The Off Topic Topic

[garbon]

You Brits and your funny place name pronunciations

How about Lympne?

Limp knee?

Lim

[Syt]

Weirdest English town name I recently came across was the: Chapel-en-le-Frith

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapel-en-le-Frith

[HVC]

You Brits and your funny place name pronunciations

How about Lympne?

Limp knee?

Lim

To use the parlance of the people, that's just taking the piss.

[Josquius]

Near here we have a place called Chichester. Pronounced Chi as in China.
Down south there's a rather more famous place called Chichester. It is pronounced Chi as in chit.

[Tamas]

Near here we have a place called Chichester. Pronounced Chi as in China.
Down south there's a rather more famous place called Chichester. It is pronounced Chi as in chit.

 

Having grown up in a country where it took centralised effort to save and standardise the language in the 19th century, it sure feels weird that while every region on the island share the same written language, they differ majorly on what sounds those written letters actually refer to.

[HVC]

My totally non scientific and speculative assumption is that the further north you go the less Norman influence there is and the more nonsensical the pronunciations get

[Sheilbh]

My totally non scientific and speculative assumption is that the further north you go the less Norman influence there is and the more nonsensical the pronunciations get

And you're right! (Sort of) I think you're right on the Norman influence point - and this is true in the Medieval period and endures.

Chaucer was writing at the same time as the Gawain and the Green Knight was written (by the "Gawain poet" because we don't know who). But they are very different. Chaucer's a Londoner, works in a French-speaking court - his Middle English has lots of French influence both in terms of vocabulary and structure but also poetic style. The Gawain poet's works are in an older, more Anglo-Saxon English in spelling (they use thorn), vocab but also style. It's alliterative which is the Anglo-Saxon poetic style while Chaucer uses rhyme.

So that divide is there really early - and Chaucer's style, the style of government officials in London (like him) and merchants in London wins. It becomes "English". I think there's really interesting stuff on this in American English because my understanding is it preserves older forms of English in some ways (basically from the time the colonists left) and some patterns actually reflect the regions of strong emigration to America (like East Anglia). But even now there's more legacy of Anglo-Saxon in Northern accents and dialects, especially the North-East ("gan" "toon") where there's also a more pronounced (and still audible) legacy of the Norse.

Having grown up in a country where it took centralised effort to save and standardise the language in the 19th century, it sure feels weird that while every region on the island share the same written language, they differ majorly on what sounds those written letters actually refer to.

Yeah so the whole standardisation of pronunciation ("RP"/"Queen's English") is basically an invention of the BBC and broadcasting.

The BBC invented a BBC accent which sounds posh now - but the idea from Lord Reith (the first Director-General, who had a Scottish accent - and did not use the BBC accent when he was broadcasting) was to speak in a way that no-one would not understand and no-one would mock It was different from the public school accent though. Now it's swung the other way and there is a general view and approach on the BBC and broadcasters that there basically should be diversity of accents in continuity announcers, newsreaders etc. Although the accents are broadly continuing to decline as estuary and MLE spreads - I think the exceptions where it will survive are areas where accent and dialect is bound up with a strong regional identity (the North-East, Liverpool, Manchester etc).

As I say there was a fairly standardised public school accent that emerged from public schools and universities (especially when their weren't many of them) that applied to that class - but not always entirely. So I think we cast back now and imagine posh people in the past all speaking with RP when, in fact, they often had distinctive accents of their own which were regional. Gladstone was reported as having a Lancashire accent. I think there's a recording of Lord Tennyson reading one of his poems and he has a Lincolnshire accent. And I don't think that's how we imagine the great Victorians, far less people further back.

In a way I think it's one of those weird things of Britain developing as a nation very late - basically in the 20th century. So I think it's likely that Parliament had more diverse accents in the 19th century when it was wildly posher than it did in the mid-twentieth century (and is now swinging back). It's a bit like how there are a number of, especially, Indian heritage MPs before the 30s when it's an imperial Parliament, and then all MPs are white until the 1980s which is Britain moving from empire to a nation and then the definition of who is within "the nation" evolving.

[HVC]

So you're saying the best part of English and England comes from the French? Next thing you're gonna tell poor josq is that the French introduced cars to England

[Sheilbh]

So you're saying the best part of English and England comes from the French? Next thing you're gonna tell poor josq is that the French introduced cars to England

The best part of English is its range and diversity (which was built in to the class system) - so the best part of English is that it's got both. For example your post is pretty solidly Anglo-Saxon, so if you really liked the French bit, it could be "so you're suggesting the superior portion of English and England originates from the French?"

But I've said before but I think more than any other countries, we've made each other. England gets the Norman invasion which totally remakes its society and the huge passive French influence as the most important court in Europe. Then the first Hundred Years War which leads to both "states" needing to modernise and develop. England does it with an absentee monarch off fighting in France, so parliament emerges and becomes very important particularly for money raising. The French, meanwhile, need to rein in unruly, disloyal, quasi-independent nobles which they do through the development of a strong central crown. Similar transformative processes in the second hundred years war across the 18th and early 19th century.

[HVC]

Curse you and your book smarts!

Or i guess

Damn you and your literary  intelligence!

I remember in English class going over some  British author who hated romance words in English so he'd try to avoid those words. His works were awkward as hell.

[Josquius]

Yes, that the French radically changed English and the 'truest English' is to be found in the north is pretty known.

Kind of related. My theories on the origin of the term Geordie seem ever more likely to be true. I had a chat with some guys who've looked into it too and they've come to similar conclusions and pointed out some sources that align with it.
Basically Geordie originally means people from much of the North East EXCEPT for Newcastle. It was sort of the old local word for hick.
Originally an insult. But much like daft c*#t developed into something you'd use with affinity with friends and then with time was stolen wholesale by townies who now insist anyone from outside the town isn't a Geordie.
Though it could also ultimately derive before that as an word for Scottish people.

[Jacob]

On the declining population, perhaps the massive changes in our diet impacts fertility sufficiently to be a contributing factor:

Not all calories are equal: Ultra-processed foods harm men's health

Research A groundbreaking human study has found that ultra-processed foods lead to increased weight, disrupt hormones and introduce harmful substances linked to declining sperm quality. The findings indicate that it is the processed nature of these foods that makes them harmful to cardiometabolic and reproductive health

Over the past 50 years, rates of obesity and type-2 diabetes have soared, while sperm quality has plummeted. Driving these changes could be the increasing popularity of ultra-processed foods, which have been linked to a range of poor health outcomes. However, scientists still aren't sure whether it's the industrial nature of the ingredients themselves, the processing of the foods, or whether it's because they lead people to eat more than they should.

An international team of scientists has now discovered that people gain more weight on an ultra-processed diet compared to a minimally processed diet, even when they eat the same number of calories. The study in humans also revealed a diet high in ultra-processed foods introduces higher levels of pollutants that are known to affect sperm quality. The findings were published in the journal Cell Metabolism.

What is an ultra-processed food?
The Nova classification system groups foods according to how processed they are. Group 1 is unprocessed or minimally processed foods like fresh meat and vegetables. Group 4 is ultra-processed foods, which contain industrial and synthetic ingredients that you wouldn't recognize on a supermarket shelf. They are also industrially manufactured using processes like moulding, extruding and pre-frying that help food producers introduce these synthetic ingredients in standardised and mass-produced foods. These ingredients and processes help to lower costs, increase shelf life and boost flavour of foods. However, evidence is mounting that these foods increase a range of cardiometabolic diseases, such as obesity.

Same calories, different outcomes
To get the best possible data, the scientists compared the health impact of unprocessed and ultra-processed diets on the same person. They recruited 43 men aged 20 to 35, who spent three weeks on each of the two diets, with three months 'washout' in between. Half started on the ultra-processed and half started on the unprocessed diet. Half of the men also received a high-calorie diet with an extra 500 daily calories, while half received the normal amount of calories for their size, age and physical activity levels. They were not told which diet they were on. Both the unprocessed and ultra-processed diets had the same amount of calories, protein, carbs and fats.

Men gained around 1 kg more of fat mass while on the ultra-processed diet compared to the unprocessed diet, regardless of whether they were on the normal or excess calorie diet. Several other markers of cardiovascular health were also affected.

Ultra-processed foods are polluted with endocrine disruptors
The scientists also discovered a worrying increase in the level of the hormone-disrupting phthalate cxMINP, a substance used in plastics, in men on the ultra-processed diet. Men on this diet also saw decreases in their levels of testosterone and follicle-stimulating hormone, which are crucial for sperm production.

"We were shocked by how many body functions were disrupted by ultra-processed foods, even in healthy young men. The long-term implications are alarming and highlight the need to revise nutritional guidelines to better protect against chronic disease." says the study's senior author Professor Romain Barrès from the University of Copenhagen's NNF Center for Basic Metabolic Research, and the Université Côte d'Azur.

Read the paper in Cell Metabolism: Effect of ultra-processed food consumption on male reproductive and metabolic health

Source: https://cbmr.ku.dk/news/2025/not-all-calories-are-equal-ultra-processed-foods-harm-mens-health/

Interesting (and pretty wild IMO), how eating the same number of calories, fats, and nutrients in general leads to a 1 kg wait gain over three weeks for those eating a highly processed diet vs those a eating minimally processed one.'

On the topic birthrates, it'd be interesting to see how closely the spread of highly processed diets match the various fertility drops.

[Norgy]

Your mum was right. Eat your veggies.

[Sheilbh]

Total aside and nothing to add but I thought this was really interesting:


My first thought was whether climate fatalism has an impact on this?

[Grey Fox]

It's money, no? Progressives have more chance to live in an urban environment and cities across the Western world have gotten prohibitedly expensive.