How ‘derr’ Lancastrians criticise Hull dialect and GB news presenter Michelle Dewberry? – Yorkshire Post Letters

I WAS intrigued by the complaint made by your correspondent David Morris about GB News presenter Michelle Dewberry to the effect that Hull people could not sound the letter ‘O’ (The Yorkshire Post, July 30).

He considered it ridiculous that they sounded ‘O’ as ‘Err’.

First I must note that Mr Morris lives in Bolton and wondered what right a Lancastrian had to criticise the speech of a Yorkie.

When I lived in the East 
Riding of our great county, 
I soon learned that phone calls were known as ‘ferrn cerrls’ 
(note the err sound was substituted for both ‘O’ and 
‘A’).

A news item recently 
said that northern speech 
would be overtaken by southern speech in just a few decades. 
I derrn’t nerr if this will lead 
to the demise of the Hull 
variant, but I hope we will at least keep the rich alternative vocabulary of our ancient 
dialect.

From: Brian Darvell, Thurlow Avenue, Molescroft, Beverley.

THE letter on dialect made me laugh because it came from that bastion of the Queen’s speech – Bolton in Lancashire.

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