The Guardian readers' editor on ... the v-word
What parts do the vernacular and dialects play in journalism? Words in quotes should be precisely what was said, but journalists have a licence to tidy up. The Guardian style guide, for example, says, "readers should be confident that words appearing in quotation marks accurately represent the actual words uttered by the speaker, though ums and ahems can be removed and bad grammar improved." Phonetic spelling is not the norm and when it is used in quotations writers may face accusations of regional bias, or snobbery.

The paper began life as the Manchester Guardian in 1821 so has regional roots. It became the Guardian in 1959 and moved most of its editorial teams to London in 1964, but it has a strong presence outside the capital, especially in the north of England, and employs special correspondents for Ireland, Scotland and the west country as well.

Putting quotes into the vernacular or attempting to capture an accent may be interpreted as mockery. A report of the boxing match between Ricky Hatton and Floyd Mayweather in Las Vegas included comment from the defeated Hatton. "I've never seen support for a British fighter like they've given me this week," he was quoted as saying, "But I'm getting a bit sick of that fookin' song now myself."

One reader thought this was in bad taste (the reference to Hatton's accent, not the swearing). "It seems to me to be very common for the [swear] words to be spelt as 'fook' and 'fooking' whenever one of your correspondents records someone from the north of England saying them," he said. He suggested that faux-phonetic spelling is done for "comedic effect". Here the article was a straight-faced account of the match and that criticism doesn't ring true - but was the reader right to conclude that journalists are just being stuck-up when they northernify quotes? "I think the comedy of the 'fooks' is based on regional and class difference" he said. "it's snobbish and patronising."

Hatton's Mancunian accent was referenced only twice in an article of more than 1,000 words. Other quotes from him were not northernified and the "fookin'" reference was in the last line, so not central to the piece. In this context the incidental reference to accent adds something to the picture of Hatton, rather than diminishes him. The vernacular is properly used to describe, rather than to classify the subject.

A similar issue was raised by a reader about a review of The Courteeners recent gig in Sheffield. The reviewer had written: "A Sheffield venue hosts shouts for Manchester 'Cit-eh' and 'Morriss-eh.'" The reader found this insulting. "I know that I say 'city' exactly like all the other working-class Mancunians that I know, yet somehow I manage to get by in life," he said. He assumed that the journalist found cit-eh "so odd that ... he gave it inverted commas, warning the reader that this is northern-speak, not to be confused with the language of the Guardian". You can see why a reader might make that assumption, but the journalist, who describes himself as "a Yorkshireman ... with probably the strongest northern accent at the Guardian," told me the reader is on the wrong track. "The British media has moved [on] ... regional accents proliferate and are widely loved, which can only be a good thing," he said. "I decided to use the words 'Cit-eh' and 'Morriss-eh' in an attempt to differentiate [the band] and their audience, which was largely made up of Mancunians who had journeyed to Sheffield."

Adopting someone else's vernacular may be seen as vulgar. An online article about the hunt for Radovan Karadzic described how the young Karadzic was brought up in the village of Petnjica and took an interest in poetry. "But it was not poetry that took the diligent young Karadzic from the Vukojebina to Sarajevo," the writer said. "'Vukojebina' is a very, very rude word in the Serbian/Croatian language and, as such, highly inappropriate for use in any formal context," a reader advised. "The literal translation of this word would be something to the effect of 'a place where wolves f***'." It wasn't necessary to use the vernacular of the original language, she said; the "back of beyond" would have done just fine.