Katie(Oldham)
I'm from Oldham in Lancashire and i'm dead confused about my accent cos i reckon i sound like i'm from Bolton but I've got the same accent as my mum and she said hers is a Shaw accent.Well i reckon they sound similar!.
Rebecca Who
I think that my northern boyfriend thinks that it makes you look posh to be more southern. He has already lost his accent because he gives presentations for a living but now I am disapointed to find him being influenced by his southern friends and using 'lunch', 'trousers' and he claims not to get Peter Kays jokes. Boo.
A Londoner
i must say it is a bit harsh to judge all southerners the same most may take the mickey but how many times have i been called a southern softie and told that they could "drink me under table any day thweek" only to find it is me picking them off the floor at the end of the night ! come on guys us southerners/londoners arent all bad!!!!
Steve
Muffins don't have chocolate chips in them. They have bacon. Or chips. Or ham, or owt else you fancy. Or is that just in Ashton? Stuck chasing Wombles at the moment, and muffins are an occasional treat rather than something you buy a dozen of on a Saturday morning from Ashton market.AND WHERE CAN I BUY A HOLLAND'S PIE??? This is like being stuck on the sixth level of Danté's Inferno ...You don't half get some funny looks if you mention the school favourite of a pie butty with brown sauce...
G from Oswaldtwistle
Try explaining where OSSY is to a southerner, then have to explain you haven't a funny Austrailian accent and that it's a town in Lancashire, also ask for a head to be put on your pint they look at you as if you just landed from MARS!!
Mathew Reece
Try asking someone if they want a brew or a buttie! minutes of fun!!
Ali
You northerners and southerners are all crazy. Why are you always arguing. I'm from the Midlands. I get called a northerner down south and a southerner up north. I just wonder whether anybody actually recognises that there are Midlanders in England.
melissa from salisbury
i have lived in the south for over a year now and am always asked to repeat things just coz people like the way i say it. n lads always say "i love your northern accent you sound dead sexy" and weres all the pease pudding n stottie bread????
Sam from Oldham
When you 'phone someone and say 'Are you in?' can be confusing to some folk. Yes, we know they're in at the moment because we're talking to them - it means 'will you be in later and can I call round?'My mum confused someone years ago when she was sat in the kitchen with a friend. I went in for a nosey and she told me to go and 'sit in th'ouse - it means front room, but her friend didn't understand as I was obviously already in the house. When it was getting dark and my mum wanted to read she'd say 'put big light on' and when she'd finished reading she used to say, turn t'big light out and put t'little lamp on!
nigel
i once took my mum to london for the day, she spoke a mixture of bristol and lancashire, in bristol a technical hitch is referred to as a bang. Imagine my embarrasment when the lift stalled for a few seconds then the doors opened and me mam shouted to my waiting dad,"ohh me and our nigel have just had a bang in the lift"
Chorley Lass
By 'eck, what I wouldn't give for a butter pie! When I kindly informed my southern nativemen of this delicacy, they looked totally agahst! I miss home :(
Evan Parker
You must remember though that not everyone from the south is so ignorant of the north. I'm a londoner, but i love hearing a northern accent! Dead sexy on a girl!
RAILROAD RAY
We live in Pennsylvania in the USA & we do have some difficulties conversing with friends in Accrington. But email is A-OK. I credit the cartoons Wallace & Gromit with helping us to understand the local dialect. We love it!!
Anneure
Love it! Am a Londoner and proud, I do all those 10 things! At least I can speak proper, innit!
polly
Oh how good to read my native tongue. I live in spain with a yorkshireman. Barm cake is bread cake, mek us a butty and a brew confused him completly. chielt, hi's still working on that one. And how can someone live never knowing the joy of parkin and a pie barm!!
Scott AKA Northern Monkey
Dinner is between 12 and 1. Tea is between 4 and 6. None of this lunch and then dinner rubbish! Also danilion & burdock - a hard northern drink that I was weaned on!
Bill Bradbury
How do you think I feel I'm in Poland. I sometimes try joking with English speaking Poles by using a Lancashire accent. They are indeed, completely bemused by: "'ow 'arty luv, 'arty oh reet?
Mo (originally Blackpool now Brighton)
Everytime I venture north I stock up on cheese and onion pies, barm cakes and lemon cheese to bring back with me and then I stuff my face full of chips 'n' gravy and "proper sized" vanilla slices.
Eamonn
To Seb "exiled Yellowbelly in Preston"
Eight signs that you're not from the north:
1-7 no comment. However no8?
8. You notice people using Americanisms.
Very observant Seb.However such words used in Lancashire such as "pants" for trousers, which is the same in the US is actually a Lancashire word from our dialect. It's not an Americanism at all! Idem for many other words.
Derek,Blackburn
When Non-Lancastrians ask where I'm from,I answer "Blackburn".If they don't seem impressed,I ask where they are from,and when they name the town/city I say "Well never mind!"
Hilary (from Pendle)
They genuinely think jane Horrocks is putting that accent on.
Hilary (from Pendle)
You get very strange looks when referring to friends / family as 'our' so-and-so!
Simon Flory
And Londoners are genuinely surprised to learn that the Northern Line does not go as far as the North of England!
Sherlock
Last time i went to London i asked one of the hotel staff 'what's for tea?', he replied, 'erm milk?'.
Sher
Never, EVER say the word 'kettle' in London.
Gill, Lancaster
I have "Ecky Thump" and "By 'Eck It's Gradely" tattooed on my back, if folk need 'em explainin, then they in't worth botherin' wi!!!
Dan from Lancaster
Whilst visiting some chums in Surbiton, we were in a traffic jam on the A3 and was blasted by the car horn of the chap next to me. My response was to blast my horn and state "I've got one o'them flower". To my astonishment I was suddenly treated by all in the car as a hardman afraid of nothing! People down there also seem fascinated as to the fact that people live and work in such a strange a place as Lancaster. They actually fainted when I told them that I had moved there from Manchester! Also, tell southerners daft things that they may think are true. Black Pudding Day in the north, celebrated on a par with pancake day. There's still a Viking settlement on the Shetland Islands. Due to historical antaganism and very deep animosity, Lancashire folk going to Yorkshire have to register at the nearest police station for the duration of their stay and vice versa. We have gas powered Television at the moment and digital is a long way off.
Daniel, Hertfordshire (via Ashton)
I am very pleased to admit that my three year old, born and brought up down South, wants to know what's for tea.
sue in Dorset
you ask for a bacon buttie, they look aghast, you say on a T cake, it arrives in a currant T cake.
Faron
...don't go into a shop and ask for "beef drippin"...
Lloyd C
by eck i love people from t'north. they're reet proper folk. i'm werkin with wun at t'mo and he's a reet smashin lad.
Jamie B
not sure what all the fuss is about. I work in Croydon with loads of very cool southerners.
Lorna
A friend of mine was once asked by a Londoner if we had cinemas in the North! Honestly...
rock doctor
If you want to cut through a 'ginnel' you get blank looks - yes I meant 'Alleyway'!
Chippie's are people who work with wood and not fish n'chip shops - where incidently they don't serve meat & potato pie or steak & kidney puddings.
(A Prestonian abroad)
southern belle
My lancashire dad in law caused my southern mum some confusion when he offered to give her a lift in the kitchen!
aj
my lancastrian hubby seduced my southern sensitivity just with the way he said "Werther's Originals" and called me lass. He misses prater pies!
Claire
The north South divide may not be as discrest as some people may think .... i am a Lanky Lass (still live there) but am married to a mancunian and work in Cheshire .... spend half my time explaining what im sayin or bein laughed at ..... ah well!!
chris, blackpool
i remember speaking to a girl one time whilst i was working in london, "your from the north arn't you?" " "from Blackpool" i replied... "i'm from the north too" she continued, " i'm from stoke"
Annie
no one's ever heard of your home town unless it's Accrington - you know what I mean - Accrington Stanley!
Sue
I live in West Yorkshire, and most people here think Manchester is 100 miles away and cant understand why anyone would want to go?
Yvonne
Vowels seem to stretch i.e. Michelle is said as Meeeshell, Yvonne is Eeeeevon. Watford Gap is up North and the next town uo is Scotland.
Gary Donnelly
I live in Nottinghamshire and no-one down here understands me when when I say Coke they pronounce it Cowke and I can't find a meat and potatoe pie anywhere.
Jubes McGoobes
Never mind the South...try living in the US with a Blackpool accent...people think you're Australian...God love 'em...and don't, whatever you say, describe anything as a "cock up". Grounds for arrest here - thye think it is something very rude!
JKR
I too have had the 'you're Scottish then?' comment from someone from Essex, mind you, they sounded Australian to me! *lol*
Then there was the tv presenter who flew over some lovely countryside and exclaimed 'this can't be Lancashire, it's all green!'
And then some friends moved south and were told how they must find it strange being in a 'cosmopolitan' place rather than Manchester & Liverpool where they'd stayed previously...(they were talking about Reading!):P
sue
"you know your a lancastrian in the south when you pay for a pint with a tenor and dont get any paper money back!"
if you paid with a soprano would it be different?
daft apeth
you know your a lancastrian in the south when you pay for a pint with a tenor and dont get any paper money back!
Martin, Bromley
Why do people in the South instantly look at you with sympathy when you say you're form Lancashire? And if you really want to confuse a Southerner, use the phrase 'She looks oined to death' - they look a
at you gone out!
Phil
I'm at uni in St Andrews (Scot) and none of the southerners understand me. The Scots do however!
Nick
I once had to attend an Open University "Day School". People kept asking me: "why on earth have you come all the way to London from Lancashire when you could just have gone to Edinburgh?" ("Because Edinburgh is almost as far as London and the train can take longer to get there"). They didn't believe me.
Simon Taylor
born in Skem, lived in preston 20 years. Been living in scotland 10 years. Still havn't got the scottish lingo all worked out. Going down the street means going into town. All fizzy drinks are juice. It's a chip roll and not a chip barm. My brother got asked if he had a stud in his lug (earring) Anywho I'm talking half lancastrian and half scottish, very frustrating lol.. missing my ashworths meat and potato pie, butter pie and black peas :-(
Neil, Lancs
Southerners assume we refer, as Peter Kay claims, to t'internet. In fact we don't - we refer to th'internet.
Neil
People start assuming you are a bit dim just because you have a Lancashire accent.
Terry W
I'm from Blackpool and it seems most Southerners think that our town doesn't go any further inland than the prom. They also think that we spend every day on the Golden Mile and the Pleasure Beach.
Janice Holden
We had southerners in our office for a few weeks, they asked me if I wanted a banjo, sorry sez I, I don't play a musical instrument! Well, it seems they meant a bacon & sausage butty. We had fun bringing words like ginnel, jack bit, barnpot into the conversation, or telling them to come on, get off, that really throws them!
Sheelagh
I went to buy some muffins in Portsmouth but was told they weren't in season (apparently muffins are crumpets here!)
Lane Fogg
Londoners think the Arctic Circle is about 2 miles north of Watford Gap. "Up North" we all live on fatty bacon and black puddings
Liz
I'm a Thornton-Cleveleys lass who moved south to Bristol after meeting my southerner husband at Liverpool uni. I've had fun trying to explain what maard is when talking about someone who's soft!!! And noone seems to understand why all fizzy drinks are 'pop'.
Steve
Next time you visit the "lovely" south offer to make corn' beef hash for your friends and admire the confusion you have caused with just 3 syllables!!
Seb, exiled Yellowbelly in Preston
Works the other way round for us not from the north. Eight signs that you're not from the north: 1. You ask for a teacake and get anything and everything under the sun, when all you wanted was something with currants in it. 2. You notice people leave out words that are required in sentences for them to make sense, ie. people say they 'write someone' instead of 'write to someone'. 3. People think you're posh just because you haven't got a northern accent. 4. People don't know where anywhere you mention is if it's on the east coast. 5. Everyone around you moans about the cold but never wrap up warm. 6. You get held up in a shop by the customer and server having a long conversation. 7. People you've never met before start talking to you. 8. You notice people using Americanisms. And I'm from the East Midlands, so I'm not a northerner or southerner.
Vicky Ratcliffe
Old ladies look scared when you offer to help them onto the bus with their bags and strangers clutch their belongings tighter when you talk to them at bus stops
IanP
Southerners can't get maithered, but are easily confused if you them tell them to go up brew.
David
What really gets me is that the Londoners who do make it up to civilisation never ever seem to go back!
Paul Clarkson
One of my friends was confused because I'd had my dinner already. It was 2 o'clock!
Jo Jo
Try being in Canada where "can you knock me up?" means can you get me pregnant.
Jeannette Wright
All of the above, and 'up' north lunchtime is dinnertime, you cant call anyone cock,love or chuck in the south...whenever I go back to Bolton my old friends have nicknamed me Posh and in Surrey they think I am Scottish, anyhwere north of Watford is Scotland to them I suppose !!!
Ann Tierney
People think that you can buy a house for £4.99 in the North.
Lindsay from Rochdale
I'm at uni in Hertfordshire and people get so confused when I ask them what they had for tea, it's dinner down south apparently!
Jenni
Anne from Southport, thank god someone else understands my pain! (Blackpudlian stuck in Bristol)
Michael
It can work the other way, too! Many years ago, working at Strangeways prison, (pre riot) we had a Londoner on the gate. Answering a knock on the gate, he was confronted by two women who said "We're visiting magistrates". Any local lad would have directed them around the corner to Trafford Magistrates court, but our southern comrade invited them in and sat them in the Governor's office, complete with tea and biscuits, until someone asked who the two strange ladies in the office were. Oh how we laughed.
Stuart Wynn
I'm from Wigan but I'm at Nottingham Uni and can vouch for all of the above. I can't even ask 'Where's the Buzz Stop?' without being larfed at (apparently that's how you say it). Some people here think a sausage roll is a sausage barm! 'Wigan? Isn't that on the coast? I heard it had a pier.' And worst of all; people think Lancashire is the same as Yorkshire!
Becki
People notice that you miss out the word "the" in sentences.
People in pubs offer you wine instead of beer (lasses only)
Beer's more expensive
Shaun Ankers
You meet people who have travelled all over the world but have never been north of Watford Gap. You meet people who think the Lake District is in Scotland. You meet people who think that everyone lives in London or should live in London. You meet people who live in a one bedroomed flat that cost more than a four bedroomed detached with double garage in your part of the country.
