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Jonnie Robinson, Curator, English accents and dialects, British Library Sound Archive, writes:
Despite popular opinion to the contrary, there's still a great deal of lexical diversity in the UK and there are numerous words in everyday use that have only local or regional currency. Leigh, Stephen and Matthew discuss the relative merits of the word chav, newly arrived on Merseyside, compared with the more traditional local equivalent, scally. Both words refer to young people who typically dress in tracksuit trousers, hooded tops, and checked baseball caps and are generally regarded with disapproval due to their perceived boisterous, disruptive behaviour and self-assured manner.
Scally is presumed to be an abbreviation of the word scallywag, but there are several popular theories as to the origins of the word chav, including the suggestion that it's formed by combining the words Chatham Average. Most linguists, however, suspect that it in fact derives from the Romany word, chavi, meaning male child or boy, but that its modern meaning may indeed be traced back to popular usage in Chatham. The word has a long-established presence in the Medway towns, an area with close historical links to the traveller community, as a derogatory term for gypsy. Whatever the word’s origins, it has recently achieved national recognition in a remarkably short space of time, probably due to media interest and the emergence of a number of popular websites devoted to such light-hearted pursuits as 'celebrity chav-spotting'. Nonetheless, other local alternatives survive, such as neds in Glasgow or pikey in East Anglia and parts of the south-east Midlands alongside the more mainstream townie.
The use of that in the statement they’re that thick they won’t know what it is is a common feature of a number of northern dialects, whilst speakers of other dialects, including Standard English might favour so as in they’re so thick they won’t know what it is.
Finally listen to the pronunciation here of the <th> sound in the words anything and everything - this is a striking feature of many speakers with a Liverpool accent.
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