ABSTRACT
Traditionally those linguists who took an interest in dialect paid most attention to pronunciation and vocabulary. The interest in grammar has in fact been a very recent development and one which arguably has more implications for education than either pronunciation or vocabulary. It is true, for instance, that regional pronunciation is reflected in children's spelling and any teacher in the south-east will be familiar with spellings such as fink for think and pole for pool. Yet the fact remains that the pronunciation of standard English has changed so much over the centuries that present-day orthography does not favour the speakers of any particular dialect.
