Morrissey's nickname at school. Any ideas??

[SouthpawGlamour]

He has got any Irish accent. It's very obvious, especially when he says words like "any". He has also quite a strong northern accent. There is no way you could mistake him for a Southerner.

I didn't say he sounded southern, but there is no way he sounds Irish. I really respect the fact that Moz has never played the Irish card, Moz knows who he is. I also understand that many people have a very romantic view of Ireland and want Moz to be Irish. But Moz has an 'English Heart' in his own words.

The Irish are not a 'race', thy are a 'nationality' and unless you are born there, you are NOT irish.

As far as your perception that he pronounces some words in an "irish' way, thats like saying that people who use Americanisms sound American.

 

[Danny]

I didn't say he sounded southern, but there is no way he sounds Irish. I really respect the fact that Moz has never played the Irish card, Moz knows who he is. I also understand that many people have a very romantic view of Ireland and want Moz to be Irish. But Moz has an 'English Heart' in his own words.

The Irish are not a 'race', thy are a 'nationality' and unless you are born there, you are NOT irish.

As far as your perception that he pronounces some words in an "irish' way, thats like saying that people who use Americanisms sound American.

Who said he was Irish? He does have any Irish accent however.
He is not using Irishisms. It's the way he pronounces words.

 

[SouthpawGlamour]

Who said he was Irish? He does have any Irish accent however.
He is not using Irishisms. It's the way he pronounces words.

What do you mean 'he does have any Irish accent'? That makes no sense. Apologies if you are not a native speaker.

 

[Kewpie]

What do you mean 'he does have any Irish accent'? That makes no sense. Apologies if you are not a native speaker.

SouthpawGlamour, where are you from originally?
Brel is a Mancunian who often provides very interesting information about Morrissey's background.
You sounds very arrogant and silly to argue with someone like Brel.

 

[SouthpawGlamour]

SouthpawGlamour, where are you from originally?
Brel is a Mancunian who often provides very interesting information about Morrissey's background.
You sounds very arrogant and silly to argue with someone like Brel.

I am from Glasgow, so I don't think that I 'sounds' ignorant at all. I have a very keen ear for accents as I have lived all over the UK, in particular London and Yorkshire.

But thanks for your insults, nice to see that some things never change at Moz solo.

 

[Brel]

SouthpawGlamour, where are you from originally?
Brel is a Mancunian who often provides very interesting information about Morrissey's background.
You sounds very arrogant and silly to argue with someone like Brel.

Stop blowing up my skirt. You'll have me blushing!

Glasgow? Do you think he's a Billy Boy? It would explain the "Plastic Paddy" comment.

Anyway I'm off out to get drunk (no plastic glasses I hope).

 

[I am a Ghost]

I didn't say he sounded southern, but there is no way he sounds Irish. I really respect the fact that Moz has never played the Irish card, Moz knows who he is. I also understand that many people have a very romantic view of Ireland and want Moz to be Irish. But Moz has an 'English Heart' in his own words.

The Irish are not a 'race', thy are a 'nationality' and unless you are born there, you are NOT irish.

As far as your perception that he pronounces some words in an "irish' way, thats like saying that people who use Americanisms sound American.

From an interview given by Morrissey in 1999


How steeped was he in that emigrant Irish culture, which is a strange one at the best of times? "It steeped into everything I knew growing up. I was very aware of being Irish and we were told that we were quite separate from the scruffy kids around us - we were different to them. In many ways, though, I think I had the best of both places and the best of both countries. I'm `one of us' on both sides. It was always odd later on with The Smiths when I was described as being `extremely English' because other people would tell me that I looked Irish, I sounded Irish and had other tell-tale signs. In fact, the new album - which I have finished writing but has yet to be recorded, is called Irish Blood, English Heart. It's funny, because U2 are always portrayed as being famously Irish and this is the great unsaid: aren't half the band English? All you have to do is hear The Smiths' surnames - Maher, Morrissey, Joyce and Rourke. It was only actually Andy Rourke's mother who was an English parent - all the other parents were Irish. It's an interesting story."

 

[SouthpawGlamour]

Stop blowing up my skirt. You'll have me blushing!

Glasgow? Do you think he's a Billy Boy? It would explain the "Plastic Paddy" comment.

Anyway I'm off out to get drunk (no plastic glasses I hope).

Hmmm..nice...lets take the insults to a new level and accuse me of sectarianism The concept of the 'plastic paddy' is well established and something I find absolutely cringeworthy!!!

 

[SouthpawGlamour]

From an interview given by Morrissey in 1999


How steeped was he in that emigrant Irish culture, which is a strange one at the best of times? "It steeped into everything I knew growing up. I was very aware of being Irish and we were told that we were quite separate from the scruffy kids around us - we were different to them. In many ways, though, I think I had the best of both places and the best of both countries. I'm `one of us' on both sides. It was always odd later on with The Smiths when I was described as being `extremely English' because other people would tell me that I looked Irish, I sounded Irish and had other tell-tale signs. In fact, the new album - which I have finished writing but has yet to be recorded, is called Irish Blood, English Heart. It's funny, because U2 are always portrayed as being famously Irish and this is the great unsaid: aren't half the band English? All you have to do is hear The Smiths' surnames - Maher, Morrissey, Joyce and Rourke. It was only actually Andy Rourke's mother who was an English parent - all the other parents were Irish. It's an interesting story."

Whats your point? That he is 'extremely English' or '..sounded Irish'?

 

[I am a Ghost]

What is YOUR point?
You seem to want to deny that Morrissey has any Irish elements to him, when the world and it's mother and the man himself can obviously see and say that he has.
I note that you say he has an "English Heart". Perhaps you can recall the full title of the song which you quote...

 

[SouthpawGlamour]

What is YOUR point?
You seem to want to deny that Morrissey has any Irish elements to him, when the world and it's mother and the man himself can obviously see and say that he has.
I note that you say he has an "English Heart". Perhaps you can recall the full title of the song which you quote...

What? I never denied Moz has Irish elements to him, I said he did not have an Irish accent, which should be obvious to everyone!!!

Moz has 'Irish Blood, English Heart'.

The more interesting question is why I have been insulted and accused of sectarianism because I said he didn't sound Irish. How ludicrous! What beliefs does the desire to believe in Moz's Irishness really conceal???

 

[robertzombie]

I think the reason he says "any" the Irish way is probably because when he was learning to talk he would've learnt it that way. Your parents teach you how to talk, if they were both Irish (which I believe they were) then they would've spoken with Irish accents. Add the pronuncian of words to the Mancunian accent and bob's your uncle

My mum is from south London, my dad is from west London, we live in west London, I have a predominantly (boring) west London accent, but I tend to pronounce things the way my mum does, (mainly leaving off H's, e.g. 'appy, lol).

 

[Brel]

Hmmm..nice...lets take the insults to a new level and accuse me of sectarianism The concept of the 'plastic paddy' is well established and something I find absolutely cringeworthy!!!

I wasn't being that serious. In fact, I am never serious. Even at funerals.

Anyway, I can't stay here all day, I've got a match to go to. All us plastics support City you know?

 

[Abrahan]

Seriously?

no this was just a pun on how he said the word "island" in like the 2nd grade.

it was mentioned by a classmate in Johnny Rogan's the Severed Alliance.

he said... "Is Land"

i guessed that if certain kids remembered that, he might have been teased about it.

 

[nightandday]

Morrissey's parents are both Irish, therefore his accent tended towards Irish than Mancunian and nightandday and someone else quoted the interview about the subject.

Good memory.

Word magazine, 2003 http://www.alinkarel.plus.com/smiths/moz2.html pages 5-6

"Your music has often been quite hard on your upbringing. Barbarism Begins At Home is a howl of protest against being beaten, the child in Used To Be A Sweet Boy goes wrong in some unspecified way, Late Night, Maudlin Street is a straightforward attack on the misery of the family home...how does your mum feel about all this?
Early on the music was quite harsh, yes, but that has changed. Generally she likes it, although it is all autobiographical. I did get the clip around the head occasionally, as in the song, but I probably deserved it. I was a very noisy child. I always stood in front of his television, I wouldn't go to bed, and then I discovered music at the age of six and played it loud, continuously, all day from that point onwards. I would sing, non-stop, which must have been unbearable. I was surprised they were so tolerant of me, to be honest.
Is your father still around? Are you like him?
Yes, he is. And yes, I am, in certain respects. Why?
Because your Irishness is coming to the fore. You've written a song called Irish Blood, English Heart, you've started to say "Jaysus", you now pronounce the word "any" to rhyme with "Annie"...
That's interesting. But even when The Smiths recorded Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want there were thousands of letters saying "This is Foster and Allen" or something similar. I've never had a Manchester accent. I've always had a very soft voice and I was raised by my mother's side of the family, who were very Irish. I never sounded Mancunian, for which I thank God every day.
What does your father do?
He does...certain things. Useful things. Let's leave it at that."

 

[nightandday]

Oh, that sounds to me a little effeminate unless you tell me it has another meaning that I don't know because I am a foreign user... Could it be that already in those early years, they had doubts about his sexuality?

Well, if you're interested, there's lots about his early years in Severed Alliance. Apparently he was considered 'effeminate' by some of the male teachers in his school, St Mary's (his English teacher Aileen Power also mentions it in These Things Take Time documentary) and probably the kids as well, because he was introspective and unaggressive. I suppose for some people that transates to 'effeminate'. It was an all-male school, and apprently a very violent one. One of his schoolmates also mentioned that he was, in the early years at St Mary's, mocked for his voice/speech: "people said that he sounded effeminate, but I think he just had a less pronounced accent than the rest of us".

But nobody called him 'Dorrissey', "Betty' or anything else that people have been naming here. If they did, surely someone would have mentioned it in a book or documentary.

As for people "having doubts about his sexuality"... if by that you mean the usual "is he gay" thing: surprise, surprise! it seems he wasn't considered gay, and none of his former schoomates and other people who knew him think so. One of his mates stresses that he somehow seemed feminine, but "not in the sense of being gay". I don't know, maybe it had something to do with the fact that, apart from the couple of friends he had in his school, he always tended to socialize with girls a lot more than with boys. People noted that he was always surprisingly confortable in female company; however, he didn't seem to be interested in sex. At least that's the impression his mates had. One of them (called Mike) remembers that when they would go out, 'Steve' would always apprioach a beautiful girl and start a conversation, but, to Mike's surprise, Steve would never carry it further. There's a story that he once gained a reputation of Don Juan when boys in his school heard that he was entertaining girls in his room ...but it finally transpired that they were there to listen to the radio. His schoolmate said that they (his good mates) always knew 'Steve' wasn't that kind of bloke, that he was mostly interested in music, not in sex as other boys.

 

[SouthpawGlamour]

Good memory.

Word magazine, 2003 http://www.alinkarel.plus.com/smiths/moz2.html pages 5-6

"Your music has often been quite hard on your upbringing. Barbarism Begins At Home is a howl of protest against being beaten, the child in Used To Be A Sweet Boy goes wrong in some unspecified way, Late Night, Maudlin Street is a straightforward attack on the misery of the family home...how does your mum feel about all this?
Early on the music was quite harsh, yes, but that has changed. Generally she likes it, although it is all autobiographical. I did get the clip around the head occasionally, as in the song, but I probably deserved it. I was a very noisy child. I always stood in front of his television, I wouldn't go to bed, and then I discovered music at the age of six and played it loud, continuously, all day from that point onwards. I would sing, non-stop, which must have been unbearable. I was surprised they were so tolerant of me, to be honest.
Is your father still around? Are you like him?
Yes, he is. And yes, I am, in certain respects. Why?
Because your Irishness is coming to the fore. You've written a song called Irish Blood, English Heart, you've started to say "Jaysus", you now pronounce the word "any" to rhyme with "Annie"...
That's interesting. But even when The Smiths recorded Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want there were thousands of letters saying "This is Foster and Allen" or something similar. I've never had a Manchester accent. I've always had a very soft voice and I was raised by my mother's side of the family, who were very Irish. I never sounded Mancunian, for which I thank God every day.
What does your father do?
He does...certain things. Useful things. Let's leave it at that."

If his Irishness is just 'coming to the fore' that is evidence that it is an affectation. Moz's singing style is the most English of any artist, that is what he is RENOWNED for.

Moz says he never had a Mancunian accent, which he doesn't, he does not claim to have an Irish one.

People do not take on their parents accents, they take on thier peers accents. In Moz's case he rejected both and chose to speak and especially sing in Queens English.

The idea that Moz has an Irish accent is ABSURD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[thewarroom]

I tag this thread in the name of the Jelly Beans (now accepting applicants for entry-level paper-pushing ).

 

[nightandday]

If his Irishness is just 'coming to the fore' that is evidence that it is an affectation. Moz's singing style is the most English of any artist, that is what he is RENOWNED for.

Moz says he never had a Mancunian accent, which he doesn't, he does not claim to have an Irish one.

People do not take on their parents accents, they take on thier peers accents. In Moz's case he rejected both and chose to speak and especially sing in Queens English.

The idea that Moz has an Irish accent is ABSURD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I may not be a native speaker, but I certainly know what "Queen's English" aka "RP" is, and that sure doesn't sound like it!

 

[SouthpawGlamour]

I may not be a native speaker, but I certainly know what "Queen's English" aka "RP" is, and that sure doesn't sound like it!

No, but it's the clearest and best English he can speak, it's the way we used to be taught at school to try and speak Queens English. Only the Aristocracy speak in true RP.