Absolutely; in fact, now you mention it the way he rhymes "less or fewer" with "brought up in a sewer" implies he's doing that in the song, too.
Alan Garner, the children's fantasy author, comes from a family of stone-masons who have -- so far as he's been able to trace -- lived in the same small part of Cheshire for over 400 years. He was the first in his family to receive more than a basic formal education and went to Manchester Grammar School and Oxford, though he left without taking his degree. I've heard him describe having his mouth washed out with soap at his primary school for speaking the local dialect which, as he discovered during his formal education, is the language of the Gawain poet, North Mercian Middle English, and so considered a "difficult" area of study for undergraduates (he says his uncles could read Gawain without trouble, since it was their local dialect).
Regional (and minority) accents were for many years banned or severely discouraged on the BBC.
no subject
Alan Garner, the children's fantasy author, comes from a family of stone-masons who have -- so far as he's been able to trace -- lived in the same small part of Cheshire for over 400 years. He was the first in his family to receive more than a basic formal education and went to Manchester Grammar School and Oxford, though he left without taking his degree. I've heard him describe having his mouth washed out with soap at his primary school for speaking the local dialect which, as he discovered during his formal education, is the language of the Gawain poet, North Mercian Middle English, and so considered a "difficult" area of study for undergraduates (he says his uncles could read Gawain without trouble, since it was their local dialect).
Regional (and minority) accents were for many years banned or severely discouraged on the BBC.