Y’alroight bor?
If you’re not familiar with the Norfolk accent, it can be a shock when you first hear it, because it sounds Australian. That’s because the Australian accent actually originates from Norfolk.
Anyway, a friend at work introduced me to The Nimmo Twins - Owen Evans and Karl Minns - who are a cult comedy act who satirise the idiosyncrasies of the Norwich and Norfolk population, and perform the annual week-long Normal for Norfolk show at the Norwich Playhouse - it’s in April this year, and it’s already sold out. I am gutted, as I really wanted to go, having lived in Norwich for 8 months, and I still work in the Norwich area, so I’ve grown to love (and attempt) the Norwich accent.
The Nimmo Twins get the title of their show from a slang term used in some parts of England for something that is peculiar, or odd. Apparently - and this may be a bit of an urban myth, but it’s still interesting - doctors and Social Services in Norfolk (and elsewhere in the UK) would in the day-to-day course of their duties come across people who were a bit…strange.
So, the initials ‘NFN’ were apparently written against the personal details of certain clients, where they were considered to be a bit weird, or had peculiar habits, but they were considered ‘normal’ as far as Norfolk was concerned.
To hear the ‘lilting’ tones of the people I lived among for 8 months, I suggest you visit The Nimmo Twins MySpace page and listen to their song, ‘Costessey Possy’. Costessey is a suburb of Norwich, in typical British style, it’s actually pronounced ‘Cossey’. The song is just a piss-take of the chav culture in Norwich, the way they talk in the song is how the younger people of Norwich talk. There are a few other different accents in Norfolk, some are more countrified, or even more Australian sounding.
I’m actually living in Colchester now, but the people I work with in Norwich all talk like that to some extent - and as a linguistics graduate, I absolutely LOVE it : )