Rounding of Onset of  and Raising of Onset of  In the older true Cockney accents which is what this article seems to be about not only is  backed but the onset is also rounded to  according to Wells b    Wells calls  a Popular London variant  He defines Popular London as the accent of suburban workingclass speakers  So according to Wells the true Cockney variant is   Because this realization starts to encroach on s space according to Wells the onset of  is raised to  in Cockney