segasonic
Chippy Northern Ape
Maybe to you it has... ask a stranger to see if they can still hear the accent?
I left Sheffield in the 90's to move to London then Essex, where I was quite rightly called a northern monkey due to my accent
I moved back to Sheffield some years later & must've picked up a few southern words as often got called a southern poofter
I then moved to Italy where I was called lo straniero (the foreigner)
I then moved to Australia where I was (& often still am) called a pom.
I met some other poms in India on holiday last year who didn't realise that I was English. They thought I was Australian until I mentioned catching a 'bus' (the Sheffield accent must've come out then).
I've realised accents evolve over time if you live other places for a long time...mine is now such a mess I don't really fit in anywhere
I'm fully Sheffield now, people who don't know where I'm from assume I'm local. Came up here as a nipper via a year in King's Lynn. Over the years any remnants of Essex pronunciation got picked up on by my peers and the piss was taken until all were gone.
My mum has been here the same amount of time as me though and still has the Essex/London accent (from Chingford).