Early Cockney vees for double-yous

[Jonathan Lighter]

Dickens, of course, made this trait familiar in _The Pickwick Papers_.

Is this the earliest occurrence? Note that in this burlesque, the sounds
consistently replace each other:

ca1785-90 Robert Pickersgill, ed  _Mirth's magazine: or, Momus's Fund. A
collection of humourous songs, &c. from the most celebrated authors_
(London: ptd. for the compiler, n.d.) 10-11 [ECCO]:

Fleet Market ...clee-wers...Italian airs and quawers... vile I sing the
fair vith vhom you'd vish to dally....vithal ...She vears plain
stuffs...She's...deserwing...Vot vould you give for such a vife.


As a point of interest, p. 10 also has "olesome" for "wholesome."

The song does not appear (to me, anyway)  to burlesque some foreign accent.

JL



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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