Originally Posted by
Fruitcake
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I speak the Queen's English.
Whhull, tiz ow er would zpeak iffen er were brung up by yer.
In reality I think I speak RP.
I was born a Moonraker but we moved when I was four, so I have no idea how I spoke then.
Seven years in Lincolnshire left me with a northern-ish accent. Enough that when we lived in Yorkshire people would know I wasn't from there. Fifty miles, that was all we had moved.
I spoke with a Yorkshire accent for the seven years whilst there, probably just to fit in.
I left home at eighteen to work in Bristol, my Dad and brother's home city. For the next four years, I spent six months alternating between there and college in my home town of Swindon.
When in Bristol I lived in a hostel with a bunch of other chaps from all over the country, and a few from beyond.
Similarly, college students were from all around the world.
My job involved precision, not just the work itself, but the communication both verbal and written.
I taught myself to speak clearly and distinctly, losing every trace of previous accents in the process, and the way I write now is also a legacy of that job.
Ten years later I moved to the beautiful county of Somerset, meaning the land of the Summer Settlers, at the request of my Lovely Cousin whom I had started dating.
I never picked up the local accent, and even after living here for thirty-eight years, I'm still classed as an incomer. I'm only tolerated because I married a local girl.
I speak a little German, the emphasis on the little, but apparently it is accent-less according to a German friend of ours.