Mostly a miraculous blog but I will post anything that catches my eyes, cartoons, games, illustrations or random things, sometimes my own work but rarely (except tmnt that goes on side blog @claaaaaaaaaar)
Okay I explained that REALLY badly lol 🤣 let me try again
Okay so I know you’re not a piano player but this is the only way I know how to explain it
There are these things called scales that are basically like groups of notes (kind of like a color palette in art). So for example, in the drawing above a b c d e f g is a scale (I think) and they’re basically just notes next to each other. There are these things called half steps which is basically either a step up or a step down. A step up is called a sharp and a step down is called a flat (sharps and flats are the black keys on the piano) and they’re a half step up a scale. Ignore the sharps and flats and just focus on the white keys :D so basically if you do the first, third, and fifth notes in a scale, you’re generally going to get a nice harmony (I meant doing things in threes as in using three notes in a harmony lol 😂 sorry for the confusion). The thing above the poorly drawn piano is some poorly drawn ‘sheet music’
So on a guitar, each fret is like a half step up. If you played each fret on one of the strings in succession, that’s a chromatic scale, which means going up or down and hitting every half step (the Batman theme is basically a chromatic scale, if you’ve heard it :D) If you play every other note (I think???) you’ll skip the sharps and flats and get the natural notes, and from there hopefully can create harmonies. And that’s what a chord is :D a few notes that sound good together played at the same time to make a collective sound.
Hopefully that makes a bit more sense???? I don’t have a music teaching degree so you’re kind of getting screwed over 🤣😅
As for the rhyming thing, this is more in the poetry territory. There isn’t exactly a certain way to rhyme, but there is a formula. You can have a lot of freedom with it, but usually choosing a rhyming scheme/pattern makes things easier. So, maybe every other line rhymes, or two lines right next to each other rhymes. So for example, this is an ABAB rhyming scheme
A I’m a cat
B Sitting on an arch
A With a hat
B In March
Also those examples are BANGER RHYMES. I love “food” and “interlude” I would totally listen to a song like that. I can already tell you’re gonna be a great lyricist
But rhyming isn’t required!! There are plenty of poems that don’t rhyme. You can literally write whatever you want because it’s YOUR song :]
I uh, do have a music teaching degree! And music theory is my special interest, so would love to explain some music writing stuff too if you want some more advice!
So uhh, how much theory info do you want? Because to be totally honest, I started writing a draft last night just in case, and it really got away from me, and I don't want to overwhelm you if theory isn't really your jam 😅 I can also do a TL;DR if you want lol
Ok! there is absolutely no pressure to understand or even read all of this I know its a ton of dense info, so uhh, TL;DR: use the chords G, C, D and Em on the guitar in any order and length and rhythm, and sing a melody on top based on strings within those chords. I have no real advice on lyrics, bc i feel like all my good lyrics are by accident, sorry lol. If you wanna know why those four chords, have my insanely long info dump!
Also adding onto what Obsess said (idk if they play guitar or just piano, sorry if im being redundant!) but a guitar chord shape already finds the harmonies/chord for you! So instead of finding the notes of a chord on the guitar on your own, the guitar shape will find those notes for you! That's what makes songwriting on guitar a bit easier than on piano, and why pop/rock music uses a lot of guitars, it's an instrument built for chords!
Steps!
There are two types of steps, a full step and a half step. A full step on the guitar is two frets, and a half step is one fret. On a piano keyboard, a half step is any key and the key that's closest to it. For many notes, this will be a white key and a black key. As Obsess said, the black keys are sharps and flats, but not every note gets both sharps and flats. A sharp raises a note by a half step, and a flat lowers a note by a half step. If you look at a labelled keyboard, you will see that B and C have no sharp or flat between them, and E and F have nothing between them. This means that the distance between B and C is a half step and E and F is a half step!
(the labelled piano keys for you)
Scales!
So in Western Music there are two main types of scales: Major and Minor. Each with their own vibe. Major typically gets labelled as ‘happy’, while minor is labelled as ‘sad’, but I personally like ‘bright’ for major and ‘dark’ for minor, because they’re slightly less subjective. Any Major scale will have the same pattern of full steps and half steps (reminder: a full step on the guitar is two frets, and a half step is one fret). The step pattern for a major scale is: Full Full Half Full Full Full Half. You can start on any note, follow that pattern and get the major scale based on that note. For example, if you start on C, a full step up from C is D, then a full step to E, half step to F (remember there is no black key between E and F!) then a full step to G, full step to A, full step to B and then a half step to C (remember again, no black key between B and C) and then you’re at the beginning of the pattern! So a C major scale is C D E F G A B C! So the key of C has no sharps or flats in it! But if we want another scale, like an A major scale, we’ll start on A, full step up to B, but then our full step takes us to a black key, C#! Then from C# we take a half step up to D, full step to E, full step to F#, full step to G#, half step to A. So an A major scale is A B C# D E F# G# A. So the key of A major has 3 sharps, F#, C#, G#
Minor scales can be made a few different ways, and get a bit more confusing. There are actually 3 types of minor scales, Natural minor, Harmonic Minor, and Melodic Minor. The most basic one is the Natural minor. To find the natural minor, you can either use a different pattern of full steps and half steps (Full Half Full Full Half Full Full) or you can find what's called the relative minor. To find the relative minor, take the first note of your major scale (For example, C) and go backwards 2 letter names (C>B>A) so the relative minor of C major is A minor. Then you can use all the same notes as C major, but starting and ending on A. So the A natural minor scale is A B C D E F G A.
To get the Harmonic Minor, take the 7th note of that scale, and raise it a semitone. So in our A minor example, take the G and make it a G#.
For the Melodic Minor, when going up the scale, take the 6th and 7th note of the scale and raise them a semitone, (Eg. F and G to F# and G#) and then put them back to normal when going back down. A full A minor melodic scale would be A B C D E F# G# A G F E D C B A. To be completely honest, this one is pretty rare, and the only song I can think that uses it is Carol of the Bells, but it is one of the minor scales.
Chords!
Obsess explained this pretty well, so I’ll just recap. Starting on any note, take the 1st, 3rd and 5th note of that scale to get the chord! (This type of chord is called a triad! Just mentioning bc you were talking about 3s before, and the official name is also based on 3 lol). But again, on guitar you can just play the chord shape and trust it has the right notes.
But something to know! The type of scale you use to build your chord (Major vs Minor) will determine the type of chord you get! (Major vs Minor) so if we build a chord based on our A major scale (A B C# D E F# G# A), we will get an A major chord (A C# E) if we build a chord on our A minor scale, (A B C D E F G A) we will get an A minor chord (A C E). you might also be able to notice from this example how similar the two chords are! The only difference is the middle note, in a minor chord the middle note is one semitone lower than the major. (C# vs C)
Chords in Keys!
If you take a scale, for example, C major, and build a chord on every note in the scale, the type of chords (major vs minor) form a pattern. The pattern is, Major, minor, minor Major Major minor diminished (don't worry about this one, it's rare that it's used) and then you’re back to major! If we give each of the chords a number based on its order, we’ll get 1 Major, 2 minor, 3 minor, 4 Major, 5 Major, 6 minor, 7 diminished, and then back to 1! In music theory this is really important, and the numbers will be shown as roman numerals. If they're capital letters, they're major chords. If they're lowercase letters, they're minor! So we’d get I ii iii IV V vi viio I (the o means diminished, again don't worry about it.)
For a minor key it gets a bit tricky because of our 3 types of major scales, but we can do the same thing. For a Natural minor scale, the chords are i iio (diminished) III iv v VI VII. uhh, the chords for Harmonic and Melodic get super confusing, but the important part is that both of them will have a Major V chord. (This is a lot more important in classical music, so honestly? Don’t worry too much about it. Just know that minor v and Major V are both options in a minor key)
(example of chords built on a C major scale)
Ok actual Songwriting Advice
Start with a song in a major key lol. It's a lot less confusing, and you don’t have to worry about 3 different types of scales.
When it comes to song writing (in a major key), the most important chords are I, IV, V and vi. Or 1, 4, 5 and minor 6. The trick my dad taught me when I was first song writing was to use my fingers! The thumb is 1, count up the alphabet, and then you can find 4, 5 and minor 6 more easily! For beginner songwriters, just use these 4 chords in basically any combination, and then sing a melody on top. The order of your chords is called the ‘chord progression’. When I was first starting to write music, I would almost always start with a chord progression and write the melody on top of it. You also can make the melody first and find chords that match, but I find that's harder on guitar.
If you really want to write a song in a minor key, i, III, iv, V are probably your best bets, but its a little murkier. Again, I would recommend getting a good grip on major keys before venturing out into minor keys.
If you have a chord progression and want to find a melody, a trick I used to find notes is to play a chord on the guitar, and then pluck a single string from that chord, and try to match that note with your singing voice. Then that can be your starting note for your song. I really recommend singing to find a melody, and kinda like, improvising a melody, but if that's too hard, you can play your next chord, and do the same thing to find a note that works with that chord. I would recommend plucking a few strings to try and find a note that's really close to the starting note, because that’s easier to sing and usually sounds better.
Headcanon that Luke and Obi Wan got the money to pay Han Solo by selling the moisture farm at bargain-basement prices in Anchorhead without telling anyone that it was totally torched, and by the time anyone find out they were well off planet. Luke now has a reputation as one of Tattooine’s most famous con men despite the fact that it was Obi Wan who ran the con.
#I don’t know if you meant it this way but I totally interpreted this as them selling the farm multiple times to different people#luke: *wrestling over selling the wreck of the farm to someone he knows is a complete scumbag*#obi-wan: hello are you interested in buying a farm#complete scumbucket: *interested noises*#luke: wait didn’t we already-? *gets zapped by R2* ow!#luke: oh#luke: ohhhh#luke: >:)
i haven’t cared about star wars ‘canon’ since i was 3 years old- I LOVE the idea that the reason Luke had to dramatically speeder in and out of Jabba’s without hitting up any of his local connections is he is like, wanted by a bunch of scum in Mos Eisley. Can you- can you imagine Vader or whoever doing a recon in town on ‘the last son of the Jedi who blew up the death star.’ His close friends and family have all a) died b) moved off planet or c) both.
So the only reputation he has is ‘that bastard con artist who banked 19 years of aw-shucks-wormie-ness and used it to outrageously fleece everyone who’s almost anybody.’ Vader reading the report like…damn you Kenobi did you get HONDO to raise my son??
Jabba’s reaction to Luke’s message is INFINITELY funnier if we consider the idea that ‘Skywalker’ amongst the wretched local villainy (who mostly ignore imperial and rebel propaganda) is actually synonymous with TWO things - that brat who totally messed up the podrace bookies 25 years ago, and the infamous Anchorhead Con. Jabba gets this message about ‘Jedi’ and is like LOL i think the other Skywalker tried to pull some hotshit with that too before wimping out.
Everyone openly laughs like sure you’re a Jedi and I’ve got a bargain vaporator farm I want to sell you.
AND THEN HE WRECKS THE JOINT WITH A DEBT-RIDDEN HALF-BLIND SMUGGLER A RANDOM SLAVE GIRL ONE GUARD AND TWO BEAT UP DROIDS WHAAAT
I’m imagining some random palace guard telling Vader this, afterwards.
“So this fucking—SKYWALKER, dude, have you ever heard the name Skywalker? You know what it means? A FUCKING ASSHOLE, that’s what it means. Like. The first one was bad enough, this little shit named Anakin who was fuckin’ NINE YEARS OLD and he just WON THE FUCKING BOONTA EVE PODRACE and set SIXTEEN bookies out of business and if I ever meet him I’m gonna set him on fire for it—
“And then this new one, Luke? Fuckin’ nobody, raised by his aunt and uncle out in the Wastes, little aw-shucks hick farm kid, the kind you could give him a five-credit piece and a ten-credit piece and he keeps taking the fiver because it’s BIGGER, that kind of simple, and then he comes into Mos Eisley one afternoon and sells his aunt and uncle’s moisture farm, right, I’ve been out there a few times, several of us have, and it’s a nice place as far as moisture farms go, mildly profitable, and the kid is fucking happy to get like two-thirds its value, so he sells the farm, right? TO NINETEEN DIFFERENT PEOPLE! Do you have any idea how much Jabba’s finance people had to do to get that sorted out? Nineteen fucking mortgages on ONE fucking property, puts every real estate con Jabba the Hutt’s entire CLAN ever pulled and we were on the WRONG SIDE OF IT! We had every pirate and smuggler from here to Corellia laughing at us! And THEN! And THEN—!
“So he pops up via hologram message acting like a DIPLOMAT from the REPUBLIC, claiming a title and rank from an extinct, defunct, ILLEGAL order and wanting to bargain with Jabba—are you fucking kidding me, BARGAIN WITH JABBA for a smuggler who’s up to his ass in debt when he’s responsible for that farm scheme, acting like he doesn’t even fucking REMEMBER it and expects that Jabba’s forgotten it too. Like. Absolute fucking idiot, and anticipating that Jabba’s just as stupid. And he offers a pair of droids as a gift. Like, built-in-the-Republic-era, random-ass droids that he probably picked up from the Jawas that morning for a few hundred credits and a junked ‘vaporator.
“I mean, Jabba’s seething here, but hey, free droids is free droids. Whatever. He takes the droids, throws things, orders a fight to the death between two gamblers who owed him money, killed one of his dancers at some point … and then Boushh shows up with fucking Chewbacca in chains—he’s Solo’s first mate, so Jabba was all happy about that, but not happy enough to pay the full bounty—and what’s Boushh do? Pull some gonads out from somewhere after all these years, and also pull out a fucking THERMAL DETONATOR! Going to blow us all to fuck if he doesn’t get his measley fifty thousand, and, well, there’s no arguing with crazy like that.
“So now, if you’re keeping score, Jabba’s lost an absolute SHITLOAD of money and had his bookmaking industry fucked all to hell for like three years after the stunt from Skywalker the First, got screwed out of ANOTHER shitload of money in the farm scam by Skywalker the Sequel, got all but called an idiot to his face and insulted six times over by the same dude who’s apparently scammed so many people he’s forgotten who he has and hasn’t scammed, and got threatened out of fifty thousand credits by a second-tier bounty hunter IN FRONT OF HIS ENTIRE COURT.
“And then the next morning, what the fuck? Jabba’s favorite sculpture is gone, the one with Solo as its main ingredient that Boba Fett brought him. And Boushh is gone. And Jabba’s got a brand-new dancer chained up next to him. Night duty guy tells me Boushh unfroze Solo, and the new dancer girl IS Boushh, which, okay, you’re dealing with people like that and you look like that? You definitely need a helmet, but I feel like pretending she didn’t breathe oxygen was overkill. Anyway, then Skywalker shows up. All alone, no weapons, nothing, like he really believes in this Jedi shit. Arrogant little bastard, and we’re all laying bets on how Jabba’s going to kill him.
“So he talks a little, and fwoop! goes the trapdoor, and okay, everybody who bet on “Rancor” is doing a little happy dance, but then! BUT THEN! He fucking KILLS THE RANCOR! Drops its own cage door on its head and punches right through its skull! And—fucking NOBODY bet on that, which is a damn shame because everybody else would’ve just torn the winner apart out of sheer rage at that point and we coulda used some good bloodshed then, y’know? I mean, I dunno if you’ve ever met Jabba the Hutt, but he’s the kind of boss that’ll just go off and kill you for failing him or just because he’s angry at something. Just complete fucking asshole. I mean, he was pissed enough that everybody was worried for their safety, and so somebody dying messily right then would’ve calmed him down a bit.
“So Jabba’s big mad, and he gathers Skywalker and Solo and Chewbacca all together and says he’s gonna feed them to the Sarlacc, which is a nasty tentacled carnivorous plant out in the desert, so we all board the sail barge and have a nice little pleasure cruise—have you ever been to Tattoine? I’m fuckin’ kidding, it’s brutal. But hey, we get to see Skywalker executed, right? Wrong.
“Jabba offers them the chance to beg for their lives, and Solo calls him a slimy piece of worm-ridden filth, which, I mean, I could do better, y’know? If I’m about to die? Anyway, Skywalker goes up first, gets prodded to the edge, flips a salute off to who-knows-where, and does this little twist in midair, catches the fucking plank, and fucking SPRINGBOARDS himself back onboard, CATCHES HIS LIGHTSABER FROM MIDAIR where the one DROID shot it to him, and starts sending guards over the side, usually in pieces.
“So more guards rush forward to help, and there’s this huge fight, and fuckin’ BOBA FETT falls in, and while that’s going on? The fucking dancing girl has grabbed her chain and is FUCKING STRANGLING JABBA WITH IT! Like, I look over and he’s bucking and struggling and she’s pulling on that chain like anything, and then somebody hits me over the head with a bottle of Corellian brandy, and by the time I look again he’s pitched over dead! And nobody freaking bet on that!
“And then? Off they fucking go, Skywalker and Solo and Chewbacca and the dancing girl and the droids and one of the guards who I played sabacc with the other night and he owes me twenty credits! And that fucking Skywalker just cost me my job, and if I see him again I’m going to burn him to cinders myself!”
The man subsides, eyeing the gigantic ebony figure in front of him who, except for a couple of momentary starts as though he might say something, has been silently listening to him all this time.
Size-wise, Darth Vader has nothing on Jabba the Hutt, but somehow, he is scarier.
Finally, the dark form speaks. “You said you could do better.” A moment’s silence, and he clarifies. “If you were about to die.” He gets the impression that whatever monster lurks behind the helmet is smiling. “You are about to die now. Because you are a criminal, and because of what you have said about my son, Luke Skywalker. You have an opportunity to do better. Use it.”
The so-condemned criminal, late of Jabba’s palace guard, lets his jaw hang open unflatteringly for a moment while his brain catches up with events. HIS SON, which means …
“YOU’RE Anakin Skywalker’s HUSBAND?”
The steady, hissing rhythm of Darth Vader’s rebreather actually stops dead as the Dark Lord straightens up as if stabbed with an electroprod.
In the instant before the man’s brains, blood, and spinal fluid coat the far wall, he has the momentary satisfaction of having, indeed, done much better than Solo.
As you know, counting sheeps is perfect for sleep. Sheeps take that job very seriously. But some are still learning. It’s fine, I don’t think Wolf Hunter minds. 🐑🐑🐑
isn't it bizarre that people and animals have to match precise genetic markers for organ donation and take immunosuppressive medication for the rest of their life or else the body will reject it, yet you can pull all sorts of Frankenstein nonsense on plants and it will work so long as they're roughly in the same family
one day i'm going to make a post explaining how to use early modern english to y'all because i have seen too many people 1) calling it old english, and 2) wildly missing the mark with a Lot of confidence (to the point that someone took a pen and changed "shall" to "shalt" on a sign in a bookstore, which made it the incorrect conjugation of the verb for given subject!)
actually that day is today, with the caveat that i am not a linguist. i'm just an early modernist (specialized in english drama). and this is not an exhaustive course in early modern english! it is a bare bones intro to the basics. if you want to know more, read early modern works or do some googling.
what kind of english is that? let's look at some famous examples of each.
Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum, / þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, / hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. <- this is old english. note that it is unintelligible to a modern english speaker. (excerpt from beowulf)
Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth / Inspired hath in every holt and heeth / Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne / Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne … <- this is middle english. it is more intelligible, but it’s still very different from what we speak now. (excerpt from the canterbury tales)
Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. / I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. /
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible / To feeling as to sight? <- this is early modern english. this is so intelligible that we trust teenagers to read it in school. (excerpt from macbeth)
the english you are using to give a post a medieval or renaissance/shakespearean vibe is early modern english, not old english. (it's fine that you're using early modern english for a medieval vibe; no one expects you to learn middle english for a silly post about knights.)
how do you use pronouns?
'thou' is the informal second-person singular pronoun.
thou/thee/thy/thine
thou is the nominative form. you can use it for the subject of a sentence -> thou knowest me.
thee is the oblique form. you can use it for the object of a sentence -> i know thee.
thy and thine are the genitive forms. you can use them as possessive adjectives for nouns starting with consonants and vowels respectively. -> thy leg is broken. thine arm is broken too.
thine is also the possessive form. think about it like the word 'mine'*. -> my heart was once thine.
*'mine' is also used like thine as a possessive adjective in early modern english; you would say 'mine art' instead of 'my art'
ye and you
originally, 'ye' was the formal or plural nominitive second-person pronoun, and 'you' was the oblique form. so, it would be 'ye know me' and 'i know you'. 'ye' fell out of use and was replaced by 'you'. at that point it was already used as singular. but it was still much more formal than 'thou'.
the 'ye' you see in 'ye olde shoppe' stuff is not this pronoun. it is the way that printers who no longer had a thorn (þ) wrote the word 'the' (previously 'þe'). the 'y' in certain typefaces looked like a thorn, so we got 'ye' for 'the'.
how do you conjugate a verb?
you can't just slap a -th or -st onto the end of any verb. those are for specific conjugations. phrases like "i hath noticed" or "he thinkest that" are not grammatically sound. it's like saying "i has noticed" or "he think that".
the -st or -est ending is for (most) present and past tense verbs conjugated with 'thou'
some examples: thou canst, thou couldst, thou sayest, thou goest, thou wentest, thou hast, thou hadst, thou dost (or doest).
'thou' also has a few irregulars. some examples: thou wilt, thou art and thou wast (for 'to be'), thou shalt.
the -th or -eth ending is for (most) present and past tense conjugated with 'he', 'she', or 'it'
some examples: he hath, she sayeth, it doth, he goeth, she thinketh, it moveth
there are, of course, irregulars. the most important one is 'to be', which conjugates the same for this set as it does in modern english.
note: not every verb conjugates this way. for example, past tense verbs might use auxiliary verbs. so, not 'she cookedeth', but 'she did cook'.
by and large, the 'i', 'we', 'you' (or 'ye'), and 'they' conjugations were the same as they are today.
there were also some verbs that were used differently than we use them today, though (some of these fell out of use over the early modern period):
to be -> sometimes this verb is used instead of 'to have' as the auxiliary verb. 'i am arrived' means 'i have arrived', and 'she is come to see thee' means 'she has come to see you'.
to do -> sometimes this is used for the present progressive (i think that's the right name for it). 'he does speak' means 'he is speaking', and 'i do write' means 'i am writing'.
would -> this can be used to express a desire. 'i would i were a bird' means 'i wish i were a bird'
must -> this can be used without 'go' to mean 'must go'. 'i must to england' means 'i must go to england'
will -> this can be used without 'have' to mean 'will have'. 'you'll none of that' means 'you will have none of that'
there are a million other things i'm not covering, like different sentence structures for questions ('thinkest thou...?' as a valid alternative to 'dost thou think...?'), and different contractions ('she'll not' rather than 'she won't') but this post is long as fuck and i have things to do! enjoy! linguists, feel free to correct me on what name of tenses or declensions or whatever i have mixed up.
(psa: the point of this is not to be a kill-joy about other people's posts that have these errors. it's just a little knowledge sharing.)
'wherefore' = 'why', not 'where'. think about it pairing with 'therefore'. an example of the two in use:
'my love, wherefore didst thou pretend to see me not?' [babe, why did you pretend not to see me?]
'thy father, from whom we do keep our love hidden, did at that moment walk nearby. therefore i turned from thee that he might not espy us together' [we're keeping our relationship secret from your dad and he was walking by. i did it so he wouldn't see us together.]
'hither' = 'to here', not 'here'. there's a whole set of these, actually. 'whither' = 'to where' and 'thither' = 'to there'. these pair with 'hence' ('from here'), 'whence' ('from where'), and 'thence' ('from there'). an example of some of these in use:
'whence came you?' [where did you come from?]
(pointing to the left) 'thence came i hither.' [i came here from there.]
'and whither go you now?' [and where are you going now?]
(pointing to the right) 'my lord calls me thither.' [my boss is calling me over there]
'very well. get you hence.' [alright, get away from here.]
'whom' ≠ fancy 'who' and this one is just also true today.
'whom' works for the object of a sentence. 'who' is for the subject. in other words, 'whom' receives the action and 'who' does the action.
'whom wrote that letter to you?' -> incorrect! this should be 'who wrote that letter to you?' because 'who' is doing the action.
'whom did you write that letter to?' (or even better, 'to whom did you write that letter?') -> correct! 'whom' here is receiving the action.
Something neuroscience-y that helps with prose: attention is selective. A character will not notice everything in a room. They will notice what matters to their goal, fear, desire, training, wound, or obsession. A jealous character notices hands. a hungry character notices food. A soldier notices exits. A lonely character notices pairs. Description becomes character when attention has a bias.
There’s something called culture. People (especially USAmericans) think of culture as cultural dress, cultural food, cultural music. These are culture, but they are only the very superficial aspects of it. Like the icing on your cake. Far more deep rooted is the more meaty bits of culture: the attitudes, the ideas, the taboos.
There’s a guy on tiktok who has done a series that shows this very well, of Germans Vs Irish. In one video the German offers the Irish person two kinds of tea, green or black. The Irish person keeps putting off the choice with things like “Oh sure whatever is easiest”, “Which have you more of?” and, “Ah sure I don’t want to cause a fuss” whereas the German just wants a straight answer. This is a cultural difference of politeness.
Here in the UK, accents mark your class very openly. They let everyone know where you’re from (though this has become less pronounced in the last 50 years,) and what your background is. A lot of people (especially northerners, but also a fair contingent of working class southerners) face discrimination on the basis of their accents.
Some of us (myself included) even change register (though I believe USAmericans call it code switching) in and out of our regional accent and a close approximation of RP. We learn to do it because it makes us seem more intelligent (even though it shouldn’t) and helps us be taken more seriously.
Thus, our country carries a lot of baggage when it comes to accents. Especially those of the working class who have had their accents made fun of, or have faced discrimination based on it.
So when someone outside the country (usually USAmericans) makes fun of our accents they’re stepping on a lot of cultural taboos and boundaries. Especially because the “It’s Chewsday, gonnae wot-ch sum yewchube innit” is a working class accent.
Now, that’s not to say we can’t take a joke, but this is the kind of joke you share with someone who you have been friends with for a while. My boyfriend often will pick up on the way I say certain words, in much the same fashion I pick up on his idiosyncrasies of speech (English isn’t his first language so he says stuff like close the lights, which is adorable.) If we aren’t predisposed to liking you, then the joke you’re trying to make is more like an insult.
The way I like to think of it is if you were in a pub, and made those sorts of jokes to someone. If they knew you, and they liked you, they’d probably laugh along. If they didn’t like you or know you, they would punch you in the jaw.
HOWEVER: I recognise this post as a joke. I don’t personally find these jokes offensive, but then no one really makes fun of me or considers me stupid because of my accent.
Oh that actually makes a lot of sense! It’s like how it’s assumed in media that the southeastern Appalachian (‘hick’ or ‘redneck’) accent is audible shorthand for ‘this American character is stupid.’ That sentiment reinforces negative stereotypes about that region which has historically been home to a large working class population that has suffered from an underfunded education system and other systematic abuses. It is ultimately an underhanded joke, but not everyone from America (or even the region necessarily) considers it to be offensive despite its classist nature.
yes, that’s basically it! it grinds my gears when certain Very Online Americans will quite rightly say that europeans have no right to mock the us’ lack of healthcare/gun control and working-class accents…but then turn around and act like working-class british accents and foods are hilarious and should be mocked ‘bc of colonialism and the bp oil spill’ as though all british people are directly responsible for the oil spill. and then some of them conveniently forget that there are in fact british people of colour - in the wake of brexit, a smug american blog defended saying that british people upset by the referendum were getting ‘karma’ for the british empire, even when british poc pointed out that they were the ones most likely to be negatively affected by brexit, by saying ‘obviously i don’t mean you’, to which said british poc responded ‘THEN WHY DID YOU SAY BRITISH PEOPLE’
The hatred, by the privileged of England, towards Scotland and any Scottish accent was so pervasive that my mother wouldn’t let my brother and I develop a Scottish accent. She was born in Jamaica but her family moved to London when she was 11. She moved to Scotland when she was pregnant with me. Both my brother and I were born in Scotland and spent out entire childhood there. Mum was adamant that neither of us would have the local accent. It was “common” and “low class” and “would hinder us in the future”. She used to fine us half our pocket money if we used any Scottish slang or said anything in a Scottish accent. I got bullied at school for having a “posh English accent” but she thought my job prospects were more important than a modicum of happiness at school. My outsider status was doubled by that. I was brown and “English”.
Even now, after decades in Scotland, I still don’t sound Scottish. The English hear a slight lilt but that disappears as soon as I spend any time with them.
I feel alienated on two fronts now, skin colour and accent. And one of those was avoidable if it hadn’t been for the prejudice against against perceived lower class accents. Even in Jamaica Mum learnt to speak in an English accent like the white girls at her school. She could switch between the two. Jamaican with her parents, posh English everywhere else. Why couldn’t I have had that?
The fact that a lot of regional actors are expected to code-switch their accent patterns the a kind of neutral English accent in Britain shows how pervasive the classism is.
When Christopher Eccleston was cast as the Doctor in Doctor Who, people were surprised that he used his own northern accent, instead of performing with an accent like every Doctor before him. That was only 15-ish years ago.
Even now, this still happens - James McAvoy made a very vocal protest a couple of years back about a critic who complained about the use of Scots accents and only applauded the “plummy English” accent of one character in a play.
Regional and working class accents were used as joke accents for decades in British media. Look up old broadcasts and notice how many people only speak RP English (ie. the formal pronunciation that smacks of elocution lessons and enunciation). As media accessibility and productions expanded, there have been more regional accents showing up, but it’s still a big problem.
I would like to add that there was a study by the Worcester College that found that people talking with a Birmingham accent were twice as likely to be accused of a crime as people who speak RP. Accents carry huge baggage in Britain.
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