Re: Fans back in stadiums...NBR
madIn the 1980's and early 1990's there was quite a lot of academic research into accents and dialects which used Milton Keynes as a case study to see how dialects change when people are lifted out of their environs and put in a community with people from other areas of the country. There is also "mockney" which is kind of Milton Keynes unofficial accent which seems to be perculiarly cockney with a middle class home counties twist. People with East London roots were cited in some of this research
...the non-standard dialect of Milton Keynes is considerably less
broad, less local than that of either Reading or London itself: British linguists I have played
tapes to are surprised at how 'middle class' the child speakers sound by comparison with
other children with similar backgrounds elsewhere. People in Milton Keynes sometimes
talk about 'Milton Keynes Cockney'; however, Cockney it is not, as witnessed by the fact
that the boy who had very marked London features, born as he was of East London
parents, is a statistical outlier, as we have seen.
There are pie and mash shops in Milton Keynes too - what more evidence do you need?
Oh yeah, that's nailed it. ????