Saturday 6 March 2004

Maybe it's because I'm a Glaswegian!

Some Glaswegian teenagers are beginning to sound like Londoners:
Previous investigations have found English accents were creeping into the Glaswegian parlance, with many people pronouncing "bother" as the Cockney "bovver" instead of the more traditional "nae bother".

Other examples include the word "think".

In EastEnders the word is often pronounced "fink" and according to academics it is becoming more prevalent than the typical Glasgow "hink".

What's amusing is to note that many of the victims of this Cockney imperialism are the future voters of our all-too-numerous socialist parties:
The Glasgow results challenge the theory of face-to-face influence because the children who displayed these tendencies were not the younger, more mobile, middle-class speakers, but typically non-mobile working class adolescents.

This has led to speculation that exposure to soaps might be responsible.

I wonder what the Scottish Socialists will make of the true Scots accent being confined to the genteel suburbs while the denizens of Glasgow's council estates sound like Thatcherite Essex Boys.

Thank goodness £124,000 of taxpayers' money is being spent investigating this phenomenon...