Proper accent

David Roch (Letters, 4 March), is surely being either disingenuous or naïve to blame variations in pronunciation by Scottish politicians as evidence of an English takeover.

Accents, pronunciation, and indeed vocabulary vary widely throughout both Scotland and England.

I remember a Scottish school chaplain,more than 50 years ago pronouncing “work” as “werk”, and “world” as “wirld”, while throughout the west of Scotland “fair” and “there” etc are frequently pronounced “ferr” and “therr”.

If Mr Roch wishes to be offended by politicians’ mispronunciation, perhaps he should start with Alex Salmond, who, despite being, for many years, leader of the Scottish National Party, failed to pronounce “Scotland” correctly, always referring to it as “Sco’land”.

Douglas Hamilton

Isle of Arran