I talked about this with a friend for their research work about the Scouse accent i.e., the Liverpool/Liverpuddlin’ accent.
This is my native accent, the one I had as a kid but, because I am a good mimic and my mother always read to me using a Posh RP voice, I learned to mimic that accent. It made me stand out in school as a council estate kid, working class, single parent household and with this Posh Accent. I was literally a teachers pet partly because of this accent and how it enabled me to get away with all sorts because I didn’t “sound” like I was the bad child.
When I’m angry, my natural accent comes out. But over time, my posh accent has shifted to include a lilt to my words that sounds distinctly Irish. So I’m often perceived as very gentle, polite, softly spoken, and have literally had apologies given to me by people in positions of authority because of it.
I explained to my friend how, even here in the North West, the Scouse accent is perceived extremely negatively. There’s a reason why Hillsborough was such a horrid thing, beyond the actual tragedy, because the perception of Scousers was low class, scum, basically. So the narrative then of Liverpool fans stealing from the injured and dead was sensational and easily believed. Even now, literally decades later, there are still people who don’t care about the fucking police cover-up, or the government actually helping said cover-up because they see Scousers so negatively.
So when I come across the jokes of “chicken and a can of coke” like it’s just okay, it bothers me at times. Because the accent is exaggerated and reinforces this sort of… Gang-land, low class, rough and, basically, stupid, view of Scousers. I can only use my natural accent, my normal Scouse accent, with other Scousers and not be treated with suspicion, disdain, have police side eying me, and so on. In Liverpool, it’s actually becoming less common to hear Scouse accents regularly because there’s this bias of “that’s a scally!” when it’s heard.
Teenagers who are good, law abiding kids, with Scouse accents will still be targeted by police, still be kicked out of shops, denied entry with their friends in more than 2s or 3s at a time, because of this pervasive bias and discrimination.
I’ve literally witnessed how my mother, when we we lived in Cheshire for a short while, was constantly discriminated against, treated like she was an idiot, watched by staff in shops, and even outright treated beyond rudely by people who decided her Speke Scouse accent clearly denoted her as scum and intellectually inferior. Comparing that to how I was treated, or my mother when she put on an RP accent, and the difference was so startling to be outright offensive. Given smiles, chatted to about daily stuff, small talk, waving off of a few pence of change, given smiles by police officers passing by on the street, etc.
It’s such a big thing in the UK, the way our accents define a lot about us and how we’re treated.
I purposefully will code-switch when dealing with people who annoy me, or are being judgemental, and I relish the surprise they always show when I go from this soft-spoken, posh sounding, meek ‘girl’ to a sharp, witty, scruffy scouse sounding “threat” in the middle of a sentence while still casually smiling and acting like it’s nothing. It has left some people seeming to think twice about accents and some who couldn’t get away from me quick enough.
Especially when this sort of stuff is paired with how you physically look and dress. Trackies and scouse accent = scally/scum/council estate trash. Slacks and a blouse and scouse accent = makes no sense, confuses them, seems to have them doing a double take because you’re not what they expect with their attribution bias and prejudice.
