[/COLOR]AAAAARRRRRGGGHHH!!! NOOOOOOO!!! FOR THE LOVE OF BREXIT STOPPIIITTTT!!!!!
Can we please just ban the word 'British' when referring to culture / accent or anything else that regularly gets homogenised from the beautifully diverse and ever so slightly mental juxtaposition of disparate identities that makes up our beautiful United Kingdom?? There IS no 'British' accent - if you want to go down to the broadest classification that makes sense, say Scottish, or Welsh (everyone say whut?) or English. But it makes me roll my eyes so hard when people refer to us as having 'British accents' - or even worse, use it interchangeably with English.
Eye twitchy rant over...
YES.
I am so with you on this one.
Also, don't assume that British is the same thing as English. I saw a report on Facebook a few days ago which came from a reputable source as far as I could see, which compared healthcare (I think) from different countries. One of the countries listed was this:
UK (England and Northern Ireland)
I couldn't understand why they'd either excluded Scotland and Wales, or assumed they were part of England.
Sorry for the tangent. But yes, yes, yes.
Having lived in the U.K. for a few years, and traveled widely within it, I ultimately came to the opinion that a skilled linguist could probably determine a U.K. native person's locality of birth within a few yards, just by hearing them speak for about thirty seconds.
caw
My husband is from the north of England. He can imitate lots of northern accents, and they're so varied--amazing for such a small country. Some of our towns and cities have accents which are markedly different to the next town over, even though it might only be a few miles away.
My last novel begins in London, then moves elsewhere. Those first four chapters got beta-read by UK folks, but there were differences of opinion on various terms, food habits etc between Londoners, and those from outside London. I think it matters what part of UK it is set in--get beta-reads from peeps from that location, if possible.
There's a huge difference in north and south of the river, for example: both in accents and habits; east and west differ widely too, but in different ways. You're right: London is not a homogenous place.