Ignorance is Bliss

So there I was, I’d just finished my bowl of Sainsbury’s Chocolate Hooplas (I can’t afford Weetos) and perused almost every internet site that I tend to check on a daily basis – Facebook, BBC Football, Myspace, Portalplus, etc, etc – when I decided to check the news, which should really be my first port of call, but I don’t want to see the atrocities of the world while I’m eating a bowl of chocolate do I?


When I got on the site there didn’t seem to be much news I could be bothered to read, but then, with my peripherines visuals (nothing like a good ol’ Boosh reference to perk the mood up) I saw Ozzie Osbourne’s scary grin beside a tagline about the Brummie accent. For my Sociolinguistics module at uni I entitled my summative assessment ‘Regional Variation – Social Attitudes towards the Birmingham Accent’, so having written over 3000 words on the subject, this article was bound to rouse my interest. Although, thinking about it, it would have been really nice to have had this information when I was actually writing my Sociolinguistics work.


Some of you may know that I have a slight Brummie accent. This was not always the case though. I was born in Essex and lived there until I was seven, hence the reason I support West Ham and not the other claret and blue of the Villa. Because I had a chirpy little Essex accent before the Brummie one got a hold of me like Venom did Spiderman I have become fascinated with how a difference in someone's speech can really say so much about them.


The story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7329768.stm) is about a study carried out by scientists at Bath Spa University which involved 48 volunteers comparing accents.


To sum up what I took from the story here is a snippet from it:


‘The study, which matched accents with perceived intelligence, found speaking in a Birmingham accent gives a worse impression than saying nothing at all.’


The cheek! To me this says, ‘If you have a Brummie accent, please don’t talk, we’d rather you said nothing at all.’ It gives a whole new meaning to ‘Ignorance is bliss’ doesn’t it.


Now, you may agree wholeheartedly with what the study found about the Birmingham accent, for all I know you may have even volunteered for it, part of me agrees with it too, but as bad as the Birmingham accent is, and there is no escaping the fact that it is bad, how does it say anything about someone’s intelligence?


I don’t think anyone believes that people in Birmingham are any less intelligent than the rest of the country, they just sound it. But how? Why? Is it the rising intonation? The nasal pronunciation? I really don’t know. I have my ideas. One of which includes the common confusion between the Black Country accent and the Brummie accent. But this doesn’t really explain much at all.


That is why I have written this blog. Maybe you can help me. What do you think makes Brummies sound unintelligent? Don’t feel you have to pull any punches by the way. I’m not easily offended, especially over something that I’m not too happy about having thrust upon me.

Cheers.

Joell