“U knO wot i M sAN ?”

Is it me, or is it becoming more difficult to understand what people are saying ?

In my youth when living in South London I was used to listening to working class Londoners and was familiar with the colourful Cockney dialect. As a ‘Sarf Lunduner’ I had no trouble in understanding someone from that foreign northern land across ‘the river’.

During my national service in the RAF I shared billets with ‘Jocks’, ‘Taffies’, ‘Geordies’, ’Scousers’ and lads from every part of the country. I don’t remember having too much trouble understanding any of them.

When my work took me ‘on the road’ I visited every corner of the British Isles and beyond, and had to converse with the locals… No problem !

I’ve travelled to many parts of the USA, and although my accent (”Gee ! You sound like Michael Caine”) often drew a response of … “Beg pardon ?” I hardly ever had to return the question.

Even when listening to some ‘heavy’ accented Europeans speaking English, I have generally been able to comprehend what they were saying.

In recent years we have had ‘Estuary English’ and ‘Mockney’ appearing in the South of England, but they have not presented any problems to my ears.

Today I often feel like a foreigner in my own land, as I listen to people who gabble away in a strange slurred alien language that is completely beyond me, and youngsters who seem to converse in some unintelligible patois, which I can only describe as verbal ’text-speak’.

As a Londoner I sometimes drop my ‘aitches’ when speaking, but it seems to me that many people …

… now ‘drop’ half of the letters in the English alphabet.