General Chat

This is nothing new. Even twenty years ago if your stood in Southend town centre and shouted out "Oi Tel" half the male population would look up. If you shouted "Oi Del" the other half would do the same. And then they would kick the living daylights out of you.

- Henry , Colchester, 26/7/2013 14:11

(Daily Telegraph)

Sorry don't understand that and find it extremely offensive to the people who live in Southend

Hear, hear, Jax

and, Rollo, so what ?

I know a Tel and a Del...they were both born Cheshire.......... my gt grandad came from Southend though......

his name was Samuel.

:-D

I know many people from that area.
Not one is named Terry or Derek.
Maybe they changed their names by deed poll.

Yes, and hopefully not to Rollo

The original post was a comment on an article in the D.T. that Cockney was not much found in the East End any more but had moved out into south Essex.

Rambling Rose obviously understands the joke.
It has nothing at all to do with people called Terry.

Oh ........ So it was supposed to be a "joke" .. ...


Think I will stick to Mr_Magoo ....

Now. .... he does do jokes

It's quite interesting though, dialect and accent and how it is either strengthened in it's original locale or moves further out as other accents move in.

I was listening to someone the other night on tv , real scouse accent that you could cut with a knife lol, but it was someone who had long since left Liverpool, and some just pick up the accent of wherever they live really quickly, unconsciously and lose their original accent entirely.

I live in the Southend area, parents moved out of London over 50 years ago and have lived here 40 years.

I found that people sounded more cockney to me in Brighton than they do in Essex

HID is a scouser but has not lived there for 25 years so difficult to tell where he is from...all his work mates know is he is not from around here :-D

I lived for many years in Spain, and I think the strangest thing is listening to the Welsh, Irish and Scots speaking Spanish........
even when a fluent speaker of Spanish ...
One can still, instantly, detect their brogue

Which answered my own question, when I spoke Spanish ...

How did they know I was English ...............

Cor blimey guvn'r I'm London born and bred and was told by a young Essex woman a few weeks ago when asked where I lived 'you don't sound like a Londoner' !
:-D The mind boggles !

I have spoken fluent French since I was a small boy. My other half is French. Right from the off she could hear my London accent through my supposedly street wise French. Her Parisian accent is picked up straight away in Fulham, Putney etc even when she is speaking English.

OH also speaks fluent Spanish with a Murcia accent and the Spanish never guess she is French. My own Spanish gets me by but not much more.

I hear all the time about "Estuary accents" but to my copper ear English ( when it is spoken ) in Woolwich or Dartford is quite a lot different to Thurrock or Basildon which are much closer to Southend. There is a sort of hazy line between Cockney and Essex which for sure has been moving east ( East Enders is set in Walthamstow) but to my ear it has not got any further than Forest Gate.

All the same when I was learning Arabic I was amazed to discover that the average Brit cannot do a glottal stop. Without that Arabic is impossible.

Glottal stop: how do you pronounce the word "Bottle" ?
a. As spelt with yr tongue touching teeth to make the "t"
b. No tongue touching the teeth, "t" half way in the throat ?
If (b) you may well have been raised in Essex.

Most of England hates Essex and its girls and boys, why I don't know, possibly jealousy of a great county. In order to get your kids in to uni. make sure they can get through an interview without the glottal stop. OTOH if they want to skip Uni and go straight into casino banking the stronger the Essex accent the better.

Oh dear Rollo, my son was born and bred in London but he still managed to get a Bsc in Maths and Computer Science . He now lives in Essex :-D

Eastenders is set in Walford a fictional place.

I was born in Walthamstow so were my parents and grandparents.

My parents were the first in the family to move out in 1960 now I think all my mums siblings have moved out to Essex.

I have lived in Essex for all but 12 years when I lived in Cambridgeshire and West Sussex...can't say I have noticed much of a difference in accents between these places

'Most of England hates Essex and its girls and boys, why I don't know, possibly jealousy of a great county. In order to get your kids in to uni. make sure they can get through an interview without the glottal stop. OTOH if they want to skip Uni and go straight into casino banking the stronger the Essex accent the better..'

Rollo, I do not come from Southend, the East end or Essex but find that remark quite offensive.

Money don't buy manners
Money don't buy sense
Just being low on tanners
Don’t make us b****y dense


No matter where you come from, how much money you have in the bank, everyone deserves some common courtesy. That is why I will not say more to you about the way you post.

Yeah, I have a Masters degree in Computer Science and was born in Essex. Despite having degrees and charters and such I don't set much store by them. It is a bit like a diving board, the spring gets you started but it is the execution that counts.

The daily crush into Liverpool Street or the A12/A13 is not all that much fun so I moved to a sunnier place. Every time I go back as soon as I see Lakeside I remember why we moved. When I am in Hackney I realise why my GGF moved to Essex.

In an ideal world I'd have a nice big house near the sea at Burnham-on-Crouch, I'd drink in the Blue Boar in Maldon and spend my days sailing in and out of the Essex saltings while writing crime fiction. As it is not an ideal world sad to say that is all a dream but Essex remains close to my heart. I'd live there again if I could.

My cousin has got pretty close, she married a maths. wizard ( not a Brit ) and passes the time spending his money on horses. In Essex.

?

I am an Essex boy and very proud of it too.
Also like all the other natives I am a total realist.

Fire, fire,

Yes Carol ... Exactly

and it does not matter how many languages one speaks, or, ones other half

or for that matter, their glottal stops ,,,

Ignorance is ignorance .....

?†? Carol Paine ?†?

I agree with what you have said but chose to ignore the generalization made in Rollo's posting. My three lovely granddaughters were born in Essex from parents that moved there from London after they married. They are very articulate and all have good jobs, not a casino banker amongst them ! Also they are very well mannered and I put that down to having a mum and dad that knew the meaning of the word respect.