Madam, - Why do some people feel the need to disguise their natural accents?
The famous example is the abandoning of the broad "ou" sound where roundabout becomes "ryndabyte".
What used to be water is now "woter", which rhymes with "motor".
Record becomes "recorde", the "O" sound being the one found in "horde" or "scored".
It is also becoming more widespread for people to use what the comedian Rory McGrath calls the "moronic interrogative".
This is the use of intonation at the end of a sentence which is not a question.
This makes the "questioners" sound as if they have either lived in Manhattan for 20 years or watched a lot of Friends.
I suspect these people will not respond by writing "ledders" on their "compuders".
Perhaps Mary Harney's question about Boston or Berlin should have been "are we closer to Mickey Mouse or Daithí Lacha?" - Yours, etc.,
MICHAEL McGUIRE, Speenogue, Burt, Co Donegal.