Re: Apologetic for accent in English?! (was: Hello to you all!)

Transcribing dialects (presumably in a prose context otherwise why not use
IPA) has usually taken the form of eye-dialects such as the spelling 'wuz'
for 'was', even though both {wuz} and {was} are pronounced /w@z/ simply to
indicate that the speaker is using non-standard English. I'm not sure we
need to transcribe accents, though, since the use of an accent will usually
be clear from context. What I mean is, if you set a novel in Liverpool, then
some of your characters will talk in an appropriate accent. Or you could say
something like "Vic said to Fred 'what you doing here?' in a thick
Glaswegian accent" or suchlike. After that, you would know to 'hear' Vic in
a Glaswegian accent.
Mike

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