Estuary English a discrete accent distinct from the accents of the London area. The sociolinguist Peter Trudgill has written that the term "Estuary English" is inappropriate because "it suggests that we are talking about a new variety, which we are not; and because it suggests that it is a variety of English confined to the banks of the Thames estuary, which it is not. The label actually refers to the lower middle-class accents, as opposed to working-class accents, of the Home Counties Modern Dialect area". Peter Roach comments, "In reality there is no such accent and the term should be used with
Estuary English it to be a working-class accent, but it is often used by lower middle classes as well. In the debate that surrounded a 1993 article about Estuary English, a London businessman claimed that RP was perceived as unfriendly and so Estuary English was now preferred for commercial purposes. Some people adopt the accent as a means of "blending in" to appear to be more working class or in an attempt to appear to be "a common man". That affectation of the accent is sometimes derisively referred to as "Mockney". A move away from traditional RP accents is almost universal among