In Britain attitudes towards accents and dialects are linked with regional and social prejudices, e.g. between the north and south. Standard English and RP originated in the south, in and around London, the capital and main cultural center of the country. Anything northern can be seen as unsophisticated and inferior be some Southerners and they may, however unfairly, consider people speaking with a northern accent to be less well educated. The broader (=stronger ) the accent, the greater the prejudice against the person it, especially if the accent is so thick (=strong) that others have difficulty understanding it. Urban accents such as *Cockney, * Scouse, Giaswegian and the *Brummie accent are least favoured. Accents were for a long time used by comedians to make fun of people from a particular region or social group, but this is now less acceptable.