"THE SPREAD OF THE COCKNEY ACCENT."
[To THE EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Your correspondent " F. W. B." in last week's issue alludes to one change which has occurred in Cockney dialect since the days of Leech and Dickens. Perhaps some of your readers could explain another—viz., the disappearance of the "v " for " w " with which Sam Weller has made us all familiar. I once had the good fortune to come across this typical old Cockneyism. In the L.C.C. election of 1907 I had Mr. Ernest Wild as my colleague in Holborn, and a venerable dame gave me her promise to vote for " Lygon and Vild." But that is the only case which has ever come to my notice, and it can hardly be the spread of education which has led to this change ; otherwise, why do we find " spyde " for spade P—I am, Sir, &c., HENRY LYGON. Marlborough, Club, Pall Mall, S.W.
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