IT WAS interesting to read of the major study into the East Lancashire dialect (LET, April 16) where engineers from the University of Birmingham are to collect recorded examples of the Northern accent and are visiting Burnley for this purpose.

However, the example given in your headline 'Id's nod wod tha sez but t' way tha sez id,' if I am not mistaken, is not the Burnley accent but one from the Rossendale Valley through to Wigan.

Apart from six years' war service, I have not only lived in the Burnley area all my life, but in the 1920s, was 'farmed out' on weekdays to my maternal grandparents while my parents, who were weavers, were at work.

My grandparents, aunts and uncles spoke only Lancashire dialect and at that time, people didn't travel like today, so their words and accents, changed little until after the Second World War and now at the age of 82, I still retain my knowledge of the words they used and how they said them. Below is a typical of the way they spoke...

"This chap sed ah cud 'eve it fer one and thrupence-ha'p'ny bur Ah telled 'im that it wer'nt wuth that much and, in th' end, Ah geet it fer a tanner."

Translation: "This man said I could have it for one shilling and three pence-halfpenny but I told him that it wasn't worth that much and, in the end, I got it for sixpence."

Another: "Ah didn't hev ter pay owt fer this jacket, Ah geet it gi'n."

Translation: "I didn't have to pay anything for this jacket, I got it given.

ALBERT J MORRIS, Clement View, Nelson.