Thank you very much people, I really appreciate all the answers. First, does anyone know how to multi-quote? I've seen them in a single post before. Clive said: " Most Westerners, including me, have the understanding that

Pter - the pronunciation of words depends heavily on a person's dialect. k in asked - variable pronunciation - I say - askt (some dialects say "axt") t in acts, ducts, students - I pronounce the "t", but very muted. l in

Fine? Even for the prescriptivists? How so? Prescriptivists today are sailing against the gales of mediocrity, adrift in the vast oceans of literary ignorance, besieged by the vicious onslaughts of rap, dialect, and urbandictionary. Funny short

Just for interest I had a trawl through Google Books and found a couple of early instances of this use of "all's", evidently in British publications by British authors. One from 1897 (

Like Yankee, I think the expression was probably picked up by the general public through movies, although that does not adequately explain the Liverpool connection I don't know about the American usage, but I had assumed

I just thought ealrier today that "th" and "d" in fast unclear speech must be indistinguishable, after I heard something on youtube. I'll try to find it again. (EDIT: On second thought I think that depends a lot on the

Won't it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? I know of no English dialect in which "groats" is pronounced "grits". Bert

continuing from my post above ... ... "as" having the obsolete, nonstandard or dialect meaning of "that"...

So is this the dumbing down of England or have they always been dumb, too? Dumb enough to be the ones who came up with those spellings in the first place. English spelling is no longer phonetic, although it was to the monks and scribes who wrote