Northern dialects can be closer to original English – despite what southerners might say

“Ey oop! Ey oop!”, says comedian Michael McIntyre to his audience in Leeds. “That’s supposed to be ‘hello’, according to you.” He sticks with his Yorkshire theme for a couple of minutes, mocking nowt, summat and the – as in “T’Lion, t’Witch and t’Wardrobe” – at the show filmed in 2010. His audience laps up the ridicule, even though it comes from a posh-sounding southerner.