Vowels STRUT

As noted above, the WM dialect maintains the typically Northern lack of distinction between STRUT and FOOT, with STRUT typically realized as . However, the BCDP data revealed a tendency in more formal styles to produce a more RP-like fudge vowel with .

Wells (1982: 363) claims that the Bm FOOT-STRUT opposition is apparently variably neutralised (e.g. as ), while Hughes and Trudgill (1996: 55) have WM . Broad WM accents typically have , less broad accents [ə] .Chinn and Thorne (2001: 21) indicate that in Bm, STRUT is typically  , e.g. in tuck, putt, cud, stud, while Heath (1980: 87) also has  for Cannock.

In the subset ONE, the WM dialect is typical in having  that there is a difference in lexical incidence from RP and many other accents as regards this subset, in that parts of the North (including Birmingham, Stoke, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield) have  in one; accents in a more restricted area also have this vowel in once, among, none, nothing.

However, Mathisen (1999: 108) claims that Sandwell actually has  as the most common variant, for all generations, and especially in words where most Northern varieties have . It occurs frequently with the elderly, in all phonetic contexts, and especially before /l/ and  _ for younger speakers (as the BCDP data also suggest). Mathisen also notes the appearance of fudge-type, closer variants (occasionally even [ə]), especially in disyllables and quite frequently among teenagers in monitored speech. Painter (1963: 30), too, notes a lower rounded vowel: BC /o/, realized as .

One salient feature (attested in speech as well as writing) is -type realizations (especially before nasals) in Bm <mom> mum; Bm/BC <lommock> lummox, <ackidock> aqueduct, <bost(in’)> bust(ing), Bm chuck (v.) (note chuck may derive from French chuquer, choquer ‘to knock’).