For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Divided by a common language (15.02.11)

It’s that time of year again when all the hotel chains offer cut price breaks to pull in the punters.

In the summer months communicating with London’s visitors is simple: those tourists from the Middle East have learnt two or possibly three words of English; “Harrods”, “Selfridges” and “ThankYou”. Europeans on the other hand make a better fist of it: the Dutch have better English grammar than most cabbies I know (I was told once that they watched BBC TV from a young age); most other Europeans have English as their second language and feel the need to brush up their linguistic skills with any cabbie they can find. The ever resourceful Japanese take some headed notepaper from their hotel room and show it to the driver.

Thank goodness the American’s have a sense of humour for although they speak American it is not easily understood by the English “Our hotel is in South-Waark” or “Li-Cest-Tur Square are common phrases. But after some good humoured banter on the correct pronunciation of tomato or potato we usually manage to arrive at their destination.

But for our bargain mini break visitors, well, it’s frankly embarrassing; to paraphrase it is like two languages conjoined by a common country. If I can do my best at Estuary Speak and sprinkle “geezer”, “wots up” and “fink” into my lexicon, those northern folks after watching Eastenders four times a week since the old King died, should at least understand me and I them.

But help is at hand from of all people The University of Leeds who are preparing a “Language and dialect atlas of Britain in the 21st Century”. In an important use of their £460,000 research grant they intend to highlight regional variations of English.

Just how we have got to this stage of the development of English since we have been speaking it among ourselves since Saxon times, with just a slight interruption from the Normans, I don’t know. For by now the BBC’s received English should be the spoken norm for all of us.

But what I do know is that Wayne and Charlene will not be using the research paper to brush up their cockernee for their next visit to the Capital. And certainly can I be bovvered?