Singing in Different Accents/Dialects

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 03:52 AM

I always thought Shoals of Herring was Scottish, till I discovered it was by Ewan McColl. And there went a reinvented man..

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 04:05 AM

Couter to rhyme with scooter was the country pronunciation.
It is only in recent years that I came across Ewan MacColl in The Tobar an Dualchais site, before that if I had heard his name it did not register. I asssume that the recordings on that site were made in his early days while he was still working up to a Scots accent for to be quite frank, to a native speaker, his Scots accent in those recordings sounds so artificial.
As those were the only recordings of him that I have heard I cannot comment on how he developed it in later recordings.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 04:14 AM

"Shoals of Herring"
Turns up here often in Ireland as 'Shores of Erin' - even in academic collections - See Horace Beck's 'Folklore and the Sea'.
"reinvented man"
Peggy told a Woman's Hour interviewer who described him as such during an obituary feature that "He wasn't 're-invented' he just gathered up all the different bits of his life and experiences, joined them together and poured them into folk-song"
I drink to that every time I sing one of his songs or make use of something he wrote or told me/us.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 04:50 AM

Shores of Erin. Oh, human beans are very good at mis-hearing things...
Also, as humans we tend to reinvent ourselves to some extent throughout our lives, learning by experience and all that. But some of us manage greater reinventions and adaptations than others.
Which kind of takes us back to where we came in, I.e. accent/dialect, use of, to fit in, to adapt, to make the effort to be part of a given community.. I think.. Not to mock or sneer, but to better express what needs to be said or sung.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 05:05 AM

Born and bred in Middlesex, I went up to Edinburgh to Uni and stayed in Scotland for 12 years, the last seven in Glasgow. As a teacher I tried to adapt my ghastly English accent so the pupils could understand words for eg spelling tests. It's no good saying 'girl', 'pearl' and 'curl' with exactly the same vowel sound. In Scotland it's 'girrel', 'perril' and 'currel'. I've quite a good ear for languages and accents. In singing lessons we teachers were given many old Scots songs to teach. I'd have sounded absolutely daft if I'd stubbornly delivered eg Will Ye No Come Back Again? in broad English. As for Come to the Barrowlands Tonight, (Swing yer ma, swing yer pa, swing yer grannie through the wa' etc ) just imagine that in 'posh West Londonspeak'! I also had to coach some pupils in Robert Burns poems for a competition. Luckily a Scots colleague was at hand to help with the Burns words and pronunciation. So I do feel the song determines the accent to a great extent.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 07:37 AM

Wish I'd had a teacher like you in junior school, Eliza! Picture an already misfit 7 yr old asking Where's Denise Evans to? in my best Devon voice, and Teacher answering There's no need for you to speak like that, in her chilliest manner. May not sound like much now, but I did so want to fit in somewhere, and that just squashed me flat. For a little while, anyway!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 09:25 AM

In a current thread "The last o the tinklers" [Violet Jacobs], see Malcolm Douglas's post of 12.3.03. This being a poem by V.J. and whilst not being in too strong a Scots dialect brings out very strongly the fact that a long line of aristocratic ladies spoke and wrote the Scots Language at least down to a fairly recent period, she died in 1944, she being an Erskine of the house of Dun. Lady Nairne and Lady Jean Scott are two others that come to mind, the latter being the daughter-in-law of a Duke who had the largest landholding in these Isles, she is best remembered for having composed "Annie Laurie" and "Durisdeer"

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 10:50 AM

In Edinburgh, many of the stsff spoke in the style of Miss Jean Brodie ("Ai em in mai praim") In fact Maggie Smith (Downton Abbey, Harry Potter) epitomises that type. I remember a formidable woman, Miss Mackenzie, singing "Come o'er the sea Chairlie and dine wi' McClean" in a cut glass Morningside accent (The school wasn't far from Morningside, in Bruntsfield) . But Glasgow was wonderful, so genuine and vibrant, as were the songs. I spoke both 'Edinburgh' and 'Glasgae' quite well I feel. eldergirl, how nasty of that snobby teacher to accost you like that. Shame on her!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 11:19 AM

i have never heard and could never reproduce any difference between pearl, curl and pearl..and there were always people who told us that pin and pen were pronounced differently...never heard the difference...mg

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 11:20 AM

Eliza in Jedburgh when we went to school as late as the mid 1970s it was more than a bit confusing. Some of the staff would regard speaking in Scots as bad behaviour or cheek. I remember being sent to the Deputy Rector, a Mr Allan, for nothing more than saying 'aye' instead of 'yes'. Of course 'aye' is as much an English word as a Scots anway. When I went into Mr Allan's room I was greeted with "weil laddie whit ee been daein nou" and we did nothing more than have a wee chat about the rugby.

The Rector was a Mr Silver who happened to be English but in truth that isn't the issue as Scots were as likely to be against the use of Scots as anyone else. However he is quoted in Murray Watson's book "Being English In Scotland". He is actually talking about how incoming English children could be teased for their accents etc. He then goes on to denounce the local Borders Scots dialect of the locals as "a slovenly form of English with broad vowels".

Of course things have moved on a great deal since the 1970s.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 11:27 AM

"i have never heard and could never reproduce any difference between pearl, curl and pearl"

Quite a difference here in this area. My wife always thinks I am saying Carol when I'm talking about our friend Karl. Another pronounciation that she rather likes (for some reason but then she also likes the smell of creosote) is the way we say 'burn' sounding like 'burren'.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 11:28 AM

Thanks Eliza. It was the custom of the time, I think, and she wasn't as enlightened as some! We'd not long moved from Up North,for work for Dad, and though he was from Yorkshire, Mum was not, and had learnt her English from cut-glass types.
Thinking of Glasgow/Edinburgh comparisons, I have completely delighted in reading the adventures of Alexander McCall Smith's Scotland Street residents, though obviously you don't get the full impact of the accents by merely reading them...
One day I'll get tae Bonnie Scotland!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 11:28 AM

Thanks Eliza. It was the custom of the time, I think, and she wasn't as enlightened as some! We'd not long moved from Up North,for work for Dad, and though he was from Yorkshire, Mum was not, and had learnt her English from cut-glass types.
Thinking of Glasgow/Edinburgh comparisons, I have completely delighted in reading the adventures of Alexander McCall Smith's Scotland Street residents, though obviously you don't get the full impact of the accents by merely reading them...
One day I'll get tae Bonnie Scotland!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 11:48 AM

It's an interesting one this, because, within the same language, it does bother me - for some reason - when singers adopt an "different" accent e.g. British performers singing the blues like they were born in Mississippi in 1900.
However, what about singing songs in a foreign language?
Then, you have to adopt a foreign accent or it is just plain wrong!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 12:42 PM

Plain wrong like Elvis's German in Wooden Heart, you mean????
Sorry, I guess that was uncalled for. Fair play to him, he did have a go.
Having said that, Tunesmith, I know more than a few people who are more bothered by British performers ignoring their own tradition/s in favour of almost anything else.
But, as I understand it, the old traditional singers sang what they liked Because they liked it. Well, some of them did.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl, again
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 12:49 PM

Sorry 'bout double posting, still getting the hang of this phone..

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 12:54 PM

The fact that down to the 20th. C. Ladies in Scotland could compose songs and poetry and understand a language, which, whilst not the same language as that used in Scandinavia, could, I understand, be understood by medieval folk in those parts, must surely go some way to giving that language some legitimacy as a separate language.
Where do we have comparable examples from the other parts of the U.K.?
On a visit to Amsterdam some fifteen years back I, as a native speaker of Scots, had the most peculiar feeling that I should be able to understand all the signs on the buses and shop fronts, fact was I understood the meaning of a few and a visit to Scandanavia to test if the same feeling prevails there is now too late to contemplate.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Don Wise
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 01:37 PM

In "Wooden Heart" Elvis was actually trying to sing in swabian dialect.........

Here's another aspect for people to pontificate over. There are songs, usually of a humorous/comic nature which, in my opinion, cry out for an over the top accent like 'workin' class Lunnon', for example "The teddy-bears rave-up", Roaring Jelly's "Brown ale and arrers", Leslie sarony's "Isn't gand to be bloody well dead...." Kno worra meen?

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Tootler
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 01:43 PM

My daughter had a holiday in Sweden a few years ago and said the place names looked very familiar.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 03:06 PM

While (fortunately) accent snobbery is dying out, so (unfortunately) are the accents themselves. Many people south of Watford now speak a sort of multicultural London dialect which I call 'Innit'. Lee Nelson's Well-Good Show is excellent, he speaks 'Innit' really well and makes me die laughing. But I'm worried that the nuances of different accents and dialect vocabulary are being lost, so folk songs sung in the appropriate way, even by non-native speakers, are maybe a good thing. Wouldn't it be strange if, twenty years from now, all folk events were presented by earnest singers performing in broad Innit?

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 07:11 PM

Argh! Please God I won't be here by then! All our regional accents are A National Treasure.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 03:52 AM

Walter Pardon again.
Not long before he died we came across an early recording of Walter made at the Norwich Folk Festival around the time he first appeared on the scene.
When we played it to him he said, "Wasn't I broad, I can hardly understand myself".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 04:22 AM

Sorry Jim, but generally Norfolk ( and Suffolk) people do not say "oo- ar", there is never an r in it, which is more "West Country", tho' there they would probably say oo- arrrrr!
What they say in E Anglian is "Ooooo- waaaah" - very elongated vowels but no rolling rs, and also a sort of up in pitch on the ooo, coming back down on the wah! And definitely that w in the middle.
Have another listen to your Walter Pardon tape, and let me know...........r or no r....please!

(I now expect a backlash from West Country people, as I know there are differences in accents between Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, Glos and Bristol!)

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 04:40 AM

Perhaps you could give a seminar in Oooo arrs.
Or are you geting little bit up your own oooh arrrrs?

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 05:48 AM

Tattie Bogle
I stand corrected - a Townie's take on the phrase
Will happily take your advice - unfortunately I don't think we recorded that particular conversation but there are plenty more to go through when I have time.
Is 'Tattie Bogle' a Norfolk expression - I always theought....!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 05:51 AM

Tattie Bogle, you're quite right! I didn't like to comment on the 'ooo arr' post, but truly, no-one here in Norfolk has an 'r' such as that spoken by natives of the West Country. It is indeed pronounced oh waah, and often denotes a lack of belief. For instance, "Oi now bought a noice little skat in Debenham's fer two pownds!" "Oh waaah?" Or, "Oi hent bin drunk fer yairs!" "Oh waaah?" I've discovered that Norfolk people get incensed at the Mummerset attempts to copy their speech. It's nothing at all like the Somerset accent. I visit my friend over in Congresbury, and the people's accent is delightful. But it in no way resembles Norfolk. I agree with eldergirl, all our many accents here in UK are a Treasure. I believe that nowhere else is there such variation within just a few miles between regional pronunciations. Bill Bryson wrote about this in Mother Tongue.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim McLean
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 06:00 AM

I was working as a deck boy on a Swedish Merchant Navy ship once and the cook gave me a bucket of slops with the instruction "Tim de ut". Then, remembering I wasn't Swedish, said "empty that out". In my own Scottish language we would say "Tim that oot", almost exactly like Swedish.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 03:26 PM

Jim-- on entering a "big hoose" [castle] kitchen one morning in the early 50s. I remarked to Mrs. Barr, the cook, "we hae mair snaw in Mauchline the streen". Two young Danish girls who were in the kitchen at the time got very excited they having understood exactly what I was talking about and we ended up having an exploration of words we had that could be understoond by each other such as kirk,tow bund kist,ghaists,wist,eerie[a completely different meaning in Scots from the English meaning] etc..

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 16 Aug 13 - 06:43 AM

"Is 'Tattie Bogle' a Norfolk expression"

It is an old Scots term for a scarecrow. Literal translation being "potato ghost". Can also be a mildly derogatory name for a trampish unkempt person and also for a turnip lantern at Halloween.

Saying that when I was a kid my mother always used to call the wax in the kid's ears tattie bogles :-)

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim McLean
Date: 16 Aug 13 - 07:41 AM

Gutcher, yes there are many similar words, another is graede, Scottish greetin, i.e crying.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 16 Aug 13 - 07:10 PM

So..this means that the famous Scottish songwriter is literally Eric Ghost?
Hmm.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 16 Aug 13 - 08:40 PM

No, Tattie Bogle came from my Scottish mother: addressed to myself and my wee sister as weans, when we came in from playing in the gairden, looking like "a richt pair o' tattie bogles" we weren't even Worzel Gummidges!
Oh yes, we Bogles stick together, eldergirl!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Bert
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 01:17 AM

'Innit' I love it Eliza. My Dad used to call it "aincha, carncha and woancha"

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The correct form of any language is that which is spoken in the Capital City. This of course makes Cockney, standard English. If you don't sing your songs in Cockney, the YOU are the ones putting on an accent.

So most of you are putting on an accent all the time. So get over it and sing the bloody songs.

And if you come from America and want to sing British Workman's Grave, then go to it. Us Cockneys will be delighted.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 02:59 AM

The beauty of being multilingual---English/Irish/Scots is that one has a variety of words to choose from to form a ryme:---
Sae and Tae in Irish for Sea and Tea.
Soom and Droon in Scots for Swim and Drown.
Anent the word Soom, the late Stanley Robertson and I had an ongoing discussion over a number of years about his use of the word Sweem to be followed by Droon ln the version he sang and recorded of the ballad "Clydes Waters" To my ear Sweem stood out like a sore thumb and as the ballad is by its very name from Lanarkshire the word used when it was composed and used to this day is Soom.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 03:34 AM

It was once said that the Liverpool equivalent pronunciation exercise to "How now, brown cow" is "Tarra Theresa, see yer Thersdy".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 03:34 AM

Eric Ghost is a nice thought right enough. His 'Bogle' supposedly comes from a place name though. In Black's "Surnames of Scotland" it is given as being derived from Bowgyhill in Lanarkshire. The hill may have got its name from the supernatural though.

Bogle can be widened to mean ghouls or other unwordly creatures. Locally we have the Bogley Burn which is a little burn near the foot of the Eildon Hills. The minor road (used to be the main road) between Newtown St Boswells and Melrose was also itself called the Bogley Burn Road. It is on the this read where there is a stone commemorating the supposed position of the Eildon Tree where Thomas the Rhymer was abducted by the Queen of the Fairies. This is also the start of the so called Fairy Dean. The local football side takes a lot of ribbing through their name being Gala Fairydean :-)

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 03:46 AM

In a literary work I suppose the best known use of the word Bogle is from Tam O'Shanter. After the title Burns quotes the early scottish poet Gavin Douglas "Of Brownyis and of Bogillis full is this Buke" then Burns himself uses the word in the verse describing a drunken Tam making his way home in the storm

Weel-mounted on his grey mare, Meg,
A better never lifted leg,         
Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire,
Despising wind, and rain, and fire;
Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet,
Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet,
Whiles glow'rin round wi' prudent cares,         
Lest bogles catch him unawares;
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
Where ghaists and houlets nightly cry

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim McLean
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 04:23 AM

Allan, you mentioned the use of both Scots and English by Burns in Tam O' Shanter. There is a line of thought that Burns switched to pure English to slow the poem down .
" .... but pleasures are like poppies spread .........evanishing amid the storm" and then straight into Scots ". ..... Nae man can tether time nor tide, the hour approaches Tam maun ride", a neat trick.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 05:36 AM

Allan-interested to see your mention of a place cried Bowgyhill in Lanarkshire-- now it could be bogie as in "Bogies Bonny Bell" on the other hand I had some discussion with the lady who takes to do with the S.N.D. on the word BOW as used in song and poetry, my contention being that a BOW was a dairy cow as in the last verse of the sang "Bonny Buchairn" we get:--"It"s I"ll get some owesen, some sheep and some BOWS,tae plenish the toon o Buchairns nowes", bows being differentiated from owesen and to rhyme with ploughs.
Burns in his poem "Halloween" mentions BOW Kail,which is kail specialy grown to feed the cows-not owsen-to keep up the supply of milk.
We had an occupation called BOWING [pronunced booing]which is the contract management and milking of a herd of dairy cows. On her death certificate the mother of George Douglas Brown was referred to as a Bower. I have seen a 17th. C. reference to BOWING.
Not all places with the prefix Bow had anything to do with bows and arrows, we have the obvious Bowbutts but I am sure many referred to places connected with dairy cows.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 05:53 AM

Bert, there is now apparently a recognised (by phoneticists) accent called Multicultural London English (MLE), spoken not just by ethnic minorites, although it started with black London youngsters and spread in popularity until most young people in the Home Counties now use it. It fascinates me. I prefer to call it Innit, as many statements seem to end with that word. (eg "I'm not goin', innit?") I wonder if there are any new songs composed in Innit? I bet there are, and there'll be more no doubt over the years. One song that makes me totally cringe when sung by southerners is Auld Lang Syne. Imagine a Middle Class English party on New Year's Eve, everyone standing in a circle, arms crossed, warbling away at this fine old noble Scots anthem in public school Posh. Definitely an 'Oh No Moment'. (And why do they insist on sticking 'for the sake of' into the chorus? I feel like hitting them over the head with an uncooked haggis.)

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 06:17 AM

"Tam O'Shanter"
Surely the most memporable cliff-hanging line is Scots verse;
"He shouted "Weel dune Cutty Sark"
And in a moment all was dark".

Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 06:31 AM

ROFL!
Thanks Eliza! I can just picture that!
Re.Innit, I've tended to think of it as a Hertfordshire Cockney variant(sorry Bert) but it obviously goes further afield. But an Indian lady I know, good education, well-spoken, often says 'isn't it' as a kind of punctuation: "we're going to the Rose Restaurant this evening, isn't it?" Similar to the Brit habit of "well, y'know, I never said that, y'know" or the U.S."and I was like, duh! and she was, like, get Over it.." Etc etc.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 08:17 AM

Interesting stuff Gutcher. Of course you are right it could also be bow or boo as in 'bull'. Chambers Scots Dictionary gives a great name for a cow. "boo-lady"

I looked in Nicolaisen's "Scottish Place Names" and it isn't listed.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 03:47 PM

"Chambers Scots Dictionary gives a great name for a cow. "boo-lady"
Interesating coincidence
Bó is Irish for cow, as in "Cailin Deas Cruite na mBo (pron. Bo)" - Pretty Girl Milking Her Cow
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 05:26 PM

While we are plouterin amang the nowt, before the advent of the modern dairy parlour cows were tied by the neck in a biss--now you scholars does bis[s] in latin not have something to do with cloven feet. I have always understood that it had but can find no reference to it in my modern dictionary.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 06:45 PM

Bis is Latin for 'twice', if that's any good.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Bert
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 08:09 PM

MLE, it had to come of course.

I remember some years back following three young black girls at Earl's Court Station, and much to my delight they were speaking broad Cockney.

I still claim that Cockney is THE CORRECT ENGLISH. People don't speak with Scottish or Welsh or whatever accents. They are trying to speak English and are getting it wrong :-)

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 18 Aug 13 - 01:49 AM

Thanks Phil--there were usually two cows to each biss, so do we have a latin word still in current use as a description of a cow stall,interesting, although I still like to think it is connected with the fact cows have cloven feet.

Bert,overheard in a roadside cafe South of Glasgow, three lads boasting in broad Glaswegian of how they had just fooled the police and avoided a speeding fine by pretending to not understand English and only being able to speak in their native Pakistan tongue.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 18 Aug 13 - 06:00 AM

Oh Gutcher, here comes a confesion of my own. I'm not normally a pig when trying to find a parking space, but once (and it was only the once!) I was tired and stressed, and whizzed in front of a huge 4X4 Range Rover waiting patiently for the space just being vacated. My little Fiesta shot in and we parked. The man was (understandably) incandescent. His eyes glowed red with rage as he leaned into my open window. My daft husband just sat there terrified, but I used my noddle and started to speak in rapid Noushi French. Hubbie got the idea and chimed in with more Noushie French. The chap stood there with steam coming from his nostrils, but as we waved our arms about and smiled engagingly, what could he do? Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Aug 13 - 06:30 AM

"much to my delight they were speaking broad Cockney"
Why not?
Years ago we were staying on the island of Poros on the Peloponnese in Southern Greece.
One extremely hot day when we had slogged to the top of the hill, we found a tiny shop selling ice cream.
A middle-aged woman dressed entirely in black from head to foot was tidying up behind the counter and ignored us.
When she heard us trying to interpret the ice cream packet labels in the fridge she came over and said in broad North London Haringeyese, "them're vanilla love, and those are coconut, and them are chocolate....."
Jim Carroll