Q's comment ""The Female Transport" is in the DT (Sung by Frankie Armstrong?) but is marred by the pseudo-dialect 'me,' instead of 'my,' etc. in the words" raises a point of interest to me.

If I tape recorded speakers in Oz I'd put money on the proposition that, when the word "my" is followed immediately by a noun, it would be pronounced "me" in more than 75% of cases. So the question is, when should one reflect the spoken word in the written text and when should one avoid it? I'd argue that, if the "original" was known to be a text, "proper" practice would be, when writing it out, to reproduce the text faithfully. The trouble arises when a person (usually well educated and from that class of people who "correct" the failings of others) collects an oral version and publishes their material so collected as written text.

Items collected orally from places far removed from London's strongholds of "received pronunciation" might be faithfully reflected only if they're in a form of speech that the collector identifies as a dialect rather than as a "pseudo-dialect" and I'm not sure that many of us have the technical knowhow in linguistics to do so. Appalachia and those parts of the British Isles west of London and further east than Hackney might qualify but Oz English?

An associated 'problem' comes up every now and then on Mudcat, because of the spread of its contributors. The songs in the thread above mention "plough", "ploughed" and "plowed", harbour etc.; all would be regarded as acceptable and, east of the Atlantic, not even noticed. But I've noticed examples of Oz songs where the words "travelled", "traveller" and "travelling" have been written (in quotation marks) as "traveled", etc.; until the rise of Micro$oft this would never have originated in Oz. I suppose it's understandable, and even acceptable if quotation marks aren't being used, but it grates a bit.

Idle contemplations before work.

Cheers, Rowan