BBC News - More people in the Midlands "adopting southern-style speech" If your evening meal is "tea" and you rhyme the words "one and gone" - then you probably have a northern accent. But the gap between language spoken in the north and south is increasingly narrowing - with more people in the Midlands adopting southern-style speech. Linguist Dr Laurel McKenzie and her research team from Manchester University came up with the findings after surveying 1,400 people across the UK. Dr McKenzie told BBC Radio 5 live's Drive: "Midland cities like Birmingham can go either way - for some words they sound like the south and for others they sound like the north."