Cycling UK Forum

Mick F wrote:Why do people pronounce HAD as HAT?

Mick
Tha' fer Wiggin,reet? so wats wi awe this fancy talk?,'ats go 'on thee yed reet?

bodach wrote:Even more annoying to widen this a bit are journalists who have clearly no knowledge of the wider geography of this country and constantly refer to say the far north when they really mean Manchester which I suppose is about the middle ( of England anyway)

is this a joke? if it is, i don't get it

if it isn't, you didn't ought to be criticising folks on their geographical knowledge in the same sentence as placing manchester in the middle of england.

here's a map.

Isn't Manchester in the North-West region of England? In my innocence I thought places in the middle of England where in the Midlands.
jonty

Correction "were" instead of "where".
jonty

I've probably missed something. I thought that that little, rather porky, self-important nobody who reminds me of Tweedledum (or is it Tweedledee?) was all set to end this awful problem of utterly unacceptable Anglocentrism (if I may use the word) by forming some sort of political and financial union of all the Tiger economies? Ireland, Iceland and all the rest. I thought he had promised a referendum on this, or something similar. I'm sure that the last time I donned my Dr Johnson hat for a rant, somebody suggested - nay, threatened - that they might even vote for devolution if there was a repetition. <--- LOL

My wish to separate the UK into it's component parts gets reinforced frequently by the sheer hatred poured out by some poor souls.I prefer to keep a sense of humour about the whole subject wherever possible and avoid slanging matches which are really pointless.

You are right about my geography of course. Should have said Birmingham ( it's all the same isn't it?). I do not claim to be a professional broadcaster. That's my excuse and I am sticking to it.

bodach wrote:...the far north when they really mean Manchester which I suppose is about the middle ( of England anyway). ....

Hey dont apologise, Manchester is int'middle. Lets face it them wots in Cornwall have their own flag (they are really French anyway) And them wots sarf of Milton keynes want to be French wot with eating all them cakes and stuff for breakfast and drinking that there coffee and all that.

Now where did I put my pure bred English man badge and my BNP membership

I'm sorry was this a thread about Literacy or otherwise in the media?

Now all together ......................... 'the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain' (to be spoken with two fingers inserted into one's mouth between the teeth, up to the first joint and with the fingers orientated in such a way as to be one upon another and following a line which follows - roughly - the path which would follow a line drawn through the middle of ones face betwixt forehead and chin). Alternatively try sticking a plum or silver spoon in yer gob. Got that? Good oh!

Biscuit better do as a couple of footballers did recently after being banned from playing. They sat in their box and scratched their faces with a finger extending on either side of the nose facing the tv cameras. Now lets get back to fighting about language.

IMO it's important that the media should get their geographical terms correct. England shouldn't be referred to as the United Kingdom nor should the term UK be used to mean England, or England and Wales or Great Britain.
England should mean England. England and Wales should mean precisely that. Great Britain or Britain should refer to England, Wales and Scotland. The UK should refer to England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The term British Isles should be dispensed with. A more accurate term is the British and Irish Isles.
I know some English people will find this a bit difficult as they have never travelled further north than Manchester and they regard themselves as English citizens in a country called England rather than British citizens in a country called the United Kingdom.
Also I would like to see better coverage of foreign affairs in our media. You would think from UK coverage that the only countries fighting in Afganistan were the US and the UK whereas France has the third largest presence and countries such as the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland and Norway have all contributed troops.
Our media should be much less anglocentric in my view. We are now only a medium European power and most of the important things now happen outside the UK.
Also I wish when foreigners are interviewed on the TV we could listen to them speaking in their own language with subtitles rather than their voices being drowned out by a translation into English. I want to listen to how different languages sound. I find such voices being drowned out by an overlay of English mildly annoying.
jonty

Jonty wrote:... Also I wish when foreigners are interviewed on the TV we could listen to them speaking in their own language with subtitles rather than their voices being drowned out by a translation into English. ...

There's a certain irony here, because if you listen to the foreign language version, they are quite likely to talk as though England and GB/ UK whatever are interchangeable.

A couple of years ago I listened to a programme on R 4 Feedback. There was an item about the BBC not recognising the difference between England and other places and the next item was on listeners' grumbles about voice-over simultaneous translations. Presumably the example broadcast was tongue in cheek because we heard a speech by Jacques Chirac beginning "L'Angleterre ...." and the voice-over began "Great Britain.... " which was obviously what he was talking about. (That's from memory - it might have been "Les Anglais" translated as "The British.") Not a word from Roger Bolton who must have switched the mike off.

Incidentally, does anybody doubt that football has made Manchester one of the most famous cities in the world?

Jonty,You will get deported to Wales coming out with stuff like that.

The BBC Radio 4 has earnt the nickname, EBC over here.

All the England only issues are discussed in great detail as if they are National not Regional issues. The Welsh, Scottish and NI issues are described as somewhere between Regional and foreign.

I remember the big fuss about free bus passes which completely ignored the fact that no such change was taking place in Wales. Just as when the change took place in Wales quite sometime before, it wasnt even mentioned.

I dont mind it being the EBC but I wish it would drop the name BBC.

As for talking over the foreigners, I think that is so you cant hear what they actually said.
Translations courtesy of the Middle East Media Research Institute.

I agree with you generally, Jonty, but:

Jonty wrote:Great Britain or Britain should refer to England, Wales and Scotland.

I learnt at school the "Britain" came into being when England and Wales signed some agreement at sometime. This became "Great Britain" when Scotland joined the party.

Annoyingly, "British" is the adjective that applies to Britain, Great Britain or the UK. There is no adjective meaning "of the United Kingdom".

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Is ... inology%29 for many idiosyncracies.

Hi Snibgo
I think that "Britain" is sometimes associated with England and Wales because the Romans called the land they conquered on these islands Britannia, and they conquered what is now England and Wales.
Of course their conquest also extended into Scotland and at one time they controlled land to the south of a line joining the Forth with the Clyde so by the term Britannia they possibly meant the largest island in what is now the British and Irish archipelago.
When Scotland was unified with England and Wales in 1707 the term United Kingdom came into being although the term is now used to mean England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
In effect Scotland didn't unify only with England and Wales in 1707 but also unified with Ireland as Ireland was the first English and Welsh (or more precisely Norman) colony. It had its own parliament but it was under"English" control. The Irish parliament was abolished in 1800 and then ruled from Westminister so the country was up to 1921 the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
When the Irish Free State, which subsequently became Eire and the Republic of Ireland, was formed in 1921, the country we now live in became the United Kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
On the point about foreigners calling the UK, England etc. I think this to some extent is due to the fact that England is the largest and most powerful country in the British and Irish isles: there are about 50 million people living in England, Scotland and Wales have about 5 million each and Northern Ireland less than 2 million. We do the same: we used to call the USSR, Russia, and we often call the Netherlands, Holland.
Also the English or more specifically the Normans, conquered Wales and Ireland but not Scotland which remained a separate Kingdom until the unification of the crowns in 1604 and of parliaments in 1707.
This was because the Scots, although much less powerful than the English and Welsh, had their own national identity, their own line of Kings, was a difficult country to conquer and subjugate, and often defeated the English and Welsh in battle.
The reason we mainly speak English throughout the British and Irish Isles is due to English (Norman) conquest and power. Not many centuries ago the Irish spoke their own language, had their own style of dress and legal system but these were banned in keeping with its status as the first colony of the British Empire.
jonty

Jonty wrote:... the term United Kingdom ... is now used to mean England, Wales and Northern Ireland ...

That's news to me. I've always thought Scotland was in the UK.