Due to its highly regional history and multitude of foreign linguistic influences, the UK has a mindboggling density of accents. When you think "Scottish accent," you probably think of Sir Sean Connery. But Connery's accent is only one of many Scottish accents - in the UK, accents are so regional that even regions like Scotland have their own regional accents.
Connery's accent (voted favorite UK accent in a 2005 BBC survey) is an Edinburgh accent. He grew up working-class, but his voice has posh-ified over the years. For a more current example of the Edinburgh accent Justin and I hear daily, try Jenny (at about 1 minute), who right now is on the BBC reality show Over the Rainbow competing to play Dorothy in the West End. The Edinburgh accent has a lot in common with the northern English accent, especially the letter "O," which sounds a lot like Yorkshire. My favorite thing about it is the way they say Edinburgh: "Eh-din-barrah."
Glasgow, however, has a different accent from Edinburgh. You might recognize it as the accent of Billy Boyd playing Pippin in Lord of the Rings. I have no technical linguistics-y terms for the difference, but it's rounder, less nasal, and the Os and Rs are different.
But even these are only two major regional variations. The Highlands and Islands (Western Scotland, including the Isle of Skye,) have an accent of their own (number 13), which to me sounds quite like an Irish accent. Maybe it's because both of those areas have a much longer history of Celtic languages. One of my coursemates has my favorite Scottish accent, the Shetland accent, which retains not only sounds but also some slangy vocabulary expressions from Norwegian. The BBC accent archive is being snippy with me because I don't have RealPlayer installed, but it's one of the few places I've found a Shetland accent.
And if you're really geeky, check out the George Mason speech accent archive: they've recorded hundreds of native and non-native speakers of English from all over the world. They only have two Scottish accents - Glasgow is here, Edinburgh is here - but the worldwide ones are a hoot. Check out a Yinzer here. You can also check out this Norwegian and learn why Justin and I are constantly mistaking English-fluent Scandinavians for people from some part of Britain we haven't been to yet.
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
03 May 2010
24 March 2010
Taking the mickey
"Taking the mickey," along with its less-polite variant "taking the piss," is a British expression meaning to tease or poke fun at. So let's take a moment to take the mickey out of some UK quirks.
1. Two-tap sinks
Back in ye olden tymes, sinks had hot taps and cold taps with separate pipes to each. It is no longer those times. If I can have wireless fiberoptic internet in my apartment, surely it is not too much to ask that I have one tap producing a usable-temperature water, instead of one that give me frostbite and one that gives me burns? My fingers are actually chapped and cracked from using these ridiculous (and omnipresent) sinks. There is even a Facebook group called "You are not an advanced country if you have separate water taps."And you know what? It's true.
2. Honey Cheerios
Not Honey Nut Cheerios, just Honey Cheerios. Why? I'm not sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion it has to do with allergy packaging regulations (this is, after all, a country of nut-free schools - at least in the literal sense.) Made extra amusing by the fact that the Honey Cheerios URL above on the Nestle site still ends with "cheerios-honeynut.aspx." Further cereal fun fact: Frosted Mini Wheats are just Frosted Wheats here.
3. The word "revision"
The first time I heard this was in French class, when the French-born teacher kept talking about how we were surely all revising for exams. Revising? Surely he meant "reviewing." But no. "Revision" is the commonly accepted UK term for reviewing. (See, for instance, "Sleeping helps students revise")
I could handle this as a one-for-one switch. What I can't process is that "revision" also incorporates the U.S. meaning of "to rewrite or edit." So in my research yesterday, I came across the sentence, "The committee revised the rules," and I have no idea what happened. Did they review the rules? Did they rewrite the rules? There is no way to tell!
4. Listed buildings
I'm all about conservation as far as architecture goes, but the "listing" program in the UK can be a bit goofy. Begun after World War II, it was intended to offer government protection to buildings of architectural and historical interest but has become a monster. You can't for instance, replace energy-inefficient old windows in a listed building with double-glazing without special permission. And that's assuming you even had a vote in getting your building listed in the first place.
As anybody who lived in Morse or Stiles can tell you, what constitutes good architecture is not a fixed concept. Unfortunately, listing is fixed. Once a building gets listed, you're pretty much stuck with it. Hence the outrage at Edinburgh a few years back when the university tried to list Appleton Tower. In the 1960s, a bunch of Georgian buildings (beautiful 200-year-old town houses) were torn down to construct this:
(The building in the front is William Robertson - Billy Bobberson to its friends - and is also hideous, but for the moment let's focus on the one in the back).
In the early 2000s, Appleton received architectural and historical interest, but not perhaps the kind Historic Scotland likes: students nominated it for demolition. A prominent geneticist alumnus of Edinburgh University consider "the ugliness of Appleton Tower" one of the seven wonders of the world. For some blindingly obscure reason, Historic Scotland decided that this was the right time to try to list Appleton Tower, thereby inflicting it upon us for all time. It didn't succeed, but what the heck! There's always next year!
5. UK Keyboards
The US and the UK are no longer merely two countries divided by a common language. We are now two countries divided by an uncommon computer keyboard.
Yes, UK keyboards have a few sneaky modifications to the U.S. layout. I can understand switching it so that the single quote ('), rather than the double quote (") is the default key just beside your right pinky, as the single quote is the correct UK usage for speech. It's just a formatting convention. What I can't figure out is why you'd bring the @ symbol down from the numbers row to replace the double-quote. I hardly ever use the @ symbol. Do British people send more e-mails than American ones? Or do they merely have less-effective autocomplete in their mail programs (programmes)? It. drives me nuts that my left shift key is shortened by a full key width, replaced with a useless forward slash, and I don't even know what the letter ¬ means. It looks like the Korean letter for the sound @k@.
Dang it, that was supposed to be "k." Curse you, UK keyboards!!!!!
1. Two-tap sinks
Back in ye olden tymes, sinks had hot taps and cold taps with separate pipes to each. It is no longer those times. If I can have wireless fiberoptic internet in my apartment, surely it is not too much to ask that I have one tap producing a usable-temperature water, instead of one that give me frostbite and one that gives me burns? My fingers are actually chapped and cracked from using these ridiculous (and omnipresent) sinks. There is even a Facebook group called "You are not an advanced country if you have separate water taps."And you know what? It's true.
2. Honey Cheerios
Not Honey Nut Cheerios, just Honey Cheerios. Why? I'm not sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion it has to do with allergy packaging regulations (this is, after all, a country of nut-free schools - at least in the literal sense.) Made extra amusing by the fact that the Honey Cheerios URL above on the Nestle site still ends with "cheerios-honeynut.aspx." Further cereal fun fact: Frosted Mini Wheats are just Frosted Wheats here.
3. The word "revision"
The first time I heard this was in French class, when the French-born teacher kept talking about how we were surely all revising for exams. Revising? Surely he meant "reviewing." But no. "Revision" is the commonly accepted UK term for reviewing. (See, for instance, "Sleeping helps students revise")
I could handle this as a one-for-one switch. What I can't process is that "revision" also incorporates the U.S. meaning of "to rewrite or edit." So in my research yesterday, I came across the sentence, "The committee revised the rules," and I have no idea what happened. Did they review the rules? Did they rewrite the rules? There is no way to tell!
4. Listed buildings
I'm all about conservation as far as architecture goes, but the "listing" program in the UK can be a bit goofy. Begun after World War II, it was intended to offer government protection to buildings of architectural and historical interest but has become a monster. You can't for instance, replace energy-inefficient old windows in a listed building with double-glazing without special permission. And that's assuming you even had a vote in getting your building listed in the first place.
As anybody who lived in Morse or Stiles can tell you, what constitutes good architecture is not a fixed concept. Unfortunately, listing is fixed. Once a building gets listed, you're pretty much stuck with it. Hence the outrage at Edinburgh a few years back when the university tried to list Appleton Tower. In the 1960s, a bunch of Georgian buildings (beautiful 200-year-old town houses) were torn down to construct this:
(The building in the front is William Robertson - Billy Bobberson to its friends - and is also hideous, but for the moment let's focus on the one in the back).
In the early 2000s, Appleton received architectural and historical interest, but not perhaps the kind Historic Scotland likes: students nominated it for demolition. A prominent geneticist alumnus of Edinburgh University consider "the ugliness of Appleton Tower" one of the seven wonders of the world. For some blindingly obscure reason, Historic Scotland decided that this was the right time to try to list Appleton Tower, thereby inflicting it upon us for all time. It didn't succeed, but what the heck! There's always next year!
5. UK Keyboards
The US and the UK are no longer merely two countries divided by a common language. We are now two countries divided by an uncommon computer keyboard.
Yes, UK keyboards have a few sneaky modifications to the U.S. layout. I can understand switching it so that the single quote ('), rather than the double quote (") is the default key just beside your right pinky, as the single quote is the correct UK usage for speech. It's just a formatting convention. What I can't figure out is why you'd bring the @ symbol down from the numbers row to replace the double-quote. I hardly ever use the @ symbol. Do British people send more e-mails than American ones? Or do they merely have less-effective autocomplete in their mail programs (programmes)? It. drives me nuts that my left shift key is shortened by a full key width, replaced with a useless forward slash, and I don't even know what the letter ¬ means. It looks like the Korean letter for the sound @k@.
Dang it, that was supposed to be "k." Curse you, UK keyboards!!!!!
25 January 2010
U.S. gives haggis a Burns's Night reprieve?
Tonight will be Burns's Night, an informal holiday celebrating Robert "Rabbie" Burns, Scotland's national poet and by most accounts the greatest poet ever to write in Scots. We celebrated Burns's Night a day early with some traditional haggis, neeps, and tatties, augmented by lots more non-traditional fare at an international potluck.
The haggis is very much the centerpiece of a traditional Burns Supper: the evening turns on the presentation of the haggis to a recitation of Burns's "Address to a Haggis." So it's fitting that, according to this BBC story, the US has chosen today to announce plans to reduce import restrictions on meats that prevent the importation of haggis to the US.
The article overstates its case a bit--haggis isn't actually banned in the US, you're just not allowed to import it--but it's still a neat Burns's Night treat.
The haggis is very much the centerpiece of a traditional Burns Supper: the evening turns on the presentation of the haggis to a recitation of Burns's "Address to a Haggis." So it's fitting that, according to this BBC story, the US has chosen today to announce plans to reduce import restrictions on meats that prevent the importation of haggis to the US.
The article overstates its case a bit--haggis isn't actually banned in the US, you're just not allowed to import it--but it's still a neat Burns's Night treat.
11 September 2009
Sightseeing in the Highlands: Inverness
(This is the first post in a multi-part series on our recent trip to Inverness, Skye, and the Black Isle in the Highlands.)
With our last week before the start of the term, Nana and I decided to play tourist a bit, and packed ourselves off for three days (two nights) in the Highlands.
The first stop on our trip, and our home base for the duration, was Inverness, the economic and administrative capital of the Highlands. As the major transport hub for the north of Scotland, Inverness is a good launchpad for day trips into the surrounding countryside.
Inverness gets its name from the Scottish Gaelic Ihnbir Nis, which means "mouth of the Ness." The River Ness flows out of Loch Ness and straight through the town, emptying into the Moray Firth to the northeast. There are a lot of Invers in the Highlands--the stress, we learned, is on the second, distinguishing part of the word (inver-NESS).
The modest skyline of Inverness is dominated by the castle, a 19th-century throwback built on the site of several ancient fortifications. The castle, which overlooks the river, is made of Old Red Sandstone, a distinctive building material common in Scotland generally, but even more so in the eastern Highlands.
The castle is also a terminus of the Great Glen Way. The Great Glen, or Glen More (Scottish Gaelic, Gleann Mòr, "Big Valley"), is a tectonic fault that slices diagonally across the middle of Scotland, from the Moray Firth near Inverness to Fort William near the western coast. Its most recognizable feature is probably Loch Ness. It's also the easiest route across the Highlands from East to West.
Inverness is a commuter town, drawing workers and shoppers from all over the Highlands. This means that, after August, when the tourist traffic is a bit slower, the streets are eerily empty at night.
In general, Inverness is a pretty town, with its fare share of restaurants and pubs--not much of a destination in and of itself, but a comfortable place to stay. A stroll along the river, and across one of the many footbridges, is a pleasant way to spend an evening.
If you do find yourself in Inverness, don't miss the excellent local history museum--free admission, in the same building as the tourist information centre, just down the hill from the Castle.
With our last week before the start of the term, Nana and I decided to play tourist a bit, and packed ourselves off for three days (two nights) in the Highlands.
The first stop on our trip, and our home base for the duration, was Inverness, the economic and administrative capital of the Highlands. As the major transport hub for the north of Scotland, Inverness is a good launchpad for day trips into the surrounding countryside.
Inverness gets its name from the Scottish Gaelic Ihnbir Nis, which means "mouth of the Ness." The River Ness flows out of Loch Ness and straight through the town, emptying into the Moray Firth to the northeast. There are a lot of Invers in the Highlands--the stress, we learned, is on the second, distinguishing part of the word (inver-NESS).
The modest skyline of Inverness is dominated by the castle, a 19th-century throwback built on the site of several ancient fortifications. The castle, which overlooks the river, is made of Old Red Sandstone, a distinctive building material common in Scotland generally, but even more so in the eastern Highlands.
Inverness is a commuter town, drawing workers and shoppers from all over the Highlands. This means that, after August, when the tourist traffic is a bit slower, the streets are eerily empty at night.
In general, Inverness is a pretty town, with its fare share of restaurants and pubs--not much of a destination in and of itself, but a comfortable place to stay. A stroll along the river, and across one of the many footbridges, is a pleasant way to spend an evening.
If you do find yourself in Inverness, don't miss the excellent local history museum--free admission, in the same building as the tourist information centre, just down the hill from the Castle.
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