Who rhymes the words ‘one’ and ‘gone’?

Previous findings

Wells states that one and gone often rhyme for northern and Midlands speakers, specifically those from Birmingham, Stoke, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield (1982: 362). Elsewhere, one is pronounced with a different vowel, /ʌ/ instead of /ɒ/.

Our findings

Our map shows that the one-gone rhyme occurs often in the speech of northerners: 83% to be precise. This contrasts with southern dialect regions, where only 35% of respondents rhyme the words. The rhyme is also predominant in the Midlands (77% of speakers); this high proportion is largely due to, as Wells (1982) also found, the cities of Birmingham and Nottingham.