From the Observer archive: this week in 1953

Modern language down to a TIn a month Glasgow Fair will be sending Clydesiders on holiday “doon the wa’er”. It seems that Margate-bound Londoners will also be on the wa’er, though “dahn” it rather than doon it. It is one of the phonetic discoveries of the L.C.C. that many Londoners are becoming incapable of saying “t”. So the Glasgow man who said, “My name’s Pa-erson – two t’s – will be rivalled by the Cockney explaini