10 NEWS www.EDP24.co.uk/news Eastern Daily Press, Saturday, June 23, 2012

GREAT YARMOUTH Police hunt for Perhaps what we need is robber after crime spree Police are hunting for a woman who more local dialect, not less! they believe robbed a pensioner and assaulted two taxi drivers in a crime PETER Picture: SUBMITTED spree in . Detectives believe the incidents TRUDGILL, were all carried out by a lone woman between 3.15pm and 7pm in the town president of centre on Thursday and are now appealing for information. Friends of The first incident happened at around 3.15pm in the Pasteur Road area when two women, both in their Dialect 70s, were approached by a woman who demanded they hand over a (FOND), takes issue handbag. Both the elderly victims were left with EDP columnist shaken. A short time later a male taxi driver Ken Hurst’s suggestion picked up a woman in the Market that “the sooner we Gates area and during the journey she assaulted the cabbie, leaving him give up this dialect the with facial injuries and also stole cash. better.” Later, at about 6.50pm, a second male taxi driver picked up a female passenger, again in the Market Gates area, and he was also assaulted and It’s amazing how often people who had cash stolen. don’t know anything at all about Due to the time and location of the language still feel free to pontificate incidents, officers believe the same about it in public. Language person may be responsible for each professionals like me – I’ve been a crime. university teacher of linguistics The woman is described as white, for 40 years – are constantly being aged in her 30s with brown/auburn surprised by these pontificators hair and of scruffy appearance. – people like Ken Hurst. But Ken’s Detective Inspector Sarah Pettengell column – where he tells Norfolk said it was “very unusual” to get people that “the sooner we give up “lone female robbery assailants”. this dialect the better it will be” – is a N Call police on 101 or Crimestoppers particularly surprising example. on 0800 555 111. And not just surprising. Telling Norfolk people how we ought to speak ONWARDS AND UPWARDS: Norfolk and proud was the order of the day for these Canaries supporters in 1959. seems like arrogance to me, especially NORWICH And, says Peter Trudgill, we should be just as proud of our local dialect today. when you start from a position of profound linguistic ignorance. And Eastern Daily Press, Wednesday, June 20, 2012 www.EDP24.co.uk/news OPINION 23 OUR MUSEUM EDP ON YOUR MOBILE What do you think of Read all your EDP Even if you Norfolk buildings? news wherever you are Singer denies when I say ignorance, I do mean WWW.EDP24.CO.UK/MUSEUM M.EDP24.CO.UK he reckons we should all speak like ignorance. Look at what Ken says: LYNNE him instead – he certainly seems to started with a The sooner we give up this MORTIMER “there’s an argument to be had”, he dialect the better it will be believe that he knows how English assault charges reckons, about accent and dialect. No total absence of “should be spoken”. KEN HURST We could do worse there isn’t! Any first-year linguistics than turn to verse... Ken also seems to think that getting Education Secretary Michael Gove proposes regionally that young schoolchildren should learn and recite poetry by heart. I sincerely hope this will spark renewed student will tell you that accent is interest in nursery rhymes. rid of the local dialect would make Singer Dane Bowers has been charged These rhythmically pleasing, often politically incorrect, verses are childhood staples. It’s 35 years since I first walked Deceptively simple, many of them have innocently into the maelstrom of deeper meanings but, when you’re five, you’re about pronunciation, while dialect is distinctive opinions that surround regional unlikely to be bothered by allegation of our region a more “open-minded”, with racially aggravated assault, dialects and accents in these parts. bubonic plague allusions in the singing rhyme A colleague from Norfolk – let’s call Ring-a-ring-a roses. him John – was the newly elected In nursery rhyme illustrations Mary, Mary chairman of the East Anglian branch Quite Contrary is usually shown as a pretty of a national editorial association to Victorian maid watering her silver bells and about grammar and vocabulary as which I belonged, a role he saw as an cockle shells... not as Queen (Bloody) Mary forward-looking place. But Ken after a stag party in the city. opportunity to spread broad Norfolk with her instruments of torture, which the wherever he went. Roger, another words are reputed to reference. speech, dialects colleague, but from Essex in the outer Humpty Dumpty, the well-known egg, was reaches of greater , was more likely to have been a cannon used at well as pronunciation. There’s his vice-chairman, an upwardly Colchester during the English Civil War. himself is a very poor advert for this The DJ, who topped the charts with mobile estuary-English sort of a None of this mattered when I was five. man. Nor was my impressionable young mind Roger didn’t have much time for TIME TO GO? Some people embrace the Norfolk dialect – but not Ken Hurst. seduced by the idea, propounded in Jack and John, being particularly critical of Jill, of administering vinegar and brown what he regarded as the intellectual corner shop wherein all the customers Notwithstanding a determined paper to a flesh wound. nothing to argue about. denigration of the region every time are happily gossiping in English until effort by the BBC to overturn its Skipping chants, verses and children’s idea. We have a tradition here in boyband Another Level in the late would develop – – which was often – John Boy laid on an Englishman enters, upon which historic bias towards the even more songs learned in the playground or at mother’s with a trowel his strongly accented the shoppers instantly revert to their awful and, thankfully, even closer to knee are bequeathed from generation to dialect when contributing the East native Welsh. oblivion plum-in-the-mouth aristo- generation. Anglian perspective to any given Despite what sometimes seems an speak by seeking out token They are, or were, part of a childhood national debate. almost universal love of nostalgia, to demonstrate its revisionist policy package that also included learning to tie your And “you see”, Ken writes “The last thing our under- the day of regional dialects is largely Let us leave of employing linguistic diversity, a shoelaces. Has that all gone? Norwich of being pretty open-minded nineties, stands accused of two represented backwater of a region done. They continue to exist only as stigma of parochial and ill-educated Certainly Velcro must have had a detrimental needs is the village idiot offering up leftovers of isolation and all that is, mangled unworldliness sticks obstinately to impact on shoelaces but do primary children this is retrograde opinions, jabbering in a in the long term, unsustainable about language to the those unable or unwilling to properly no longer recite “One potato, two potato, three language no one can understand, and limited horizons and a geographically anthropologists, speak and spell the Queen’s English. potato, four; five potato, six potato, seven patronisingly, “regional dialects are a leaving the impression that we’re all restricted gene pool. That apart, there’s also the question potato, more”? about most things – we even let people counts of assault and one of racially like that,” just about summed up Far from being constrained by the collectors of of whether or not dialects/accents And before Mr Gove takes out his fountain Roger’s rather harsh judgment. economic hardship, modern day are, in any case, acoustically pen to send me a beautifully-scripted letter of I warrant that the natural reaction opportunities for travel and curiosities... and attractive accoutrements to the rebuke, with perfect spelling and grammar, I around here – or maybe around betterment will only be enhanced by members of the . In this, you might am aware that more than one spud is potatoes anywhere – will be to empathise with the mobility that is increasingly say, beauty is in the ear of the but this was the version I learned. Poetic bit yesterday”. No, they are not. And John Boy. There he was, single necessary to secure employment. awkward squad beholder, but that is not quite so. licence. like Ken write in our newspapers. aggravated harassment. happening in handedly holding back a rising tide Even a century or more ago, my Most of us try to avoid talking to Every little boy and girl should be able to opposed to of homogeneity, thus endearing own grandparents left their fast- people in telephone call centres at all, enjoy uncomplicated poetic pleasures such as himself to the hundreds, or maybe disappearing occupations as colonel’s pretty much but when we do, consumer research The Owl and the Pussycat. thousands, of you who worship all coachman and below-stairs cook in anything expresses a marked preference for Edward Lear’s nonsense rhyme made total never will be. Dialects do change things traditionally Norfolk, laud search of pavements of gold down listening to those who speak modern sense to me when I was small. But if I want to go to a place which is The 32-year-old pleaded not guilty to those who champion them, and argue south. Fellow travellers resettled in progressive. English as she should be spoken. A The possibility that the ring through the like billy-o – as dozens of you have the capital would recognise Nan’s Scottish accent comes next in the piggywig’s nose, purchased for the wedding, done with incomprehensible passion twang, and together they would go on popularity stakes, then , might be too big for a cat’s paw never occurred in the lively correspondence adorning to reminisce about the remnants of Yorkshire and Welsh. to me. Australia right the EDP’s letters pages – about Dereham’s mutual acquaintances or Least appealing accents are , I never once queried the existence of a Bong through time, but it isn’t true that whether it’s boy, boh, bor or old Yarmouth’s golden holiday sands. Brummy, West Country, and tree and longed for a runcible spoon of my even more open-minded and forward- the three charges, dating from partner. But, thank goodness, no vestiges of Mancunian. own. But, for the sake of balance, should accent survived even to my mother’s Norfolk doesn’t feature. Must be Unrhymed, it might have been nonsense. we not consider Roger’s viewpoint? generation, let alone to me, whose something to do with isolation. Trying to put over the amorous adventures of You see, regional dialects and return to the of pioneering Let us therefore leave mangled predator and prey in prose might have raised “the day of regional dialects is done”. accents (and yes, I know there’s ancestors who refused to be stick-in- language to the anthropologists, the more doubts in my young mind. looking, I’ll go to Norway, where they Saturday, June 2, and was released on another argument to be had about the-muds was entirely serendipitous. collectors of curiosities, students of A cat and a guitar-playing owl go on a year- now. differentiating the two, but let’s not Now, after more than three decades linguistics, hobbyists and members long sea trip before getting married in a get into semantics) are a bit yesterday here, I have come to the inescapable of the awkward squad opposed to (presumably civil) ceremony conducted by a aren’t they? Curiosities that, their conclusion that I am on Roger’s side; pretty much anything progressive. turkey, followed by a moonlight feast of preservationist fans contend, add that speaking broad Norfolk is bad When it has gone we shouldn’t mourn minced beef and slices of quince. Even if you started with a total colour and glorious diversity where for us. We should give it up, and the but celebrate its going as an indication It sounds not only unlikely but also rather believe that an open society is unconditional bail at Norwich there would otherwise exist only sooner the better. Regional speech that our region has matured into a unappetising. similitude. and, worse, writing, serve only to more open-minded place, known for The nursery rhyme about young Tommy Or, I’ll contend, a barrier that is accentuate narrow social, economic looking forward rather than harking Flynn throwing a mice-catching cat down a often deliberately applied to and educational horizons that back. We may then have a little less well and heroic Tommy Stout coming to the encourage insularity and exclude constrain ambition, opportunity and colourful confusion in our lives but rescue might raise a number of issues, if outsiders. Who, after all, hasn’t heard will be better taught, better thought reported in prose, not least the efficacy of characterised by tolerance of other absence of regionally distinctive the ability to engage fully with the Magistrates’ Court yesterday. the apocryphal story of the Welsh wider world. of and better understood. ASBOs, and health and safety. speech, dialects would develop – this Peter Trudgill peoples’ ways, including their ways According to his Twitter page, is happening in Australia right now. FLASHBACK: Ken Hurst’s column. of speaking, and where Ken’s column Bowers from Ambercroft Way, Everybody in the world gives away would never have been written Coulsdon, Surrey, was in Norfolk for some information about their In German-speaking Switzerland and the grounds of their race, gender, or because everyone would have found a stag weekend, when he allegedly regional origins as soon as they start Luxembourg, most people speak their sexual orientation. Sadly, what Ken such views ridiculous. What could be got involved in the incident on Prince speaking. It’s true that there is a very local dialect all the time too – even Hurst illustrates very vividly is the more close-minded and backward of Wales Road at 5am. small group of people in this country politicians taking part in Newsnight- dismal truth that we have made very than denigrating and ridiculing – people educated at Eton and the type discussions on TV. And do you little progress in getting rid of the people for the way they speak? other Public Schools, including the know what the three richest countries bigotry associated with linguicism – All dialects are equally complex and CARBROOKE ones who are running the country at in Europe are? Norway, Switzerland yes, that’s a real word, just as the expressive and valid as ways of the moment – who don’t betray and Luxembourg. Luxembourg is the prejudices it refers to are only too speaking. If Ken doesn’t like our anything about their origins except richest country in the world and real. dialect, that tells us nothing about Man airlifted that they’re from , and upper Norway is second, in terms of per And in case you think “bigotry” is our dialect – what it does is tell us class, but this is very unusual on a capita GNP. So perhaps what we need too strong a word, just look at what about Ken. Happily, Ken is totally world-wide scale. in this country is more local dialect, Ken has written, on the subject of without influence over the way future after car crash Ken also seems to think that not less – the non-dialect speaking regional dialects in the country’s generations of Norfolk people are “regional speech serves to accentuate people who are running things right biggest-selling regional morning going to speak. A distinctive way of An 18-year-old man was airlifted to narrow economic horizons”. You are now don’t seem to be making too good newspaper. He describes the speech speaking English in Norfolk is not Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge wrong again, Ken. The European a job of it. of people here in Norfolk – people going to disappear. Don’t you worry, with serious injuries after a car hit a countries where regional dialects are Over the last 50 years, we have like me who he knew were likely to together. tree near Watton. most strongly favoured, nurtured and managed to do quite a lot in the way read his column – as “mangled N Peter Trudgill is a Fellow of the The crash involved a grey promoted are Norway, Switzerland of removing the bigotry associated language”. He delights in descriptions British Academy, Professor of Volkswagen Polo and it happened on and Luxembourg. In Norway, people with racism, sexism and homophobia suggesting that we “jabber”. And he Linguistics at UEA and the the B1108 Norwich Road in Carbrooke, speak their local dialect all the time, from our society. We haven’t entirely says that “thank goodness” he doesn’t Universities of Agder in Norway and near the B1077 junction, at around whether they are giving a speech in got rid of it. But at least it’s no longer have a local accent himself. I think Fribourg in Switzerland, President of 11.20am yesterday. parliament, lecturing at a university, respectable in this country to be seen we can assume that, when Ken tells FOND, and a supporter of Norwich Any witnesses should call PC Matt or commenting on a football match. to discriminate against somebody on us to get rid of our way of speaking, City. Gouldsmith on 101.