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As Cambridge sometimes gets a mention here, I notice today a team of Cambridge researchers are claiming that "More and more people are using and pronouncing words in the way that people from London and the south-east do."Researchers concluded "regional differences" were disappearing, "some quite quickly", although people in the north-east of England seemed to be "more resistant to the patterns of overall levelling in dialect" and, although I would agree that there has been changed I also can't help feeling that only somewhere as self-cocooned as Cambridge could imply that in the streets and bars and shops of say Dudley, Hereford, Nantwich, Coalville, Doncaster, Worcester, Burnley you are likely to hear people talking in a 'southern' accent. It uses the genuine decline in some features of northern dialect, the strong 'r' in particular, which has been steadily declining in England since Elizabethan days, and extrapolates that into the conclusions above. They need only have got a train 15 minutes to Ely to find folk talking different. On 27 May 2016 at 10:42, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Secret's out now > > On 27 May 2016 at 09:26, Tim Allen < > [log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> I don't think my Dad would be very pleased to hear that. >> >> On 26 May 2016, at 20:48, David Bircumshaw wrote: >> >> Having returned from the far reaches of Lincolnshire I can correct the >> quote I attrributed to Hughes: he called Edward Thomas 'the father of us >> all'. >> >> >> > > > -- > David Joseph Bircumshaw > Website and A Chide's Alphabet > http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk > The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html > Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw > Tumblr: http://zantikus.tumblr.com/ > twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave > blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/ > Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.com > -- David Joseph Bircumshaw Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw Tumblr: http://zantikus.tumblr.com/ twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/ Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.com