--- title: Accents and dialects of Britain and Ireland — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Accents and dialects of Britain and Ireland», a lesson of the language course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: An accent is how people pronounce words; a dialect is a whole local way of speaking, with its own words and sometimes its own --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/) / Accents and dialects of Britain and Ir… # Accents and dialects of Britain and Ireland Lesson 18 of the language course of Mova's primary school: 18 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/0/) — An accent is how people pronounce words; a dialect is a whole local way of speaking, with its own words and sometimes its own grammar; Britain and Ireland are packed with them, sometimes changing every few miles. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/1/) — Take a trip: in Liverpool something great is "boss, la", in Newcastle "howay, it's canny good" means come on, this is really good, in Aberdeen "Fit like?" means how are you, and in Dublin a night of "great craic" was great fun. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/2/) — Even small things have many names: a narrow passage between houses is a ginnel or a snicket in the North, a twitten in Sussex and an alley in many other places. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/3/) — Most British people do not speak the "posh" BBC accent (Received Pronunciation); it is often estimated that only about 2 or 3 in every 100 people speak it naturally, and the rest have regional accents. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/4/) — No accent is "lazy" or "the worst": each has its own history and rules, and polls that rank accents mostly show people's prejudices; Scots, spoken in Scotland, is even counted as a language closely related to English. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/5/) — An accent is the way people pronounce words; a dialect is a local way of speaking with its own words and grammar. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/6/) — Scouse is the accent and dialect of Liverpool, shaped over centuries partly by Irish and Welsh speech; "boss" means great and "la" means lad or mate. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/7/) — Geordie is the dialect of Newcastle and keeps some very old English words; "howay" means come on and "canny" means nice or very. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/8/) — In the Doric dialect of north-east Scotland "Fit like?" means how are you; "fit" is the local way of saying "what", because wh- often becomes f- there. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/9/) — In Welsh English "now in a minute" means soon, but not right this second. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/10/) — Cockney rhyming slang from the East End of London swaps a word for a phrase that rhymes with it: apples and pears means stairs, dog and bone means phone, and butcher's hook means look; often the rhyming word is dropped, as in "have a butcher's". - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/11/) — Rhyming slang is fun history; only some phrases are still common today. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/12/) — "Tara-a-bit" means goodbye for now in Birmingham and the Black Country; "cheerio" is a goodbye heard across Britain. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/13/) — In Ireland "craic" means fun or a good time, and "eejit" means idiot but is often said kindly between friends. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/14/) — Ginnel and snicket are northern English words for a narrow passage between houses; twitten is a Sussex word for a narrow lane. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/15/) — Received Pronunciation (RP) is the traditional "posh" accent once used on the BBC; it is often estimated that only about 2 or 3 in every 100 British people speak it naturally, though nobody knows the exact number. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/16/) — In Scots "dinnae" means don't, "fash yersel" means worry yourself, "ken" means know and "whit" means what; Scots is a language closely related to English. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/18-accents-and-dialects-of-britain-and-ireland/17/) — In southern English informal speech "well" can mean very ("well tired"); "very tired" is the standard written form. - ← previous: [Slang and how it changes with every generation](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/17-slang-and-how-it-changes-with-every-generation/) - next →: [Accents and dialects around the world](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/19-accents-and-dialects-around-the-world/) - ↑ back to [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/)