Vowels FOOT

Chinn and Thorne’s (2001: 21) analysis suggests Bm speakers typically have , e.g. took, put, could, stood. BCDP data show that FOOT is typically . However, there is some tendency towards (probably hypercorrect) unrounding to  , particularly for younger speakers. Painter (1963: 30) has BC , realized as .

Wells (1982: 362) and Hughes and Trudgill (1996: 55) point out that there is a difference of lexical incidence in much of the North in that several words spelt <-ook> (the subset BOOK) have kept their historically long vowel, [u:]. This is evidenced in the BCDP data, although it is recessive, and Wells notes that Birmingham conversely has some shortened vowels in  tooth, which is echoed in some of the SED data. Heath (1980: 87) has Cannock .