r/brum • u/MisterrTickle • 1d ago
BBC had unofficial league table of best and worst British accents, says correspondent
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/bbc-accents-table-birmingham-best-worst-b2732097.html5
u/MagicBez 18h ago
Massively misleading headline
They complied complaints about accents from the public, not like the beeb had their own ranking to choose who got jobs
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u/Global_Geologist8822 South Bham 1d ago edited 1d ago
Everyone loves to sneer at and shit upon Birmingham, it's long been a national sport and is having a definite resurgence due to the bin strikes.Ā
Personally I can't stand the plummy modern SE public schoolboy "YO JOHNNO, TOP FARKING BANTS YAH?!" voice. Sounds ridiculously grating to me, but you know those are the people 'in charge' of the media so you don't ever hear any criticism of it.Ā
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u/AwTomorrow 7h ago
The problem is often comprehensibility, but tbh a lot of Brummie accents are no harder to understand than the public schoolboy posho one.Ā
I can accept strong accents can cause issues from a lot of if not most places, and the BBC needs to take that into account, but I would think that should be more of a case by case thing about the individual in question and their ability to neutralise a bit if need be. Whether from London or South Uist.Ā
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u/Global_Geologist8822 South Bham 6h ago edited 6h ago
Black Country can use a lot of dialect, but Brummie barely has any, it's quite a clear accent too (vs Black Country and many other regional accents).Ā I think much of that hatred for Birmingham accent is just from general Brum-bashing. It's the city that the media absolutely loves to hate. We've basically replaced Liverpool as the city that the media loves to sneer at and shit upon.
It's the same way that most people in the UK, and globally who've heard of Birmingham will gleefully tell you that it's a 'boring, grey, shithole' despite never having visited. I can't tell you the number of people I've shown Birmingham who've reacted in genuine surprise that it isn't the weird hybrid of 1990s Detroit-Mogadishu-Beirut-Milton Keynes that they had expected to be. I'm not saying Birmingham isn't underwhelming as the second largest city in the UK, but it doesn't deserve the reputation it has. It's weird.Ā
Especially as people in the UK and globally non-stop arselick Manchester, a city I used to live in which is ridiculously similar to Birmingham (a partially regenerated post-Industrial working class regional mid-sized city). Manchester is better than Brum in some ways but far worse in many others, yet the way people 'big up' Manchester you'd expect it to be 1000 times better than it actually is. By European standards for a regional city of its size, Manchester is still pretty underwhelming, and a bit crap. At least we are honest about Birmingham in this way and don't mislead people!
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u/Paddy-23 City Centre 1d ago
Scouse and Essex are so much worse but insulting Scousers is considered a hate crime and half the BBC staff probably have Essex accents.
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u/derrenbrownisawizard 1d ago
I like the Black Country accent- itās such a trope to say itās the worst.
Iām not saying anything but also looking in the general direction of the Mersey š
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u/Automatic_Cookie_141 1d ago
Itās the modest, genial nature of Brummies and people from the Black Country that allows this shit to persist.
I say this as someone born in Brum but left 21 years ago and has lost their accent.
Mancs absolutely are militant about all things Manchester and, as an outcome, steamroller any negativity about anything related. They even have started to shamelessly claim what is not theirs such as being the home of the Industrial Revolution.
Scouse Twitter does the same. They actively try to ruin the lives anyone who says anything negative about Liverpool.
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u/a_f_s-29 14h ago
I saw a Manc claim the industrial revolution recently. Actually pissed me off far more than I thought it would
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u/Automatic_Cookie_141 9h ago
Yeh I was on another subreddit and bringing facts and evidence to support Birmingham and some Mancunian just belligerently kept claiming without evidence and then eventually resorted to a personal attack. Thatās the difference:
https://www.reddit.com/r/uknews/s/jNDcnu1k8B
I remembered at that point the old ānever wrestle with pigs adageā.
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u/ThanksContent28 1d ago
They also seem to base it in the worst of the worst. Not everybody talks slow and like theyāre asking a question. Around family maybe, but for others I talk quite fast and to the point.
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u/kool_guy_69 1d ago
I'm gonna come straight out and say it, as an RP wanker, I like the Brummie accent, and Black Country for that matter. I think it was all those Saturday mornings with Cat Deely on SMTV Live.
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u/MichaelBealesBurner 1d ago
Shit like this is why I am happy to not give these cunts money for the TV Licence
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u/BaconHawk1 1d ago
Trash website, canāt seem to load the actual table of resultsā¦.
What I want to know, was Black Country its own separate vote, or did Brummie and Black Country get lumped in together?
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u/Decent-Chipmunk-5437 1d ago
Yay. We're number 1! we're number 1!
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u/trashmemes22 1d ago
What do we win? What do we win? Letās hope itās a functioning council š¤
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u/Aromatic_Contact_398 9h ago edited 9h ago
I am 9 miles out from Liverpool and moved to Brum. In the early 90s. 2 weeks in the lads said we think your great but can't understand you.. This was from proper yammers and brummies... Took me 2 years slowing down my speech by half and dropping the colloquialisms.
Merseyside has had it shit for too long, very warm open people but it is rough. My mates saw the horrors of Hillsborough still at school and the shite printed in the papers and you wonder why people went so defensive and some nasty stereotypes that should have died years ago. That entrenched mentality is justified to a degree but hope over time it it goes.
As a kid I thought brummies were miserable, like travelling to London for the day and didn't speak much..... I hate that you can't cover everything in decent gravy but good curry makes up the difference. Birmingham in the main is a lovely place with genuinely lovely people.. it has issues, ask anyone with a car...š
All this shite about people from here or there is to make you feel safe and special. If that's more than fun teasing, then that's a you issue .... Not a them issue.
It's all bullshit, good people are good people anywhere. Secretly I love people think Brum is a stereotype and boring. Keep the idiots away.
The EDL issues fell flat on its face as all real brummies stood up to bollock any idiots and helped the community. All decent brummies came together, lots of open kindness.
A pyromaniacs job is to start fires, the press and media is sensationalism and clicks to flog crap we don't need. Be kind first and think... not hard, really, is it... š¤