formerly Lady Justice
I'm originally from England but have lived in America for the last 2 years and I've come to notice some similarities in stereotypes over here. Please correct me if you think I'm wrong.
I'd say Birmingham stereotype is similar to New Jersey stereotype. London stereotype is similar to central America e.g. Chicago. Pacific North Westerners remind me of Kent/Middle-upper class type areas in England. And the country (Gloucestershire, Bristol) remind me of the Southern American stereotype, I would even go as far as to say The Forest of Dean is its very own Texas.
Also, thanks so much everyone for identifying the difference between "UK" and "England", pet bug over here.
And I know a few people have touched on Manchester and Liverpool, but I can't stress how important football stereotyping goes on in England when it comes to the two.
I have also lived in Cardiff for a few years and I'm struggling to find a similar stereotype, perhaps because it was my own personal gem of a city. Though I know the Welsh are referred to as "sheep shaggers", they're too stoned to give a shit.
edited 10th Mar '11 8:23:01 PM by KingFriday
"There's more evil in the charts then an Al-Qaida suggestion box" - Bill Bailey@King Friday: So, you're saying that if someone were to have a story that featured a character from Liverpool and another from Manchester, and they were best friends who didn't do the Vitriolic Best Buds thing (as in, at worst they had a few arguments at times but those were rare), that would be a major Stereotype Flip?
edited 11th Mar '11 5:29:20 AM by Rainbow
@Rainbow - It might well be. Certainly you'd expect each to throw in at least a few jibes about the other's home city along the way.
Final point on Manchester: About 20 years ago, at the height of the "Madchester" scene, there was a popular T shirt. The slogan - "And on the eighth day, God created Manchester." I think that about sums up the attitude.
"Well, it's a lifestyle."Sheep shaggers are also a key stereotype in parts of Scotland. I had the misfortune to have been born in Aberdeen (oil based city in the North East, also known as the Granite City, though unlike its kin it actually hasn't fallen to ruin because of the collapse of the mines, due in large part to the oil and its status as a huge North Sea port) and raised in Dumfries, which is a small market town in the SW. Dumfries is, however, with a population of 40,000, 4 times as populous as anywhere in a 50 mile radius except for the city of Carlisle, 35 miles directly south of it.
The old joke about Aberdeen goes, "What do you call a sheep with it's front legs tied to a lamp post in Aberdeen? A leisure centre", and Dumfries is little better. With all the irony it entails, people from Dumfries (Doonhamers, because the entire population aged between 18 and 23 disappears off to uni, only coming back "Doon hame" for the holidays") gleefully accuse anyone with Aberdonian blood of being a sheep shagger. Dumfries is itself surrounded by acres and acres of sheep and very little else. Naturally, during the foot and mouth disease crisis, the place became a desolate wasteland, being the third most affected area in the whole of the UK - first was Devon in SW England, second was Cumbria which is directly adjacent to Dumfries & Galloway.
My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.
formerly Lady Justice
@Rainbow
That's a good question. I just think they get lumped together in a northern stereotype but they actually have their own. I don't think it would go against the stereotype for them to get along if there is as you said the "Vitriolic Best Buds thing", as you would expect the friction between the two to manifest itself in a way that both were able to accept and create a bond in despite of.
May I recommend a bit of Guy Richie movie viewing? He does do regional stereotyping very well especially in Snatch and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
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I wasn't saying that the Welsh shag sheep, just that it is a stereotype, something I've heard them referred to as several times. They don't take it seriously and neither does anyone else I met. I think more than anything it implies that Wales is very farming orientated (what with the sheep to man ratio) and not a lot to do there unless you're in a big city! Nothing more.
edited 11th Mar '11 12:47:08 PM by KingFriday
"There's more evil in the charts then an Al-Qaida suggestion box" - Bill Bailey@ King: Sorry, I meant it would be unstereotypical if they had a MORE peaceful dynamic and WEREN'T Vitriolic Best Buds. I must have messed up my wording. Or if they did argue, but their arguments were about things that were completely unrelated to where they're from (ex. arguing over a shared romantic interest rather than football teams).
I'll look up what those movies/shows you mentioned are, then.
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That's also Hannay country — and yeah, there's not much between Carlisle and edge of Glasgow, from what I've seen.
As well, there's almost certainly rivalry between the different parts of the West Midlands, from what I've seen.
Keep Rolling OnI used to think Glaswegians were the ones stereotyped as neds - poor, violent, drug-addicted, council-housed and on the dole etc... but nowadays I see the same stereotype levied at people from Aberdeen, Dundee, and parts of Edinburgh. I think Scottish people just really hate each other.
edited 11th Mar '11 7:23:34 PM by Bask
They're different flavours of the same food stuff. Glasgow neds are very different to the ones in Edinburgh and the like!
Glasgow itself has multiple stereotypes based on your area of the city. East End? Low life, jobless, tasteless, classless, violent moronic scum of the highest order. West End? Trendy, high class, posh, no conception of the way real people life, pretentious beyond belief. South Side? Much more balanced, tending towards the better aspects of both. City Centre? Can go either way, the Merchant City side tending towards the West End, Anderston and the likes being more like the East.
All rather Truth in Television, though the South Side in reality has a very broad mixture. Within a couple of hundred metres you can get places as posh as the West End and as bad as the East. I used to live in Govanhill which has slums that are genuinely as bad as those in Kabul (sadly, that's not hyperbole) but also really beautiful houses just a few streets away.
My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.@Rainbow Yeah pessimism does often come into. Can be seen as kind of understandable as southern mining communities went through quite a big depression similar to that seen in northern England as seen in films like Brassed Off and Billy Elliot after the miners' strike of 1984/5 and the subsequent closing down of coal mines under the Thatcher administration, which not to get into the politics of the matter turned the lives of communities upside down. Not that is the origin of the stereotype as the Welsh have often been seen as humourless but I think that is a lot down to the dead pan sense of humour which some may not pick up.
But there are a lot of positive stereotypes as well such as being incredibly passionate and being home to many talented singers, writers, poets and actors and there have been some great orators such as Aneurin Bevan who founded the NHS under the post war Attlee administration. Not to mention Wales is known as the land of song. It is a remarkable place in many ways.
Ah, top o' the mornin' to ye tropers, 'tis the day to discuss those Oirish stereotypes!
While I don't think it was exactly the main intent of the cartoon, I think "Pigs is Pigs," the Disney cartoon about the guinea pigs breeding all over a railroad station while bureaucracy plods through a question, is one of the first cartoons that acquainted me with the Irish stereotypes of red hair, tempers (the fight with the Scottish guy, which made me think there was a stereotype of the Irish and Scottish fighting each other, not sure about that one, though), and stupidity (thinking that guinea pigs were actual PIGS despite not looking like pigs at all).
The man is so boring I have to look him up on You Tube to remember what his voice sounds like.
With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.Yes, that's more or less it - Hague is a Yorkshireman from a well-off family. And will never manage to escape from being the kid who made a speech to the Tory Party conference at 17 in the late 70s, something non-Brits/younger tropers may not be aware of. At one point they used to show the embarrassing footage on TV whenever his name came up.
"Well, it's a lifestyle."
The fact that Hague comes from a well-off family and eventually went on to go to university in Oxford would likely dilute any kind of Yorkshire accent he originally had as that means he'd end up mixing with a lot of Southern upper-middle-class types.
Listening to a speech he's given, I am picking up some Yorkshire inflections, but they're very faint.
edited 22nd Mar '11 12:56:23 PM by pagad
With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.Yeah, Hague is the posh northern accent, though that's much less common really.
Mine is technically blended, but at a far more local level - primarily between Glasgow and Dumfries, which are about 80 miles apart. People from one can usually tell the influence of the other. Non-brits would likely not recognise it though, and may even suspect me for English. I used to have a fair bit of English, having spent my life from 6 months through to 6 years and 6 months old near Leicester in the middle of England. That's nowhere near as present in my accent as it once was though.
My mother has an accent which is completely transcendent in terms of location - she was born in Chester (the English side of the Welsh border), grew up around the north of Scotland in a whisky distillery, spent significant time in various parts of England, and has lived the last 15 years in Dumfries. Her accent is distinctly English, but impossible to place beyond that.
My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

The city centre has been somewhat rejuvenated in recent years, its shopping centre and ski-slope being the main attractions. Plus there's a lake and plenty of greenery, so it can even look quite pretty in places.
With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.