisation that quite a lot of people live aboard because they can’t afford to buy or rent a house (I did say it was a generalisation, so calm down at the back!). So if you wander around looking for towpath-dwellers, you are likely to find more regional accents. If you engage with private holiday boaters at locks, you are more likely to find regionless “BBC” accents. It’s not rocket science!

 

There was a time when each English country had a middle class and working class local accent, perhaps no more. As I child I could distinguish between a Welsh valleys accent and an educated softer Vale of Glamorgan or west of Swansea accent. One of my neighbours had that Richard Burton/Dylan Thomas posh Welsh accent. In fact a few years ago I walked though my old neighhood and encountered the old gent still gardening at 96, he regaled me with a story of when as a teenager he sat at the back of the class next to Dylan Thomas as they jointly composed dirty lyrics.

[Bacchus]

9 hours ago, nicknorman said:

 a massive generalisation that working class /poorer people tend to have regional accents whereas middle class wealthy people tend not to

 

A preposterous supposition; I know some very wealthy people, and some of them have very pronounced Eton accents, whereas many others are clearly Harrow.

 

There may be a few Winchester accents in the mix, but I don't spend enough time in fetish-clubs to be clear on that.

[ditchcrawler]

11 hours ago, nicknorman said:

I think it will depend on which sort of boaters you speak to. It is a myth to imagine that “the boating community” is some sort of homogeneous group. In fact we/they are as diverse as any other random selection of people.

 

I think I will start with a massive generalisation that working class /poorer people tend to have regional accents whereas middle class wealthy people tend not to. And another massive generalisation that quite a lot of people live aboard because they can’t afford to buy or rent a house (I did say it was a generalisation, so calm down at the back!). So if you wander around looking for towpath-dwellers, you are likely to find more regional accents. If you engage with private holiday boaters at locks, you are more likely to find regionless “BBC” accents. It’s not rocket science!

Several people every year spot where I come from when I speak to them

[Machpoint005]

Holiday resorts usually have people in them with a wide range of accents, both British and otherwise. The canal network is primarily a linear holiday resort.

Work it out for yourself, Mr Ho.

 

 

 

[Ray T]

In the recent past years I have had the privilege of meeting some of the last of the indigenous working boaters. Because they travelled, on the whole not straying far from the bank, they picked up the accents of the towns and villages they regularly passed through. 
The retired narrowboat captain I used to visit would say “Oxford” with a lovely drawl followed almost immediately by “‘tis arr,” from the Black Country. Braunston was always “Braaanston” with a long “a,” also “Wellock.” I’ll leave folks to guess where that is.

One boater I met said “I used to work down up north” with reference to railway nonemiclature of the up line towards London and the down line heading away from London.

 

Edited August 28 by Ray T

[Tigerr]

I always adopt very strong regional accents whenever we are boating. I like to think it enhances others enjoyment and sense that they are getting to meet real authentic people on their travels 

[Francis Herne]

17 hours ago, Gybe Ho said:

One pleasant surprise of narrow boating culture for me is the diversity and predominance of regional English accents heard on the Cut. The mainstream media don't seem to truly reflect England and instead we get a diet that over represents London and Estuary English accents plus international accents.

 

Why is this? It is because the canal network routes through old industrial areas with strong accents and people who strolled along the tow path as a child are more likely to buy a narrow boat or is it a media bias that fails to convey the balance of spoken English onto the airways?

I agree with you, getting used to all sorts of regional accents and dialects is something I enjoy travelling around the canals.

 

Even something as simple as the exchange of greetings when passing people on the towpath - "Good morning", "arright?" "'ow do?" "eyup!" - varies and people can be momentarily surprised/confused by the 'wrong' one for the area.

 

Reason I suspect is more the second than the first. I don't think boaters or towpath users are very different from the general population - boaters perhaps mixed around a little more - but the media pays little attention to life outside major cities and often plays to stereotypes when it does.

Boating naturally leads to conversations with locals across the country; living on land I travelled less and rarely had much time or reason to chat with the natives when I did.

 

@beerbeerbeerbeerbeer also appreciates this sort of thing iirc.

Edited August 28 by Francis Herne