Samuel Stutter, On 25/01/2011 20:21:
> On 25 Jan 2011, at 19:16, John Vertical wrote:
>
>>>> In British English there is a rule "r -> z [unstressed V] (C) /
>> [(stressed) lax V] __". In British English in general it is restricted to
>> first names, e.g. Karen > Kaz, Barry > Baz, Derek > Dez, but in an area that
>> (to judge from my fragmentary observations and indagations) extends from
>> Liverpool northwards along the coast of Lancashire and Cumbria to Whitehaven
>> (-- Why this geographical distribution? fishermen's speech?), it extends to
>> a wider range of lexis, though still on a lexically-specific basis, e.g.
>> borrow > boz, sorry > soz, tomorrow > tomoz.
>
> Not just the west coast: I've certainly heard the "soz" and "tomoz"
> at least as far east as Oldham - this might be dialect contact
> related, but I'm guessing it might be a whole (north) British thing.
> Also, Jeremy "Jezza" Clarkson (originally from Doncaster) must have
> acquired his nickname either in West Yorkshire, Derbyshire or after
> having involved with the (chiefly southern) BBC. And the Mancunian
> *musician* Bez, Gazza, etc, etc.

As I said, R>Z in firstnames is all over the country nowadays. The reason why I suggest the heartland of R>Z is the NW *coast* is that its incidence in words other than names is higher than inland. For example, _boz_ for _borrow_ is found in Liverpool, Southport, Fleetwood, Ulverston, Whitehaven, but not (or at least much more than) inland; tho this may be an accident of observation.

> I know there was some fishing industry on the west coast, but it's
> never been anything comparable to, say, the north east, eastern
> Scotland or Cornwall and Devon.

The size of the fishing industry is an irrelevance. There was a relatively thriving fishing and shrimping industry, with peculiar dialectal characteristics (e.g. google "Marshside fishermen|fisherman dialect").

>I was going to suggest Irish
> immigration, but I can't see any reason why it would cause that to
> happen. Liverpool (and to a lesser degree, Manchester) were major
> players in shipping at the time of the British Empire, particularly
> on the earlier slave-cotton triangle. Maybe this has something to do
> with it. A lot of Australians are south east descended, aren't they?

The patterns of Irish immigration bear no correspondence whatever to the geographical distribution I described.

--And.