more open, transcribed by Wells with rather than , used in transcriptions of RP. In most areas, the letter y on the end of words as in happy or city is pronounced , like the i in bit, and not . This was considered RP until the 1990s. The tenser is found in the far north, and in the Merseyside and Teesside areas. The North does not have a clear distinction between the and of most other accents in England; in other words, most Northern accents pronounce all L sounds with some moderate amount of velarization. Exceptions to this are in Tyneside, Wearside and Northumberland, which universally use only the clear L, and in Lancashire and Manchester, which universally use only the dark L. Some northern English speakers have noticeable rises in their intonation, even to the extent that, to other speakers of English, they may sound "perpetually surprised or sarcastic." Grammar and syntax The grammatical patterns of Northern England English are similar to those of British English in general. However, there are several unique characteristics that mark out Northern syntax from neighbouring dialects. Under the Northern subject rule (NSR), the suffix "-s" (which in Standard English grammar only appears in the third person singular present) is attached to verbs in many present and past-tense forms (leading to, for example, "the birds sings"). More generally, third-person singular forms of irregular verbs such as to be may be used with plurals and other grammatical persons; for instance "the lambs is out". In modern dialects, the most obvious manifestation is a levelling of the past tense verb forms was and were. Either form may dominate depending on the region and individual speech patterns (so some Northern speakers may say "I was" and "You was" while others prefer "I were" and "You were") and in many dialects especially in the far North, weren't is treated as the negation of was. The "epistemic mustn't", where mustn't is used to mark deductions such as "This mustn't be true", is largely restricted within the British Isles to Northern England, although it is more widely accepted in American English, and is likely inherited from Scottish English. A few other Scottish traits are also found in far Northern dialects, such as double modal verbs (might could instead of might be able to), but these are restricted in their distribution and are mostly dying out. Pronouns While standard English