Article in the Herald about the Glasgow accent

http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/ken-smiths-diary/is-it-something-we-said-1.1115386


Is it something we said?


IT doesn’t take much to stir the prejudices of Middle England, but a report on the alleged incoherence of the Glasgow accent has managed to do it.

The report said that people from Glasgow – and Birmingham too – are wrongly judged as being less intelligent and capable because of their accents.

Researchers in London reviewed a number of studies on dialects, which found that “non-standard” accents such as those from Glasgow or Brum “consistently rated low for traits like intelligence, competence, confidence and leadership”.

Cue an amusing online debate on an English daily newspaper’s website – and it has also upset my esteemed colleague Tom Shields (see page 12). Of the responses, this one was typical: “That Glaswegians are almost impossible to understand is not just because of the thickness of their accents, but due to their insistance [sic] on exporting colloquialisms unheard-of elsewhere, and to their lack of awareness of the fact that no-one from anywhere else in the universe can understand a blind word they’re saying.”

But then, in defence of the Glasgow accent, we admired this one: “Andrew Marr, Laura Kuenssberg, Menzies Campbell, Gerard Butler, Peter Capaldi, Robbie Coltrane, Sarah Smith, Craig Ferguson, Helena Kennedy, Michael Martin et al x100 .... all fae Glesga ya mad rockets.”

Well said

It reminds me of the story about the British media or their publicists wanting the Beatles to change their Liverpool accents. But it was one of the things that was appealing about them. Alot of people in the UK and the States love the scottish accent. Of course we here cant tell if its Glasgow, Edinburgh, or what. Its all sexy to me!