The upwards inflexion first surfaced about twenty years ago when Australian soaps started to appear on British TV, Mills: in the UK it's always signified an interrogative in virtually every accent: only in Geordieland does the concluding upwards inflexion occur naturally, and it's a slightly different slope, so it doesn't sound so questioning. But there are Australians for whom it's a standard speech pattern, and the influence of the media on the accents of the young has been well documented in the past: in Cornwall, kids' accents were noticed to be moving towards Cockney at the time when Grange Hill was at its peak.

The 'ah/oh' replacement for a final 'er' is accepted as standard short-hand for what happens in much of the South-East for the former, and what's been developing in youf-speak when Afro-Carribean patois inflexions are adopted for the latter - the 'oh' sound's pretty prevalent in younger Sarf Lunnonahs/Lunnonohs, and has become noticeably more pronounced in urban Greater Manchester, too (where a similar 'ih' for final 'ey' or 'y' has long been standard). These things tend to spread outwards....

(Written before I'd seen Mary's posting.)

Hey, that's a matter of opinion, isn't it!

Ugly and unpleasant to listen to for whom? Where are you from? Maybe some people might find YOUR accent 'ugly and unpleasant to listen to'!!

I have a CD of protest songs by the folk singer Alastair Hulett - sung in almost incomprehensible Glaswegian dialect!! Why is this so much more difficult to understand than Edinburgh dialect??!!!

An embarrassing moment from my past....

I used to work in a florists shop, and we used to take orders over the phone. I think they do it by fax now - anyway, a way in which this sort of misunderstanding no longer arises.

I took an order for a bouquet to go to 'Bookingham Mansions'. The other florist didn't have the rest of the address, so I said I would put the order to one side until he could supply the full address.
Then I thought - hey, we could look it up in the Kelly's Street Directory. Couldn't find it, and then my colleague said, rather impatiently....look, it's right here on this page.
Me: but that says Buckingham......... OH I SEE!!!!!

It would never occur to a Londoner that 'Bookingham' and 'Buckingham' are in fact THE SAME WORD!!!

Serious question for Ron or anyone.

Was the scouse accent even stronger in Bruch's time? Or would all the musicians and toffs he met have spoken the Queen's English ?

Thanks Ron, just what I thought. I was thinking the musicians would have been in a 'middle class' but likely had a very local accent possibly like footballer Jamie Carragher has today (he was born in Bootle) and wondered how Bruch would have coped with that !

When I was a student in Edinburgh I was mixing with students from everywhere and frequented pubs in Morningside. I had digs in Newington, east of the Meadows. So I guess I didn't get a chance to know the local accents but I have met a few posh Scots in my time. Having been in England for 30-odd years I am regarded as posh when I visit Scotland because all my Scots words have disappeared from my language. On an extended stay, of course, it would all come back again 

I love different accents, I think it is what keeps the world interesting.
In 'our local' there is a variety of very heavy Northern, my Northern ( not quite so heavy) and 'Sarf East Larnon ' . I do find it amusing that Northern, Birmingham, Liverpool accents etc are rather laughed at when the South East London ( especially) accent is quite hilarious ( to me    )

A   innit