That is actually quite a diluted version of real Scouse - he doesn't come from Liverpool, but from Birkenhead, which is close but different.

I live near Liverpool, and hear the real thing frequently. I think it's hideous, and I too have difficulty understanding it sometimes - deeply embarrassing, I agree.

I cant stand the Geordie accent. Thats more hideous than scouse or brummie come to that!!!

We've stopped off at Berwick a few times on our way up to Edinburgh and really enjoyed listening to the mixture of accents from strong pseudo Geordie, to proper Northumberland, to the strange borders hybrid, to Scots. Fabulous.


Oh absolutely with you on that one! I find it so embarrassing when I'm not tuned in.


Ah, Birkenhead. The memories.

Yes I agre with you on that, re they cant hel what they are born with. Its also good to have various accents as  well, just that I cant help feeling irritated by some, ie Geordie.

I must say I enjoy bbm's sui generis keyboard technique and would be disappointed to see it homogenised out of existence, but perhaps that's just me. By correcting  something sometimes one can lose something of its immediacy and spirit, I think.

(And of course bbm is totally free to express himself how he wants regardless of anything I say, I just wanted to mount a weeny defence of the uncorrected.)

OK, Andy: 'born' possibly the wrong word, but only because babies don't speak immediately. Where you are when you start to speak a language (which is still close to where you were born in the majority of cases) has two major effects on how you sound: the more obvious one is that you copy the sounds you hear - you'll hear this even in immigrants who learn English only once they've moved here; Bradford Asians produce completely different vowel sounds to Southall Asians, to cite a very simplistic example. Babies don't start speaking without an accent and suddenly acquire it later: their first words are already in the ambient accent. Mancunian kids don't start by saying 'mummy' like Londoners, and then gradually move the sound up the spine of the country, after all. The other thing that has a marked effect on how people sound is much more subtle, and has to do with the air and the atmosphere and even the prevailing winds of the area that they're raised in, which alters how they breathe, even down to the general shape of the mouth, which in turn affects how they use their facial resonators and how the voice is 'placed'.

Language and dialect coaches who work in theatre and films are well of this, and it's how accents have been taught for several decades now: you have to understand the shapes and positions of the mouth and tongue, where in the throat the voice is placed and where it resonates combined with what the general breathing pattern for that area is. The best dialect specialists claim to be able to locate someone's accent within a thirty mile radius by watching a video of them speaking with the sound turned down; I've mentioned before the fast through the sides of the mouth for Liverpool compared to the slow with the mouth held in a rather small tight shape for Birmingham, again, an obvious example.

The sounds that Geordies make is a historical accident: the collision of Scandinavian vowel-sounds and inflexions with a particular branch of Northern English (just as Dundonians and those from Aberdeen speak a tongue that reflects the local inland Scots involved in a similar confrontation). But if you're born in Tyneside, it's very unlikely that you'll not make the standard vowel sounds or lose the particular inflexion pattern without fairly intensive coaching or an upbringing that isolates you from everybody else: like most Scots, few Geordies ever lose the basis of their native accent even after decades away from home. When you move into a new area with an existing accent from elsewhere, just how the accent will become modified is related to several matters: whether you already speak a version of the language or not (as mentioned above), whether you need to alter to be understood or fit in, or whether it's a matter of pride that you stay the same. What happens may also be affected by how many dialect words you start to use (which may well depend on the social circles you move in), and even how accurate your ear may be. 

Doesn't that depend where their parents come from/how they speak? In my experience, babies say "mummy" the way that their parents say it, and it's only when they start playgroup or school that they pick up the local accent, if that differs from that of the parents. I have heard many a child, including my own, change in this way, though some change more than others. Later, some change back again.