Jocular romanticising and self perpetuated stereotypes about the inhabitants of small places....

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Where else besides in Dublin/Ireland does this happen?

I mean people constantly lampooning or lovingly imitating extremely rural accents, or working class accents.

Also people saying things like "Yep we Irish never complain about national issues. If it was France they'd riot on the streets"

Or "typical Irish begrudgery, that, we hate to see someone doing well".

Or "we're such a fun nation, other countries just don't know how to have a laugh like the Irish".

Sometimes I think people do this to delude themselves into thinking that the status quo in the small place that they live in is actually something wondrous, that the fact that change comes extremely slowly is a great thing, because it's the best of all possible worlds.

This leads me to think that small countries the world over must be like this. Anyone live somewhere like this?

Or anyone in a big city/larger country feel that, in fact, this isn't specific to smaller places?

― Ronan, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 08:44 (eighteen years ago)

This thread title is begging for no answers, I know.

― Ronan, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 08:45 (eighteen years ago)

I'll take £5 on someone calling someone else racist within 20 posts.

― g-kit, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 08:50 (eighteen years ago)

I'd take that bet.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 08:53 (eighteen years ago)

That's racist

― the next grozart, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 08:54 (eighteen years ago)

isn't this a stereotypical english thing?

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 08:55 (eighteen years ago)

both the self-perpetuated stereotypes and the racism, really

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 08:56 (eighteen years ago)

is it? I think Irish people also like to pretend their stereotypically English traits are actually Irish

― Ronan, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 08:56 (eighteen years ago)

stereotypical, eh?

― Frogman Henry, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 08:56 (eighteen years ago)

Is this remotely confined to small places? There's still all that self-perpetuated 'British reserve' stuff as well. Then I suppose Britain is a small place really and even big places (eg the US) can easily be broken up into smaller places with their own self-perpetuated stereotypes.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 08:58 (eighteen years ago)

you'll have to elaborate on that controversial emboldening of font x-post

― Ronan, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 08:59 (eighteen years ago)

maybe you're right Matt, maybe all nations do this self stereotyping thing, but I think it'd be interesting, really interesting (to me anyway) to hear what these are in different places around the world.

― Ronan, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:00 (eighteen years ago)

I think maybe the Irish are more likely to revel in the whole self-sterotyping thing because most other nations (broadly speaking) quite like them and the stereotypes are a bit more affectionate* whereas Britain's international standing is much lower.

*Not all of them, obviously, but I suppose no one in Dublin is going "oh, the Irish, we love to get drunk and beat our wives".

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:05 (eighteen years ago)

I'm just thinking aloud here, this could all be bollocks.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:05 (eighteen years ago)

not too far off...nobody admits to beating their wife here though, you're right!

― Ronan, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:06 (eighteen years ago)

In England it tends to be the North/South thing.

― the next grozart, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:06 (eighteen years ago)

"In Japan, even our criminals are polite and courteous"

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:07 (eighteen years ago)

Everyone who ever gets a small amount of success in the UK who goes to the USA starts off..

"In england, people are jealous of success, in USA they celebrate it" (i.e. "me")

then they back 6 months later..

"In the USA, if your not hugely successful, people ignore you. Over here, they celebrate you"

Or something along those lines.

― Mark G, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:12 (eighteen years ago)

haha, that's a good one.

― Ronan, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:13 (eighteen years ago)

is this in terms of countries, rather than towns?

would you say that this kind of talk/think in dublin, is city people talking as though they were country people?

― 600, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:24 (eighteen years ago)

ie, is this dublin people saying "oh thats so irish", a semi-acknowledgement that dublin is different from the "so irish" which is actually the countryside, and a way of including themselves in that, ie that they are oldstyle/country....when they want to be

romanticizing of urban/suburban self as bona fide rural/oldtime self?

― 600, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:28 (eighteen years ago)

popularity of villagey area in cities

― 600, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:29 (eighteen years ago)

Or is it more because, in Dublin, unlike in say London, you're never actually very far from the countryside at all?

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:30 (eighteen years ago)

(This doesn't really translate to a lot of small towns in the UK though)

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:31 (eighteen years ago)

would you say that this kind of talk/think in dublin, is city people talking as though they were country people?

yes kind of. though I think it also happens in rural areas, where people might live in big towns and cities.

I don't think it's to do with being close to the countryside really, you can live in Dublin and never see the countryside, just as in London.

― Ronan, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:33 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah I realise that, cf smaller towns in the UK thing. I doubt anyone's going "oh us Swindon people, we love a good knees-up".

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:35 (eighteen years ago)

erm...I realise "rural areas where people might live in big towns and cities" is a little contradictory, I suppose I mean less populated than Dublin but still urban.

x-post, I think in Ireland people definitely have county identity like that, though maybe not in every county.

― Ronan, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:36 (eighteen years ago)

irish counties are few enough and big enough (comparatively) and defined enough that this is not unexpected. its possible that only yorkshire still retains this in england (i guess cornwall/devon also?)

― 600, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:43 (eighteen years ago)

It's interesting that people in London don't/aren't able to generally pinpoint any people in rural areas of the country as notoriously stupid. There's the old 'bumpkins' thing for West Country folk but it's not really milked at all because there's nothing backing it up in any way these days. Instead there is widespread class-based mockery of nationwide stereotypes.

― blueski, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:54 (eighteen years ago)

There's the old 'bumpkins' thing for West Country folk but it's not really milked at all because there's nothing backing it up in any way these days

oh there is, whenever i mention i lived in somerset...and which i am in full agreement with, incidentally, the stereotype is all too real

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:56 (eighteen years ago)

is there still a "national consciousness" in Britain?

― Ronan, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 09:58 (eighteen years ago)

in britain, or in england???

― 600, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:07 (eighteen years ago)

the reason the 'bumpkin' stereotype isnt heard as often as you might think, is that britain isnt really a rural country (like france for example).

― 600, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:09 (eighteen years ago)

yeah i agree with that

― blueski, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:12 (eighteen years ago)

well, I'm not sure whether to treat England separately or not.

― Ronan, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:12 (eighteen years ago)

I hear comedy west country accents a lot, but then I grew up on the fuzzy borderline between southwest and southeast and a lot of the older folks have a real rural accent (maybe not "west country" proper but a similar burr, and even rural Kent accents pre-war, say, would be closer to "west country" than to anything else around today, I think) and country upbringing which the younger ones have mostly never known. Also endless Python Yorkshiremanning.

I have also heard "oh, she's a real Devon/Gloucestershire/Somerset/Swindon girl" in a positive but slightly mocking way from people who presumably consider themselves at least a slightly fake wherever person, but I didn't stop to wonder what it meant, I just smiled and said "ha ha yes, lovely".

― a passing spacecadet, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:13 (eighteen years ago)

I suppose no one in Dublin is going "oh, the Irish, we love to get drunk and beat our wives"

Lies. I love to get drunk and beat my wife.

not too far off...nobody admits to beating their wife here though, you're right!

See above you coward!

― kv_nol, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:14 (eighteen years ago)

'in australia, everyone gets a fair go.'

― estela, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:15 (eighteen years ago)

At the risk of controversial mod edits I'd speculate that many Liverpudlians and Geordies are quite fond of their own stereotypes. I say this as West Midlander, since we're so universally mocked we don't really have a stereotype to cling to.

― Noodle Vague, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:17 (eighteen years ago)

'in australia, everyone gets a fair go.'

Wow, that's a good one. More from around the world are needed. trying to think of more Irish ones.

― Ronan, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:20 (eighteen years ago)

OK. Geordies.

Often, within the area, people tend to try to play down their 'regionality'. However, outside of the area, being as how the geordie accent is regarded as the most popular accent (check the ad and TV voiceovers!), the regionality gets played up!

― Mark G, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:21 (eighteen years ago)

See: every university in the country where suburban/middle England kids suddenly become fully-fledged Mancs, Scousers, Cockneys etc with accents their own parents wouldn't recognise.

― Noodle Vague, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:25 (eighteen years ago)

This is definitely true. eg People who go on holidays and wear their Ireland jersey every day, or carry flags around.

― Ronan, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:26 (eighteen years ago)

Mention of Cornwall upthread is utterly OTM because it's one of the few places in England that has its own proud and distinct identity as separate from the rest of the nation. More so than Yorkshire.

I was going to mention Liverpool as well. Do people cling to this sort of 'local character' because of a general feeling that the rest of Britain is becoming blandly uniform (cf most town centres feeling exactly the same these days)?

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:27 (eighteen years ago)

I don't suppose this is a bad thing, I mean, everyone likes to be thought of as unique, surely?

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:29 (eighteen years ago)

thats city identity rather than area identity though. city identity is very strong in many parts of england (because were an urban country)

― 600, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:30 (eighteen years ago)

I think it's often as simple as people wanting to be seen to belong to the area they live in, and it gets caught up in the feedback from representations of yourself in culture. So whereas 100 years ago there might've been many, many microcultures within the UK, now we have nine or ten broad regional identities and a lot of people who don't feel they belong to any.

― Noodle Vague, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:32 (eighteen years ago)

it does seem to lead to some of these identities being overused

― Ronan, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:34 (eighteen years ago)

Does it make a difference whether we're talking about city identity or rural area identity? Is the thought process the same?

I suppose what I'm asking is why Cornwall, Somerset, Yorkshire, Dorset maybe, seem to have their own sense of identity in a way in which Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey do not.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:35 (eighteen years ago)

Stan, correct me if I'm wrong, but half or even more of In de Gloria does this with great success. There is one recurring bit where a guy from the West Flanders (where I live) moans about the fact that only West Flemish is subtitled on telly. He keeps banging on the fact and demanding that it needs to STOP. Of course this is subtitled. Hilarious.

― nathalie, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:39 (eighteen years ago)

I suppose what I'm asking is why Cornwall, Somerset, Yorkshire, Dorset maybe, seem to have their own sense of identity in a way in which Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey do not.

the Home Counties identities are perhaps blurrier because of proximity to London and the way things have been amalgamated. something about the accents too.

― blueski, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:45 (eighteen years ago)

cornwall, somerset, still mainly rural, not near a major city which would stomp over regional identity

berkshire/surrey suburban. identities are nearly always urban or much wider/larger areas (hence often rural). oxfordshire an odd case because dominated by oxford itself, plus relatively small as an area.

yorkshire is obvious because of its sheer size, its also unusual in that its regional identity actually won out over city identities for a long time (and still does to an extent)

― 600, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:47 (eighteen years ago)

i'm not sure about this 'urban country' thing tho - is it really that clear cut? in england people still cling to rural ideals (rolling hills etc.), the seaside etc. - even city dwellers, dreaming of escape.

― blueski, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:49 (eighteen years ago)

Elephant in room here = Essex. Where does that fit in, considering it's more mercilessly stereotyped than most areas of Britain?

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:50 (eighteen years ago)

blueski what you just said hasnt contradicted anything

― 600, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:52 (eighteen years ago)

which 'essex' is stereotyped, the essex of colchester and southend, or the essex of the m25. often the essex which is stereotyped is actually greater london, but old essex, dagenham and romford, or bits just outside greater london, like chigwell

ie, isnt the lampooning of essex really a lampooning of certain aspects of london, and the postwar proletarian dream of suburbia and a big house in the country?

― 600, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:56 (eighteen years ago)

compare essex sitcoms 'birds of a feather' with surrey sitcoms, er...ones with richards briers in them

― 600, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:57 (eighteen years ago)

any stereotypes applied to essex can be applied to kent just as easily really. tho perhaps you could say this about Devon and Dorset too.

― blueski, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 10:59 (eighteen years ago)

Yes but we're talking about whether the people themselves recognise or encourage these stereotypes, right? People in Devon would be none to happy to be conflated with Dorset, because they recognise a definite identity.

If you say 'Essex stereotype' people immediately know what you mean, less so with Kent I think. But I've never met anyone from Essex who hasn't wanted to defend themself against that stereotype, or at least laughed it off going "haha that's not me".

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 11:03 (eighteen years ago)

Is there a recognisable Midlands (especially Brummie) stereotype beyond "kipper tie" type accents? And if not, does this suggest it might be the place where multiculturalism has sort of won out?

― DJ Mencap, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 11:50 (eighteen years ago)

exaggerated american southern accents get used this way a lot, sometimes as just an ugly signifier of slowness but just as often (and probably more) as a kind of "i may just be a country boy but dammit that ain't right" kind of thing

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 12:27 (eighteen years ago)

as a kind of valorization of not being "sophisticated"

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 12:27 (eighteen years ago)

people do this in france, too, with southern french accents, but without the affectionate part (anti-sophistication not being something to aspire to? this could be my own stereotypes coming into play, though)

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 12:29 (eighteen years ago)

probably in Italy too?

― blueski, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 12:36 (eighteen years ago)

When I lived in Italy my mates and me used to do "hilarious" Sicilian accents, i.e. basically replace every S with Sh and every vowel with U. But we were just idiotic racists I suspect.

― Mark C, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 13:00 (eighteen years ago)

It deserves its own thread really but I hear the "Britain hates success" thing SO MUCH - the business community genuinely seems to believe it and repeats it to itself a lot. What they also say is that Britain is a nation of natural inventors, we create the world's IP, look at that Tim Berners-Lee etc etc.

(cf. the not-even-quasi racist attitudes to the outsourcing of the UK's service industries to SE Asian call centres etc. "Ah well it's OK, we shall have a knowledge economy" (an economic vision of the future enthusiastically embraced by many a politician despite it resting 100% on the assumption that foreigners be thick).)

There's a vaguely wider currency to this too - the noble Brit inventor pottering about in his garden shed etc. But it's not as prevalent a national self-sterotype as the hating success one.

― Groke, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 13:08 (eighteen years ago)

We've done "Britain hates success" before, and it ended in tears, predictably. I think it goes along with the ingrained hatred of any kind of show-offs. You're only allowed to be successful if you're totally self depreciating about it, so they can pretend that you're still the underdog.

― Masonic Boom, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 13:09 (eighteen years ago)

Actually the natural inventors and the hates success thing go hand in hand - Britain is full of wannabe Dragons Den contestants who then get their IP ripped off by those shifty overseas 'entrepreneurs' because they are too fundamentally honest blah blah blah

― Groke, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 13:12 (eighteen years ago)

I am dimly missing what IP stands for here. You people and your marketing lingo.

― blueski, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 13:23 (eighteen years ago)

Intellecual Property. Sorry for the jargon!

― Groke, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 13:26 (eighteen years ago)

i can't imagine any french person, no matter how "salt of the earth", going on and on about how she don't need none of that fancy quality cognac, good ol' rotgut's the real stuff, etc. - there is of course a pride associated with getting good stuff cheaply, but the good stuff is still the good stuff. whereas all across the US there's a strong vein of "why you messin with that microbrew crap, i love my PBR"

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 13:31 (eighteen years ago)

stevem: PBR = pabst blue ribbon

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 13:32 (eighteen years ago)

(which is curious, because microbrews are often locally produced, and PBR comes from a giant factory in national superbrand-land)

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 13:36 (eighteen years ago)

When I lived in Italy my mates and me used to do "hilarious" Sicilian accents, i.e. basically replace every S with Sh and every vowel with U.

Don't forget replacing the "Ch" noise with an "s" e.g. Pancia becomes Pansia etc.

― kv_nol, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 13:49 (eighteen years ago)

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