As you've no doubt gathered, I'm fascinated by accents, even beyond the fact that they're a tool of my trade. There are relatively few that rile me, though some of the stronger Manchester ones try my patience at times: I find it an ugly sound (though the neighbouring accents in Cheshire and Lancashire are very much the opposite). It tends to happen in the big, densely-packed connurbations: the native accent moves towards caricature, and with the present-day youth of Manchester this seems to be very self consciously so; the ugly sounds come much more from them than their seniors.

I'm in two minds about RP: I understand a historical need for it (in the times when one was unlikely to have heard many accents other than the local one), but would suggest that it's a concept which is constantly modified: the sounds of RP from the 40s and 50s are recognisably different from those of today. There's more a move towards RRP (Regional Received Pronunciation), where despite the move towards clarity, some local sounds are retained, though modified. Some R4 presenters are noticeable for this, particular those who read the shipping forecasts: the word 'good' is a particular marker: there's a young lady who reveals her Ulster roots every time she says the word, although the rest of her speech gives little away, and a man who invests the same word with an unmistakeably Scots vowel sound. An absolutely rigid nationwide standard to me sounds stilted: I'm happier with clarity whilst maintaining a flavour of local colour.

Fascinating Ron. Earlier on, or elsewhere, I was saying that as a Scot living 30 years in Coventry/mid-Warwickshire, I could not recognise the existence of an 'accent' in these parts. They may not speak RP here but with my ears I can't write out a Coventry sentence with any spellings to suggest how they speak (whereas I do recognise the Brum accent in your excellent example, having worked there most of the same 30 years). Clearly you would disagree with my 'no Coventry accent'.

My own accent? It still has a Scottish ring to it, more than Gordon Brown, less than Billy Connolly, and like them, in normal conversation the big change is the total absence of any Scots words (which do return when on visits family in Scotland). Other Scots living in England do retain some language, like dinnae ken, cannae dae that (like Scotty in Star Trek) but I lost that within a couple of years maybe because my work has always required use of the telephone and standing up and talking to groups.

John W

Well, Northerners think I'm a Southerner, but I was actually born in Liverpool; never picked up the accent, as was raised over the water in Cheshire.  Only really betray my roots with some of my vowel sounds....and I'm in a constant quandary as to whether I use a hard or soft 'ah' sound on words like bath and path. In all honesty, I don't think I naturally incline to either, so I tend to vary my pronunciation of such words, depending on whom I'm with.

I've said regional accent is a repository of the class system; I consider myself to be classless.

I'd agree with Ron about Manchester: it aint pretty on the ear.  But 'modern' Scouse is even worse....it conveys an impression of people glorying in their own appalling chavvyness: like it's some kind of perverse achievement to sound as ugly as possible.  Listening to the Beatles now, it's amazing how 'proper' they sounded in comparison to those who populate Merseyside now.

However, the ugliest regional accent has to be that that pervades the East Midlands (Leicester/Notts/Derbys)....there's just something unbearably depressing about it; the natural downward inflection doesn't help.  And you tire very quickly of being addressed as 'duck'.

I agree with that, Swan_Knight. It does seem perverse to glory in so hideous a noise, but it's all part of the chip on the shoulder that's so prevalent.

I was born and brought up "over the water". I believe that's a very localised expression, but rather a nice one, I think.

An accent I like very much is Andrew Marr's educated (and anglicised) Scots.

Mmm!...Distinct shades of Cilla Black thuur I think!

Baz

Understanding that you all are very much caught up in the land of accents English, I must ammend my previous post and say that I find a lot to like in a good rough Galway accent.

I think I'd side with Baz there, A: it's a sound which you hear in much of Merseyside; as in 'fuur huur' (= the result of the application of peroxide upon mousey locks). But then, just to confuse everyone else still further, instead of applying that sound to the first vowel of the river which gives the area its name (as does virtually everyone else in the UK) they go and give it the very sound that they deny 'fair' and 'hair'; to them, it's not the 'Murzy', but the 'Mairzee'.

(I must be having a typo day. I managed to catch 'reslut' (the second word after the 'equals' sign in the first line) before posting, and altered it, though not without regret. Somehow, given the particular circumstances, the original term seems even more appropriate.)   

He have much of an accent?  (and, if I might ask, what sort?)