this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2026
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You're kidding, but the "posh" accent of the British upper classes is to a greater or lesser extent trained rather than merely acquired when one is learning the language as a child.
Also people with regional accents often actively make an effort to change their accent to RP (aka the BBC accent) when they move to places like London, though I supposed that's pretty common the World over when people whose regional accents are from places deemed "provincial" move to the big cities in more prosperous regions.
Oh, and immigrants, I almost forgot immigrants: many people with foreign accents do make a lot of effort to speak the local language with the local accent. In fact, for many immigrants in Britain this joke is pretty close to reality.
So there's actually a drop of truth in the joke.
Doubtless accurate, even here in the US I grew up in an area that pronounces water "wuhter", and had to unlearn that when I moved to a city where that would confuse people. That said, I also picked up "y'all" from a friend in college, so it's a mixed bag.
But when I visit home for a week and come back, definitely some "wuhter"s slip out before I get back into full city mode.
the linguist in me wants to to make a map of how everyone pronounces wohter now
that would be a good map. Especially if you had the IPA on it
done properly you could probably trade it for some kind of linguistics degree at a university. i do love making mockery of processes.