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franticgecko3 4 days ago

I'm from West Yorkshire, the dialect is slowly fading. My grandfather would speak with a strong accent and with spatterings of Norse words. I notice now that, yes, dialects in the UK are becoming homogenised but there is also some American influence seeping in. The American way of pronouncing a double t as a d "better" => "bedder" is increasingly more prevalent in the UK, it's slightly saddening.

simonh 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

When I was staying with a friend in Norway once we visited his mother, and to me she sounded like someone with a broad Durham/Newcastle accent (my mother is from there) speaking German. A lot of north east words are germanic, or Scandinavian. My grandfather was a farmer near Durham and pigs were swine, children were bairns.

As for American influence, my youngest daughter picked up a lot of that from Youtube at one point, and I once interviewed a girl from Gravesend with such a strong US accent I assumed she'd grown up over there.

trollbridge 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Exact same thing is happening in Australia. I'm guessing it's from watching streaming video, Netflix, TikTok, etc. where American accents predominate, and any non-American accents are flattened enough to be sure it's easy for Americans to understand them.

d_burfoot 3 days ago | parent [-]

It's weird that the mainstream TV execs think audiences want boring American accents. To me, one of the best things about the White Lotus (hit HBO show) is that it highlights a distinct array of accents (including Australian).

NikkiA 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There really isn't one 'west yorkshire' accent, nor one 'north yorkshire' accent, there is much much more variety than that. A leeds resident sounds different from a wakefield or dewsbury resident, and even then there can be variation where some people exhibit less of their locale accent than others, depending on how much they rebelled against sounding 'local' in their teens.

rwmj 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Pronouncing zed as "zee" is particularly annoying (as in "Gen Z").

stevekemp 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

The one that gets me the most is English people suddenly saying "fall" instead of "autumn".

dfawcus 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

It is a traditional one which fell out of fashion.

https://weather.metoffice.gov.uk/learn-about/weather/seasons...

https://twominenglish.com/autumn-vs-fall/

Now if we start saying "diaper" again instead of "nappy", you can start to worry.

mr_toad 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The weirdest one to me is the English suddenly referring to police as "feds".

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/37256/police-in-...

It's not like they didn't already have dozens of slang terms for the police.

1659447091 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

anytime I hear someone use "zed" for Z(ee) the next thing I hear in my head is "Zed's dead, baby"[0] Pulp Fiction and I just can't help but chuckle

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E3aAvhUucI

dave333 4 days ago | parent [-]

I emigrated from the UK to USA in 1980 and my first code review at Bell Labs I spent about 30 mins explaining my code and then asked if there were any final questions and someone hesitantly asked, "What is this variable 'zed' you keep talking about?"

rwmj 4 days ago | parent [-]

I used to work for a networking start-up and when we were in the US trying - without success - to sell the company we practised over and over saying "roWter" for "router" (English pronunciation like "rooter").

wcarss 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

As a Canadian I read that as "rOATer" for a moment, because the word row rhyming with ow is quite uncommon here -- the row I know is in a boating or a data context.

ninalanyon 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

You never have a row with anyone?

wisemang 3 days ago | parent [-]

As a Canadian, obviously not.

(For real though we don’t use that word for argument or whatever.)

dfawcus 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

As a Brit, so did I. That said, a "rotor" would be pronounced as "rOATer" and has a completely different meaning.

isn't English fun !

BrandoElFollito 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Funny, I just realised that I say "rooter" in French (because route ("roote") means way, like in English), but I say "rAWter" in English

ninalanyon 3 days ago | parent [-]

There are two words with the same spelling but separate pronunciations in British English:

Router (rooter) the thing that routes packets in a newtwork

Router (rowter) a machine tool that cuts grooves, etc., in wood or metal.

BrandoElFollito 3 days ago | parent [-]

Ah, so I pronounce the IT equipment wrong. I guess that "raw-ter" sounds really bad then.

PaulRobinson 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There was a cartoon in Private Eye a couple of weeks ago that suggested the reason why Millenials and Gen Z could never be reconciled is that they can't agree whether it's pronounced "Generation Zed", or "Generation Zee", as the younger generation themselves would call it.

hermitcrab 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I find Valley speak, where people say 'like' every third word, infuriating.

rad_gruchalski 2 days ago | parent [-]

“Literally”!

kevin_thibedeau 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It may alleveiate the epidemic of th-fronting among young men.

fsckboy 3 days ago | parent [-]

i fought like you for many years but i fink it's just part of the accent now

joeross 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I agree, it’s very sattening

HK-NC 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Norse words?

smh 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

https://www.viking.no/e/england/e-yorkshire_norse.htm

Most have fallen out of use but e.g. 'laik' is still understood by young people.

mhandley 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Beck, meaning stream (small river), is one I remember from growing up in the north east.

casenmgreen 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I may be completely wrong, but I think one direction of evolution in pronunciation is the gradual shift to that which takes less physical effort to pronounce.

"Bedder" is less physical work, less effort, in the mouth than "better".

froddd 4 days ago | parent [-]

“Be’er” seems like even less work. For some people

foldr 3 days ago | parent [-]

This is a bit of a myth. A glottal stop is a full consonant sound which takes effort to produce. It's not really any 'easier' to produce than an alveolar stop in any objective sense.