Which of the words bun, none and John rhyme for you?

This map presents preliminary results for the question Which of the words bun, none and John rhyme for you? Five responses were possible, and respondents could choose more than one answer if they felt these words rhymed more than one way in their accent. The possible responses were:
  1. bun and none rhyme, John rhymes with neither
  2. none and John rhyme, bun rhymes with neither
  3. bun and John rhyme, none rhymes with neither
  4. They all rhyme
  5. None of them rhyme
Answers (3), (4) and (5) are almost entirely unattested, so that the following map indicates those locations where speakers gave answer (2). Since respondents could give multiple responses, and since more than one response was returned for many locations, the following categories account for almost all responses:
  • Red dots: none and John rhyme only (the 'Northern English' system)
  • Pink dots: none and John rhyme some of the time
  • Grey dots: none and John never rhyme (in almost all cases this indicates that bun and none rhyme)




Responses indicate that none rhymes with John in northern England and parts of the north Midlands. Note the similarity of this distribution to that of gut=foot.


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