One of the great giveaways is – still – how you say cup and put (and bus).
Which reminds me of one of the most excruciating embarrassments one could undergo when I was a teenager – especially as a sixth former at a school in part of England we were never quite sure was north or south – well, it is still called the midlands.
The Friday morning school assembly was more participatory than on other days of the week & in particular prefects took it in turn to read the lesson. The one that nobody wanted to get rostered for came from St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians – a passage which had obvious attractions for those in charge of our education:
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish thingsNo matter how hard you tried, that put all too often just came out pat or putt.
The other terrible trap (though I do not remember it cropping up in the Bible) was cushion.
