Snuffy, I'm always careful in representing accent, and what I've heard has mostly been less strong than Zoiren, but certainly going that way. I chicken out when referring to the place, and use it in full.

And on dialect, I was in a dress shop in Ciren, a middling sort of dress shop of the sort that is going to close soon for lack of business, but the owner isn't going to lose a lot out of it, when the elder of the other two customers, a mother and daughter, announced loudly and clearly in received standard English - they were the sort who say Cisseter - that they would certainly be coming back when it was time to do the daughter's wardrobe.

"Do the wardrobe" - to me this involves screwdrivers, drills, sandpaper, paint, that sort of thing - not dress shops. Then I realised. These were people who bought ALL their clothes at once, each year. These were the people who provided all the high quality goodies I get from the Ciren charity shops. They were NOT LIKE ME! Aliens.

I suddenly realised what class meant, and where I, as a teacher with an OU degree, belonged in the system. I thought I was middle class. But they thought they were.

Yikes. Thread creep. Sorry. I'll nip over to the other thread.

Penny