Linguistic lessons You Say Potato – A Book about Accents by Ben and David Crystal

What’s in an accent?

In the Dorset Echo newsroom we have a wealth of accents ranging from Irish brogue to the Midlands to Lincolnshire.

It always proves a talking point for readers on the phone and this book, by linguist David Crystal and his son Ben, gives a little insight into why accents are so fascinating.

You Say Potato tells the history and paints a present-day picture of British and worldwide accents in a witty and authoritative manner.

Each chapter is alternately written by Crystal Senior and Crystal Junior in a chatty style with some interesting theories on why most young people now pronounce schedule with a hard ‘ch’ as ‘skedule’ – the influence of the American TV sitcom Friends, apparently.

The accent of Dorset is described as ‘a gentle melody which formed the basis for the accent of the Shire and the Hobbits’.

The county is classed as being part of the central south-west dialect area also consisting of Somerset, Wiltshire and western parts of Oxfordshire and Hampshire.

According to the book, Dorset, along with Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Gloucestershire, is part of the West Country, where ‘the main feature is that ‘r’ is pronounced after vowels in words like car and farm’.

This used to be a characteristic of the whole country in Shakespeare’s time, but it’s much less likely to be heard in the counties to the east these days and is an important marker of identity, the book tells us.

The book sheds light on why we still attribute such importance to accents and how they make up our identity.

This could have been a dull, dry trudge through linguistic history, but this father and son duo have produced an addictive read that will have you reading extracts from the book out loud to test your own accent.