Life
?-?1993; author of column on Ulster usage in Belfast Newsletter.
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Commentary
Eugene McKendry, review of Loreto Todd’s Words Apart: A Dictionary of Northern Irish English, in Linen Hall Review (April 1991), writes: ‘For most people in Northern Ireland a written account of local English meant the newspaper articles and books of the late John Pepper. Pepper’s aim was primarily to amuse (“a quare geg”) and his mixture of words, anecdotes and malapropisms coloured our awareness of, and attitudes towards, the value of local dialect. Unfortunately he may also have confirmed stereotypes - linguistic and human. Nevertheless, his output was impressive and his work remains an accessible mine of words and lore &c.’
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