Quote: Asgardian13 "Grammar is one thing we can all get right, regional accents are another matter. As a northener who has lived most of his adult life in the south, I'm used to the 'baaarth' pronunciation, of course. Perfectly understandable. However, when folk occasionally challenge my northern pronunciation of the word...'"
The best response is to challenge right back.
There is a widespread view, in the South East, that anyone who speaks with an accent that is not a South-Eastern accent, is thought of as someone "with an accent".
The approriate challenge is to respond that, yes, of course one has an accent, but so does everyone.
This does not often go down well but hey-ho.
Worse than challenge are the infrequent but ill-advised attempts to mimic one's accent, especially when they get it so wrong.
Although most of us will know accents we like and accents we don't, no accent is intrinsically better than any other.
Also I think that, these days, the notion that a South-Eastern accent is to "speak nicely" is waning, thank goodness.
