Dialect

Our Mutual Friend

by Charles Dickens

Our Mutual Friend: Dialect 1 key example

Book 4, Chapter 15
Explanation and Analysis—Young Lambs of Yourn:

Our Mutual Friend cuts across England’s social classes: lawyers wander the street with lowlifes, new millionaires employ street vendors, and schoolteachers bump into hunchbacked doll dressmakers. For a work with such expansive scope, Dickens’s use of dialect does justice to the diversity of his characters. How a character speaks is just as revealing as what they say, as when Rogue Riderhood stands outside Headstone’s classroom in Book 4, Chapter 15:

‘And a lovely thing it must be,’ said Riderhood, ‘fur to learn young folks wot’s right, and fur to know wot they know wot you do it. Beg your pardon, learned governor! By your leave!—That here black board; wot’s it for?’