goddammit, Manchester

[cosmolinguist]

"Wow, you sounded really Manc just then," Mary said to me at dinner yesterday after something I'd said (I forget what exactly). And I'm glad she's such a lovely person, because I think that may be the first time anybody's told me that, so it's good to have the news broken to me so gently.

I hate Manchester accents so much. When I first moved here I told Andrew that if I ever started to sound like one I wanted to move to Yorkshire. I have always thought Yorkshire accents are the best (but I like a lot of Scottish ones, too.) Since that's less likely to happen this week than any previous, I'll just have to make sure to watch lots of Twins games to remind myself how I should be talking.

Anyway, my attempting-to-be-humorous response to being told I sounded Manc was to say, "it's because I was being sarcastic. Manc accents are good for sarcasm."

But actually, thinking about it as I was waiting for the bus to work today, I think a reasonable argument could actually be made for this theory. Both because it's so harsh and awful, and because my dislike of it makes it good for saying things that I don't really mean.

Comments

[magister]

So, you moving to Yorkshire then?

[cosmolinguist]

Oh man I can't even think about moving again yet. :)

Anyway, I'm providing an excuse for you to go to places like Fopp and Tampopo.

[cosmolinguist]

For a while, years ago, we did talk about moving to somewhere like Todmorden or Mythelmroyd, back when I was still especially hating living in a city. But I think Andrew's relieved we moved to Levenshulme instead, and then all my friends who weren't already here did, so that now I wanted to stay.

[magister]

Bugger. Should have got her to say that 6 months ago.

[cosmolinguist]

It wouldn't need to be her. :) It was just nice that it was, because I might have gotten grumpy if it had been said by someone I don't like so much.

[uglybuffy.livejournal.com]

I hate my accent, but would not want to go back to the old country with an English accent of any description. I've picked up a few Mancunian expressions, particularly "do one" which amuses me. I think there are worse accents than Mancunian, but hearing "Manchestor" does set my teeth on edge. I want to be American instead. While honeymooning in the Deep South, I constantly got told "I love your accent!" to which I always responded that they could have it, in exchange for theirs.

[cosmolinguist]

I much prefer your accent to Deep South ones. :)

[uglybuffy.livejournal.com]

You can have it. Consider it my housewarming present to you! Now, I'm off to practise with my listening tapes of Sawyer from Lost.

[diffrentcolours]

Even my awesome Kevin Spacey House of Cards accent? :p

[cosmolinguist]

That is actually pretty awesome. :) But Sarah's is still better.

[uglybuffy.livejournal.com]

Please, take it!