A few choice words in response to reports about drunken Australian accents

By David Crystal. So the phone rings and it’s a journalist from the Daily Mirror, wanting me to comment on the story circulating in the press, which claims that the origin of the Australian accent lies in the drunken speech of the first convicts. I commented, all right. I used an ancient linguistic technical term: it’s complete bollocks. Rubbish, I added, helpfully. More...