The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to a number of syntactic phenomena in modern English, specifically but not exclusively in British English, that can be characterized as urban/suburban near-standard usage. These phenomena are representative of a type of feature that has to date received relatively little attention from linguists. One such group of phenomena consists of features current among lower-middle-class, and, more especially, working-class speakers in towns. These include the non-restrictive use of "that"; the extended present perfective; extended simple past; development of a new aspect/tense/mood-signifying periphrastic form of verbs; and lexical comparatives and related matter. (VWL)