medicaL revelation

[Laurence Urdang]

A ten-year-old boy who underwent life-saving brain surgery has astonished doctors by emerging with a different accent.
  William McCartney-Moore fell seriously ill with a rare strain of meningitis last March and had an operation to remove fluid on his brain.
  But in the weeks since his treatment, William, from York, has lost his northern twang and acquired the elongated vowels of received pronunciation (RP).
  ---Daily Telegraph, 23 September 2007.

  Evidently a misdiagnosed case of irritable vowel syndrome.
  L. Urdang
  Old Lyme

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org