The Cockney sound of long ā which is confused with received _ī_, is very different from it, and where it approaches that sound, the long _ī_ is very broad, so that there is no possibility of confusing them in a Cockney's ear. But is the sound Cockney? Granted it is very prevalent in E. and N. London, yet it is rarely found in W. and S.W. My belief is that it is especially an Essex variety. There is no doubt about its prevalence in Essex, so that [very roughly indeed] "I say" there becomes "oy sy." Then as regards the _ō_ and _ou_. These are never pronounced alike. The _ō_ certainly often imitates received _ow_, though it has more distinctly an _ō_ commencement; but when that is the case, _ou_ has a totally different sound, which dialect-writers usually mark as _aow_, having a broad _ā_ commencement, almost _a_ in _bad_. Finer speakers--shopmen and clerks--will use a finer _a_. The sound of short _u_ in _nut_, does not sound to me at all like _e_ in _net_. There are great varieties of this "natural vowel," as some people call it, and our received _nut_ is much finer than the general southern provincial and northern Scotch sounds, between which lie the mid and north England sounds rhyming to _foot_ nearly, and various transitional forms. Certainly the sounds of _nut_, _gnat_ are quite different, and are never confused by speakers; yet you would write both as _net_. The pronunciation of the Metropolitan area is extremely mixed; no one form prevails. We may put aside educated or received English as entirely artificial. The N., N.E., and E. districts all partake of an East Anglian character; but whether that is recent, or belongs to the Middle Anglian character of Middlesex, is difficult to say. I was born in the N. district, within the sound of Bow Bells (the Cockney limits), over seventy years ago, and I do not recall the _i_ pronunciation of _ā_ in my boyish days, nor do I recollect having seen it used by the older humourists. Nor do I find it in "Errors of Pronunciation and Improper Expressions, Used Frequently and Chiefly by the Inhabitants of London," 1817, which likewise does not note any pronunciation of _ō_ like _ow_. Hence I am inclined to believe that both are modernisms, due to the growing of London into the adjacent provinces. They do not seem to me yet prevalent in the W. districts, though the N.W. is transitional. South of the Thames, in the S.W. districts, I think they are practically unknown. In the S.E. districts, which dip into N. Kent, the finer form of _aow_ for _ou_ is prevalent. The uneducated of course form a mode of speech among themselves. But I am sorry to find even school teachers much infected with the _ī_, _ow_, _aow_, pronunciations of _ā_, _ō_, _ou_, in N. districts.