Estuary English - A Controversial Issue?
There are many estuaries in Great
Britain, and several of the emerging regional mega-accents are estuarially based".
Other linguists have criticised the term because it suggests that the variety is restricted
to the area of the Thames estuary. Trudgill (2001) severely criticises both the concept
of EE and its name, among others because "it suggests that it is a variety of English
confined to the banks of the Thames Estuary, which it is not". Also Maidment (1994)
expresses his negative attitude to the term: "... Estuary English, if it exists at all, is
not only spoken on or near the Thames estuary. There is no real evidence that it even
originated there. ... the accent of younger speakers in Milton Keynes which is a new
city quite a long way from the Thames Estuary has many of the features claimed for
EE". Further, Crystal (1995) calls `Estuary English' "something of a misnomer, for
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