It's The Way We Say It

I spent my first sixteen years absorbing a North Eastern way of speaking  and it has stayed with me to the present day. Having said that there is no doubt that my accent was influenced, to some extent, by my southern father. I eventually modified my delivery a bit e.g. some vowel work  in the way of pronouncing  book and bath, but being proud of my roots I never felt  a need for much further adjustment.

Sometimes the likes of Kate Adie and the Charlton brothers [of football fame]  pop up on the television and I  pay attention to how they speak; Kate Adie speaks what I call posh NE but she does it in a natural way that is easy to hear and understand and it  fits in with her highly successful professional career. In the case of Jack Charlton I always think he is adjusting his vowels for the media; I say that because it does not come over quite as naturally as Kate Adie's delivery but I am open to persuasion.

So much for vowel work but what about vocabulary? Does the current generation of Deerness Valley inhabitants still use phrases like gannen yem or why I man? Or words like spuggie? If so are such words and expressions still spoken as frequently and by as many?

My pet dislike had alway been the Channel Four programme announcer with his heavy Geordie twang; it set my teeth on edge and my migraine stimulator into an over-spin but I am getting used to him now.

Although delivery can be influential what you say and why you say  is  surely of  paramount importance and that applies whether you come from Ashington, Sleetburn or the USA.

WB