I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
Mr. Cookie, my parents pronounce scone in differing ways. I think it's the only such word for which that happens.
Where are they from? My parents pronounce lots of words differently - but one word which they pronounce the same, but differently to everyone else is 'cagoul' - which they pronounce to rhyme the 'gaggle'. Has anyone else come across this anywhere? I've only just thought of it as peculiar.
Not encountered that, but my mum always pronounced spoon to have the same 'oo' as book or look. She blamed a Welsh teacher at primary school, but I don't know whether that was fair.
What so "use your spun, hun" ... it'd sound like that?
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
Or people inappropriately using the nominative case first person pronoun, such as, "The scones were intended for you and I" instead of the correct "for you and me". That makes me wince.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
The truth is scone is one of few words without a strong class or North-South aspect to its pronunciation. It's a complex fractured map. So everyone things their way is the normal and natural way and the other way is pretentious, but they're mistaken.
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Anyway, Devon seems ambivalent/in places scone (cone) favouring and Cornwall goes for scone (cone). So surely that seals it. Plus parts of God's Own County, plus much of Essex.
The debate is over, my friends.
ETA: And the great seat of learning that is Kingston Upon Hull
The late Queen pronounce it 'scon'. And TSE is, of course, a republican.
But let us not stoop to the misplaced pedantry of Professor Higgins.
...An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him. One common language I'm afraid we'll never get. Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose English is painful to your ears? The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely
Disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!..
The Queen's mother was Scottish, of course, which may account for her pronunciation.
I would possibly die of cringe if I had to sit with someone who said “scone” to rhyme with “cone”. It could literally be lethal. Happily, no one in my social circle is that naff
I would possibly die of cringe if I had to sit with someone who said “scone” to rhyme with “cone”. It could literally be lethal. Happily, no one in my social circle is that naff
My sister in law is proper Derby and pronounces it like that. I try to grin and bear it.
I would possibly die of cringe if I had to sit with someone who said “scone” to rhyme with “cone”. It could literally be lethal. Happily, no one in my social circle is that naff
My sister in law is proper Derby and pronounces it like that. I try to grin and bear it.
Of course it rhymes with cone.
I am getting new insights into the fake-posh (rhyming with dosh, not dorsh) population of PB.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
The truth is scone is one of few words without a strong class or North-South aspect to its pronunciation. It's a complex fractured map. So everyone things their way is the normal and natural way and the other way is pretentious, but they're mistaken.
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
The late Queen said scone to rhyme with gone. That’s the posh and proper way. Below that is a layer of insecure middle class people. Or working class people trying to be middle class - @kinabalu - they say scone like cone
Below that is the uncaring working class and the feral Celts, they say it like the Queen
This isn’t actually an unusual pattern in British life. See the Brexit vote. Working class and very posh: Leave. Insecure middle: Remain
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
Or people inappropriately using the nominative case first person pronoun, such as, "The scones were intended for you and I" instead of the correct "for you and me". That makes me wince.
Yes using me for I is bad enough but using I for me is unforgiveable.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
The truth is scone is one of few words without a strong class or North-South aspect to its pronunciation. It's a complex fractured map. So everyone things their way is the normal and natural way and the other way is pretentious, but they're mistaken.
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
Yep, eg I say scone and so does my (very) poshgirl wife. What an amazing thing, what an amazing word. No shame whatsoever in this taking up a whole thread.
I would possibly die of cringe if I had to sit with someone who said “scone” to rhyme with “cone”. It could literally be lethal. Happily, no one in my social circle is that naff
Feel dutybound to warn that (not for the first time) you're coming over like Giles Coren.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
Or people inappropriately using the nominative case first person pronoun, such as, "The scones were intended for you and I" instead of the correct "for you and me". That makes me wince.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
The truth is scone is one of few words without a strong class or North-South aspect to its pronunciation. It's a complex fractured map. So everyone things their way is the normal and natural way and the other way is pretentious, but they're mistaken.
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
The late Queen said scone to rhyme with gone. That’s the posh and proper way. Below that is a layer of insecure middle class people. Or working class people trying to be middle class - @kinabalu - they say scone like cone
Below that is the uncaring working class and the feral Celts, they say it like the Queen
This isn’t actually an unusual pattern in British life. See the Brexit vote. Working class and very posh: Leave. Insecure middle: Remain
No, look at the map - the "cone" pronunciation is most prevalent in the midlands, the deindustrialised north and the Thames estuary, prime Leave areas, and least prevalent in the Remain heartland of Scotland. It's just another example of Leave voters being wrong about everything.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Anyway, Devon seems ambivalent/in places scone (cone) favouring and Cornwall goes for scone (cone). So surely that seals it. Plus parts of God's Own County, plus much of Essex.
The debate is over, my friends.
ETA: And the great seat of learning that is Kingston Upon Hull
The late Queen pronounce it 'scon'. And TSE is, of course, a republican.
But let us not stoop to the misplaced pedantry of Professor Higgins.
...An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him. One common language I'm afraid we'll never get. Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose English is painful to your ears? The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely
Disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!..
The Queen's mother was Scottish, of course, which may account for her pronunciation.
I think 'scon' is RP. Though the notion of RP is also hotly contested these days.
I would possibly die of cringe if I had to sit with someone who said “scone” to rhyme with “cone”. It could literally be lethal. Happily, no one in my social circle is that naff
Feel dutybound to warn that (not for the first time) you're coming over like Giles Coren.
I was hoping that one day we would bury our differences and meet in that notorious Belsize pub. Two north London lads. I’m afraid this is now impossible because, if we did meet, I would spend every second consumed with dread that you are about to say scone like “cone”, making me implode in a great Singularity of Cringe and turning the frontiers of NW3 into a “lower middle class” Event Horizon
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
The truth is scone is one of few words without a strong class or North-South aspect to its pronunciation. It's a complex fractured map. So everyone things their way is the normal and natural way and the other way is pretentious, but they're mistaken.
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
The truth is scone is one of few words without a strong class or North-South aspect to its pronunciation. It's a complex fractured map. So everyone things their way is the normal and natural way and the other way is pretentious, but they're mistaken.
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
The late Queen said scone to rhyme with gone. That’s the posh and proper way. Below that is a layer of insecure middle class people. Or working class people trying to be middle class - @kinabalu - they say scone like cone
Below that is the uncaring working class and the feral Celts, they say it like the Queen
This isn’t actually an unusual pattern in British life. See the Brexit vote. Working class and very posh: Leave. Insecure middle: Remain
No, look at the map - the "cone" pronunciation is most prevalent in the midlands, the deindustrialised north and the Thames estuary, prime Leave areas, and least prevalent in the Remain heartland of Scotland. It's just another example of Leave voters being wrong about everything.
Belief in ghosts also exhibits this weird social pattern - it is found in the working and upper classes. The insecure middle is profoundly skeptic
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
I take exception to that, Kinabalu !
- don't worry, I meant IRL. A guy I used to work with.
"Order anything. It'll be delicious, we're in Italy." "The Swiss are natural hoteliers." "Glenfiddich, the poor man's single malt." "Sorry about the skis, I've come straight from the airport."
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Anyway, Devon seems ambivalent/in places scone (cone) favouring and Cornwall goes for scone (cone). So surely that seals it. Plus parts of God's Own County, plus much of Essex.
The debate is over, my friends.
ETA: And the great seat of learning that is Kingston Upon Hull
The late Queen pronounce it 'scon'. And TSE is, of course, a republican.
But let us not stoop to the misplaced pedantry of Professor Higgins.
...An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him. One common language I'm afraid we'll never get. Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose English is painful to your ears? The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely
Disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!..
The Queen's mother was Scottish, of course, which may account for her pronunciation.
I think 'scon' is RP. Though the notion of RP is also hotly contested these days.
Indeed. It's fascinating to observe how HMQE2's accent evolved over the years.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Hmm, my birthplace is well in scone [cone] country; my adopted home on the cusp (~50:50). TSE is indeed in scone [cone] country, I believe. I'm shocked that some in God's Own County don't rhyme 'scone' with 'own'.
The big head scratcher though is the Scots - does the Scone in Stone of Scone not rhyme with Stone? And if it does rhyme with stone then what are they like saying the baked good all wrong? Scotch experts please explain
Scone the food is pronounced scon. Scone the place is pronounced Scoon.
It's a crazy world, right enough.
It can still rhyme with stone (stoon) though, in a broad Scottish accent?
Stone is stane in much of Scotland. Eg that fatuous wankstain SCon Michael Forsyth was instrumental in returning the Stane of Scone to Scotland, though to Edinburgh rather than Scone Abbey.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
Or people inappropriately using the nominative case first person pronoun, such as, "The scones were intended for you and I" instead of the correct "for you and me". That makes me wince.
How's yourself.
Does my fucking head in.
As for scone of course it's like gone. Leon is right tone is v non PLU.
Overnight, Ukraine has gone from exporter to blackout: exploiting weakened air defense, Russia destroyed 70-75% of Ukraine's thermal power production and 35-40% of hydro production in a spring spree of missile attacks https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1779812066330567001
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
The truth is scone is one of few words without a strong class or North-South aspect to its pronunciation. It's a complex fractured map. So everyone things their way is the normal and natural way and the other way is pretentious, but they're mistaken.
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
The late Queen said scone to rhyme with gone. That’s the posh and proper way. Below that is a layer of insecure middle class people. Or working class people trying to be middle class - @kinabalu - they say scone like cone
Below that is the uncaring working class and the feral Celts, they say it like the Queen
This isn’t actually an unusual pattern in British life. See the Brexit vote. Working class and very posh: Leave. Insecure middle: Remain
No, look at the map - the "cone" pronunciation is most prevalent in the midlands, the deindustrialised north and the Thames estuary, prime Leave areas, and least prevalent in the Remain heartland of Scotland. It's just another example of Leave voters being wrong about everything.
Belief in ghosts also exhibits this weird social pattern - it is found in the working and upper classes. The insecure middle is profoundly skeptic
I would possibly die of cringe if I had to sit with someone who said “scone” to rhyme with “cone”. It could literally be lethal. Happily, no one in my social circle is that naff
Only naff people have used the word "naff" since 2006....
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
Or people inappropriately using the nominative case first person pronoun, such as, "The scones were intended for you and I" instead of the correct "for you and me". That makes me wince.
How's yourself.
Does my fucking head in.
As for scone of course it's like gone. Leon is right tone is v non PLU.
Oh God, yourself, myself etc drive me nuts. Absolutely endemic in The Traitors. Every time one of them said it my daughter and I would exchange a look of weary disgust.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
I take exception to that, Kinabalu !
- don't worry, I meant IRL. A guy I used to work with.
"Order anything. It'll be delicious, we're in Italy." "The Swiss are natural hoteliers." "Glenfiddich, the poor man's single malt." "Sorry about the skis, I've come straight from the airport."
Always coming out with stuff like that.
The Swiss are natural hoteliers because they have the most famous and respected hotel management schools, and hotel management is an established and desired career in Switzerland in a way it is not anywhere else in the world. This comes from them having to use three languages, which helps, and also being the cradle of global tourism, when the world’s first tourists - rich Brits in the 19th century - started visiting the Alps
So, again, in trying to display your insouciant superiority you merely reveal your plebeian ignorance
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
The truth is scone is one of few words without a strong class or North-South aspect to its pronunciation. It's a complex fractured map. So everyone things their way is the normal and natural way and the other way is pretentious, but they're mistaken.
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
The late Queen said scone to rhyme with gone. That’s the posh and proper way. Below that is a layer of insecure middle class people. Or working class people trying to be middle class - @kinabalu - they say scone like cone
Below that is the uncaring working class and the feral Celts, they say it like the Queen
This isn’t actually an unusual pattern in British life. See the Brexit vote. Working class and very posh: Leave. Insecure middle: Remain
No, look at the map - the "cone" pronunciation is most prevalent in the midlands, the deindustrialised north and the Thames estuary, prime Leave areas, and least prevalent in the Remain heartland of Scotland. It's just another example of Leave voters being wrong about everything.
It's a class thing. Weird as it is but there you are.
Pity poor Kinabalu's wife having to wince through his pronunciation of it as though it didn't matter.
Same when she took him home for lunch for the first time and he held his knife like a pen.
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
What happens when the first deportee to Rwanda finds their way back here and is offered asylum as a result of being politically persecuted by the Rwandan government?
They mentioned on the news this morning that the government were in talks with other countries about replicating the Rwanda plan and one of those countries listed was Costa Rica.
It made me think, if Costa Rica became the destination it would make sense for anyone from the UK who is on their uppers to get over to France, lose their passport and pretend they can’t speak English and get on a small boat. You get moved to Costa Rica free of charge for a new start in the sun.
Funny, I thought similar. I found myself applying the Place in the Sun filter to the destinations mentioned. Armenia was another one. Why would Armenia be interested in Britain's asylum seekers? What if some of them were Azerbaijanis fleeing persecution in Iran? Or Turks?
Armenia might just be the worst country I’ve ever visited. In terms of hideous buildings and depressing architecture and awful weather. Despite its latitude it’s on a high plateau so it’s windy and cold most of the time. The Soviets left behind a ton of dreadful buildings and the Armenians have only added to that. In addition, the women are beautiful, the people are friendly, and the food is surprisingly good apart from the dried fish. I loved it
I always think countries with a lot of turmoil such as invasions and revolutions have the most beautiful women. Its natural selection as women compete for scarce men. Sadly the uk hasnt had an invasion or revolution for a long time.
I'm not sure natural selection works that quickly.
That said, I think it's true that during and immediately after wars, there tends to be a slight abundance of daughters born over sons (submariners and policemen, famously, tend to have daughters, ISTR). Not sure why that is. (Though I understand it's also true that men with a lot of testosterone disproportionately have daughters - perhaps that's the reason; during wars, men produce more testosterone?)
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
Or people inappropriately using the nominative case first person pronoun, such as, "The scones were intended for you and I" instead of the correct "for you and me". That makes me wince.
How's yourself.
Does my fucking head in.
As for scone of course it's like gone. Leon is right tone is v non PLU.
Oh God, yourself, myself etc drive me nuts. Absolutely endemic in The Traitors. Every time one of them said it my daughter and I would exchange a look of weary disgust.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Anyway, Devon seems ambivalent/in places scone (cone) favouring and Cornwall goes for scone (cone). So surely that seals it. Plus parts of God's Own County, plus much of Essex.
The debate is over, my friends.
ETA: And the great seat of learning that is Kingston Upon Hull
The late Queen pronounce it 'scon'. And TSE is, of course, a republican.
But let us not stoop to the misplaced pedantry of Professor Higgins.
...An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him. One common language I'm afraid we'll never get. Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose English is painful to your ears? The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely
Disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!..
The Queen's mother was Scottish, of course, which may account for her pronunciation.
I think 'scon' is RP. Though the notion of RP is also hotly contested these days.
Indeed. It's fascinating to observe how HMQE2's accent evolved over the years.
I would possibly die of cringe if I had to sit with someone who said “scone” to rhyme with “cone”. It could literally be lethal. Happily, no one in my social circle is that naff
My sister in law is proper Derby and pronounces it like that. I try to grin and bear it.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Hmm, my birthplace is well in scone [cone] country; my adopted home on the cusp (~50:50). TSE is indeed in scone [cone] country, I believe. I'm shocked that some in God's Own County don't rhyme 'scone' with 'own'.
The big head scratcher though is the Scots - does the Scone in Stone of Scone not rhyme with Stone? And if it does rhyme with stone then what are they like saying the baked good all wrong? Scotch experts please explain
Scone the food is pronounced scon. Scone the place is pronounced Scoon.
It's a crazy world, right enough.
It can still rhyme with stone (stoon) though, in a broad Scottish accent?
Stone is stane in much of Scotland. Eg that fatuous wankstain SCon Michael Forsyth was instrumental in returning the Stane of Scone to Scotland, though to Edinburgh rather than Scone Abbey.
Do you remember the boos as he walked up the High Street and Lawnmarket in the grey smirr behind the Land Rover, as if he was prime mourner in a funeral and about to bury the thing in the dogs' cemetery at the Castle?
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Hmm, my birthplace is well in scone [cone] country; my adopted home on the cusp (~50:50). TSE is indeed in scone [cone] country, I believe. I'm shocked that some in God's Own County don't rhyme 'scone' with 'own'.
The big head scratcher though is the Scots - does the Scone in Stone of Scone not rhyme with Stone? And if it does rhyme with stone then what are they like saying the baked good all wrong? Scotch experts please explain
Scone the food is pronounced scon. Scone the place is pronounced Scoon.
It's a crazy world, right enough.
It can still rhyme with stone (stoon) though, in a broad Scottish accent?
Stone is stane in much of Scotland. Eg that fatuous wankstain SCon Michael Forsyth was instrumental in returning the Stane of Scone to Scotland, though to Edinburgh rather than Scone Abbey.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
The truth is scone is one of few words without a strong class or North-South aspect to its pronunciation. It's a complex fractured map. So everyone things their way is the normal and natural way and the other way is pretentious, but they're mistaken.
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
The late Queen said scone to rhyme with gone. That’s the posh and proper way. Below that is a layer of insecure middle class people. Or working class people trying to be middle class - @kinabalu - they say scone like cone
Below that is the uncaring working class and the feral Celts, they say it like the Queen
This isn’t actually an unusual pattern in British life. See the Brexit vote. Working class and very posh: Leave. Insecure middle: Remain
No, look at the map - the "cone" pronunciation is most prevalent in the midlands, the deindustrialised north and the Thames estuary, prime Leave areas, and least prevalent in the Remain heartland of Scotland. It's just another example of Leave voters being wrong about everything.
Belief in ghosts also exhibits this weird social pattern - it is found in the working and upper classes. The insecure middle is profoundly skeptic
This is true, btw. Its a sociological known
Another thing the middle classes are right about.
Quite possibly so. I’m not being down on the aspiring middle classes
They are the people that get things done. The strivers. The shopkeepers. The accountants. The money men and the IT people and the managers of things. I just keep my social intercourse with them to a minimum because of the Cringe Factor
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Hmm, my birthplace is well in scone [cone] country; my adopted home on the cusp (~50:50). TSE is indeed in scone [cone] country, I believe. I'm shocked that some in God's Own County don't rhyme 'scone' with 'own'.
The big head scratcher though is the Scots - does the Scone in Stone of Scone not rhyme with Stone? And if it does rhyme with stone then what are they like saying the baked good all wrong? Scotch experts please explain
Scone the food is pronounced scon. Scone the place is pronounced Scoon.
It's a crazy world, right enough.
It can still rhyme with stone (stoon) though, in a broad Scottish accent?
Stone is stane in much of Scotland. Eg that fatuous wankstain SCon Michael Forsyth was instrumental in returning the Stane of Scone to Scotland, though to Edinburgh rather than Scone Abbey.
I don't think it's pronounced stane in Fife but maybe I'm misremembering, I haven't lived there since 1994.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Scone with the short 'o' reminds me of that same way of pronouncing hotel which some people do. It does have a Hyacinth Bouquet ring to it. No crime, far from it, but perhaps not something to aim for.
The opposite is true for me - scone to rhyme with cone sounds pretentious like 'an hotel'. But while it's not generally geographical, the map shows that you are from prime cone country, and scone to rhyme with cone no doubt sounds reassuringly authentic to you in the opposite way that scon does for me.
While we're on about this, I feel exactly the same way about the word 'dessert' - it sounds pretentious, like someone who consider the more authentic word 'pudding' indelicate. But my Irish friend feels exactly the opposite: to her, 'pudding' sounds posh, and 'dessert' more authentic.
I would possibly die of cringe if I had to sit with someone who said “scone” to rhyme with “cone”. It could literally be lethal. Happily, no one in my social circle is that naff
Feel dutybound to warn that (not for the first time) you're coming over like Giles Coren.
I was hoping that one day we would bury our differences and meet in that notorious Belsize pub. Two north London lads. I’m afraid this is now impossible because, if we did meet, I would spend every second consumed with dread that you are about to say scone like “cone”, making me implode in a great Singularity of Cringe and turning the frontiers of NW3 into a “lower middle class” Event Horizon
That is a ridiculously good impression of the ghastly man. Hats off.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Scone with the short 'o' reminds me of that same way of pronouncing hotel which some people do. It does have a Hyacinth Bouquet ring to it. No crime, far from it, but perhaps not something to aim for.
The opposite is true for me - scone to rhyme with cone sounds pretentious like 'an hotel'. But while it's not generally geographical, the map shows that you are from prime cone country, and scone to rhyme with cone no doubt sounds reassuringly authentic to you in the opposite way that scon does for me.
While we're on about this, I feel exactly the same way about the word 'dessert' - it sounds pretentious, like someone who consider the more authentic word 'pudding' indelicate. But my Irish friend feels exactly the opposite: to her, 'pudding' sounds posh, and 'dessert' more authentic.
You can have a pudding for dessert, along with many other dishes - but a dessert for pudding ?
Mr. Cookie, my parents pronounce scone in differing ways. I think it's the only such word for which that happens.
Where are they from? My parents pronounce lots of words differently - but one word which they pronounce the same, but differently to everyone else is 'cagoul' - which they pronounce to rhyme the 'gaggle'. Has anyone else come across this anywhere? I've only just thought of it as peculiar.
Not encountered that, but my mum always pronounced spoon to have the same 'oo' as book or look. She blamed a Welsh teacher at primary school, but I don't know whether that was fair.
What so "use your spun, hun" ... it'd sound like that?
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
The truth is scone is one of few words without a strong class or North-South aspect to its pronunciation. It's a complex fractured map. So everyone things their way is the normal and natural way and the other way is pretentious, but they're mistaken.
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
The late Queen said scone to rhyme with gone. That’s the posh and proper way. Below that is a layer of insecure middle class people. Or working class people trying to be middle class - @kinabalu - they say scone like cone
Below that is the uncaring working class and the feral Celts, they say it like the Queen
This isn’t actually an unusual pattern in British life. See the Brexit vote. Working class and very posh: Leave. Insecure middle: Remain
No, look at the map - the "cone" pronunciation is most prevalent in the midlands, the deindustrialised north and the Thames estuary, prime Leave areas, and least prevalent in the Remain heartland of Scotland. It's just another example of Leave voters being wrong about everything.
Belief in ghosts also exhibits this weird social pattern - it is found in the working and upper classes. The insecure middle is profoundly skeptic
This is true, btw. Its a sociological known
Another thing the middle classes are right about.
Quite possibly so. I’m not being down on the aspiring middle classes
They are the people that get things done. The strivers. The shopkeepers. The accountants. The money men and the IT people and the managers of things. I just keep my social intercourse with them to a minimum because of the Cringe Factor
They are my people. The upper classes and the proper working classes (rather than their aspirational upper reaches) are a closed book to me. I have long accepted my inner Alan Partridge so a bit of cringe is fine.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Anyway, Devon seems ambivalent/in places scone (cone) favouring and Cornwall goes for scone (cone). So surely that seals it. Plus parts of God's Own County, plus much of Essex.
The debate is over, my friends.
ETA: And the great seat of learning that is Kingston Upon Hull
The late Queen pronounce it 'scon'. And TSE is, of course, a republican.
But let us not stoop to the misplaced pedantry of Professor Higgins.
...An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him. One common language I'm afraid we'll never get. Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose English is painful to your ears? The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely
Disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!..
The Queen's mother was Scottish, of course, which may account for her pronunciation.
I think 'scon' is RP. Though the notion of RP is also hotly contested these days.
Indeed. It's fascinating to observe how HMQE2's accent evolved over the years.
When it came to scones, she remained adamantine.
A sad statement on the times that no one gives a feck how her etiolated heirs and their marry-ins pronounce it. Though no doubt the Mail is preparing a hit piece on Meghan pronouncing it skawn.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Scone with the short 'o' reminds me of that same way of pronouncing hotel which some people do. It does have a Hyacinth Bouquet ring to it. No crime, far from it, but perhaps not something to aim for.
The opposite is true for me - scone to rhyme with cone sounds pretentious like 'an hotel'. But while it's not generally geographical, the map shows that you are from prime cone country, and scone to rhyme with cone no doubt sounds reassuringly authentic to you in the opposite way that scon does for me.
While we're on about this, I feel exactly the same way about the word 'dessert' - it sounds pretentious, like someone who consider the more authentic word 'pudding' indelicate. But my Irish friend feels exactly the opposite: to her, 'pudding' sounds posh, and 'dessert' more authentic.
You can have a pudding for dessert, along with many other dishes - but a dessert for pudding ?
In my family, being told we are having cheese and biscuits and apple for pudding is routine.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Scone with the short 'o' reminds me of that same way of pronouncing hotel which some people do. It does have a Hyacinth Bouquet ring to it. No crime, far from it, but perhaps not something to aim for.
The opposite is true for me - scone to rhyme with cone sounds pretentious like 'an hotel'. But while it's not generally geographical, the map shows that you are from prime cone country, and scone to rhyme with cone no doubt sounds reassuringly authentic to you in the opposite way that scon does for me.
While we're on about this, I feel exactly the same way about the word 'dessert' - it sounds pretentious, like someone who consider the more authentic word 'pudding' indelicate. But my Irish friend feels exactly the opposite: to her, 'pudding' sounds posh, and 'dessert' more authentic.
You can have a pudding for dessert, along with many other dishes - but a dessert for pudding ?
In my family, being told we are having cheese and biscuits and apple for pudding is routine.
Is it too controversial to throw supper/dinner/tea into the mix here?
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Anyway, Devon seems ambivalent/in places scone (cone) favouring and Cornwall goes for scone (cone). So surely that seals it. Plus parts of God's Own County, plus much of Essex.
The debate is over, my friends.
ETA: And the great seat of learning that is Kingston Upon Hull
The late Queen pronounce it 'scon'. And TSE is, of course, a republican.
But let us not stoop to the misplaced pedantry of Professor Higgins.
...An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him. One common language I'm afraid we'll never get. Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose English is painful to your ears? The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely
Disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!..
The Queen's mother was Scottish, of course, which may account for her pronunciation.
I think 'scon' is RP. Though the notion of RP is also hotly contested these days.
Indeed. It's fascinating to observe how HMQE2's accent evolved over the years.
When it came to scones, she remained adamantine.
A sad statement on the times that no one gives a feck how her etiolated heirs and their marry-ins pronounce it. Though no doubt the Mail is preparing a hit piece on Meghan pronouncing it skawn.
You could argue that RP - with all its modulations over the decades - died with her.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Scone with the short 'o' reminds me of that same way of pronouncing hotel which some people do. It does have a Hyacinth Bouquet ring to it. No crime, far from it, but perhaps not something to aim for.
The opposite is true for me - scone to rhyme with cone sounds pretentious like 'an hotel'. But while it's not generally geographical, the map shows that you are from prime cone country, and scone to rhyme with cone no doubt sounds reassuringly authentic to you in the opposite way that scon does for me.
While we're on about this, I feel exactly the same way about the word 'dessert' - it sounds pretentious, like someone who consider the more authentic word 'pudding' indelicate. But my Irish friend feels exactly the opposite: to her, 'pudding' sounds posh, and 'dessert' more authentic.
You can have a pudding for dessert, along with many other dishes - but a dessert for pudding ?
In my family, being told we are having cheese and biscuits and apple for pudding is routine.
Is it too controversial to throw supper/dinner/tea into the mix here?
I would possibly die of cringe if I had to sit with someone who said “scone” to rhyme with “cone”. It could literally be lethal. Happily, no one in my social circle is that naff
Only naff people have used the word "naff" since 2006....
I’m trying to revive it. “Naff” is a great word which should be retrieved from the wagger pagger bagger of lexical history
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Scone with the short 'o' reminds me of that same way of pronouncing hotel which some people do. It does have a Hyacinth Bouquet ring to it. No crime, far from it, but perhaps not something to aim for.
The opposite is true for me - scone to rhyme with cone sounds pretentious like 'an hotel'. But while it's not generally geographical, the map shows that you are from prime cone country, and scone to rhyme with cone no doubt sounds reassuringly authentic to you in the opposite way that scon does for me.
While we're on about this, I feel exactly the same way about the word 'dessert' - it sounds pretentious, like someone who consider the more authentic word 'pudding' indelicate. But my Irish friend feels exactly the opposite: to her, 'pudding' sounds posh, and 'dessert' more authentic.
You can have a pudding for dessert, along with many other dishes - but a dessert for pudding ?
In my family, being told we are having cheese and biscuits and apple for pudding is routine.
Is it too controversial to throw supper/dinner/tea into the mix here?
Not at all. But you have to include High Tea. For instance, a Mallaig kipper, brown bread and butter; and a scone and perhaps a chunk of fruit loaf or cake, served with tea.
For instance, the Peacock Inn at Newhaven used to specialise in high teas in late afternoon - fried local fish and chips being the bedrock - though I'm ashamed to admit that I always had a pint of 70/- or heavy instead of the tea. There's now a Harry Ramsden s more or less opposite, but ...
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Scone with the short 'o' reminds me of that same way of pronouncing hotel which some people do. It does have a Hyacinth Bouquet ring to it. No crime, far from it, but perhaps not something to aim for.
The opposite is true for me - scone to rhyme with cone sounds pretentious like 'an hotel'. But while it's not generally geographical, the map shows that you are from prime cone country, and scone to rhyme with cone no doubt sounds reassuringly authentic to you in the opposite way that scon does for me.
While we're on about this, I feel exactly the same way about the word 'dessert' - it sounds pretentious, like someone who consider the more authentic word 'pudding' indelicate. But my Irish friend feels exactly the opposite: to her, 'pudding' sounds posh, and 'dessert' more authentic.
You can have a pudding for dessert, along with many other dishes - but a dessert for pudding ?
I accept that there is a common use of pudding to mean a particular sort of (*cringe*) dessert e.g. a sponge pudding. But to me a pudding is simply the last course of your meal (as long as it's sweet - though if someone said they were having cheese for their pudding, I wouldn't object). Also a steak and kidney pudding is a pudding. But to me that is an entirely different sense of the word pudding.
Pudding. It's just a much more enjoyable word. It can also be used as a mild insult. I don't really trust words like 'Dessert' where the emphasis is on the second syllable rather than the first. See also Cherie Blair.
Liz Truss has claimed that Boris Johnson confirmed suspicions about Michael Gove leaking damaging information during the 2019 Tory leadership contest.
Tensions between Truss and Gove were exacerbated after he withdrew his support for Johnson’s campaign to lead the Conservative Party, she said.
Details of the long, fractious relationship between the two leading Tories have been disclosed in her new book, Ten Years to Save the West. Truss has written a memoir about her 49 days as prime minister, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail.
She describes her anger at Gove when he withdrew his support at the last minute for Johnson’s first attempt to lead the Tory party in 2016. She wrote that, three years later, during a further leadership contest after Theresa May resigned, Johnson phoned her. He asked Truss whether “I’d leaked something”.
She replied: “I told him it had been Michael Gove — and what did he expect, given that Gove was a serial offender? I pressed him: ‘Did he think Gove had been leaking?’ Mr Johnson replied: ‘Do bears shit in the woods?’”
Has anyone ever actually seen a bear shitting in the woods? I haven’t. I bet no one on here has, either. It’s just one of those things we take as accepted: bears defecate in forested areas. It’s probably not true. Maybe they poo in glades. Maybe they go off and do their business by the sides of rivers, or in dedicated timber latrines constructed by beavers. Maybe they never poo at all, the same way sharks don’t urinate
I’ve also got my doubts about the orthodoxy of the Pontiff, but that’s for another time
I've encountered Black bears in the Cascades, annoyingly hanging around where we were indending to camp, but as it was the time of year for Huckleberries they were not defecating in the woods but in the open.
I think to encounter the phenomenon you would need to get closer than perhaps might be desired.
Naturally we pitched our tents elsewhere and were especially careful about hauling food into a tree about 100m away.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
The truth is scone is one of few words without a strong class or North-South aspect to its pronunciation. It's a complex fractured map. So everyone things their way is the normal and natural way and the other way is pretentious, but they're mistaken.
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
The late Queen said scone to rhyme with gone. That’s the posh and proper way. Below that is a layer of insecure middle class people. Or working class people trying to be middle class - @kinabalu - they say scone like cone
Below that is the uncaring working class and the feral Celts, they say it like the Queen
This isn’t actually an unusual pattern in British life. See the Brexit vote. Working class and very posh: Leave. Insecure middle: Remain
No, look at the map - the "cone" pronunciation is most prevalent in the midlands, the deindustrialised north and the Thames estuary, prime Leave areas, and least prevalent in the Remain heartland of Scotland. It's just another example of Leave voters being wrong about everything.
Belief in ghosts also exhibits this weird social pattern - it is found in the working and upper classes. The insecure middle is profoundly skeptic
This is true, btw. Its a sociological known
Another thing the middle classes are right about.
Quite possibly so. I’m not being down on the aspiring middle classes
They are the people that get things done. The strivers. The shopkeepers. The accountants. The money men and the IT people and the managers of things. I just keep my social intercourse with them to a minimum because of the Cringe Factor
I’ve heard that you try to avoid the tradesman’s entrance.
Though we Scots are less class obsessed I always liked counter jumper as an anachronistic class based insult. Tbf it would probably describe most of our political class nowadays, and PB for that matter.
Overnight, Ukraine has gone from exporter to blackout: exploiting weakened air defense, Russia destroyed 70-75% of Ukraine's thermal power production and 35-40% of hydro production in a spring spree of missile attacks https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1779812066330567001
There have been quite a few comments from Ukrainians contrasting the way Iran's attack on Isreal was repelled with the lack of air defence support for Ukraine.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Anyway, Devon seems ambivalent/in places scone (cone) favouring and Cornwall goes for scone (cone). So surely that seals it. Plus parts of God's Own County, plus much of Essex.
The debate is over, my friends.
ETA: And the great seat of learning that is Kingston Upon Hull
The late Queen pronounce it 'scon'. And TSE is, of course, a republican.
But let us not stoop to the misplaced pedantry of Professor Higgins.
...An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him. One common language I'm afraid we'll never get. Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose English is painful to your ears? The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely
Disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!..
The Queen's mother was Scottish, of course, which may account for her pronunciation.
I think 'scon' is RP. Though the notion of RP is also hotly contested these days.
Indeed. It's fascinating to observe how HMQE2's accent evolved over the years.
When it came to scones, she remained adamantine.
A sad statement on the times that no one gives a feck how her etiolated heirs and their marry-ins pronounce it. Though no doubt the Mail is preparing a hit piece on Meghan pronouncing it skawn.
You could argue that RP - with all its modulations over the decades - died with her.
It really hasn’t. My older daughter goes to a quite posh, highly coveted state Sixth Form in north London. They all speak pretty standard RP - not extreme like the young QE2 but deffo RP
It is still the accepted and necessary accent if you want to get on. Thank god. Because Multicultural London English is HIDEOUS
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
The truth is scone is one of few words without a strong class or North-South aspect to its pronunciation. It's a complex fractured map. So everyone things their way is the normal and natural way and the other way is pretentious, but they're mistaken.
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
The late Queen said scone to rhyme with gone. That’s the posh and proper way. Below that is a layer of insecure middle class people. Or working class people trying to be middle class - @kinabalu - they say scone like cone
Below that is the uncaring working class and the feral Celts, they say it like the Queen
This isn’t actually an unusual pattern in British life. See the Brexit vote. Working class and very posh: Leave. Insecure middle: Remain
No, look at the map - the "cone" pronunciation is most prevalent in the midlands, the deindustrialised north and the Thames estuary, prime Leave areas, and least prevalent in the Remain heartland of Scotland. It's just another example of Leave voters being wrong about everything.
Belief in ghosts also exhibits this weird social pattern - it is found in the working and upper classes. The insecure middle is profoundly skeptic
This is true, btw. Its a sociological known
Another thing the middle classes are right about.
Quite possibly so. I’m not being down on the aspiring middle classes
They are the people that get things done. The strivers. The shopkeepers. The accountants. The money men and the IT people and the managers of things. I just keep my social intercourse with them to a minimum because of the Cringe Factor
I’ve heard that you try to avoid the tradesman’s entrance.
Though we Scots are less class obsessed I always liked counter jumper as an anachronistic class based insult. Tbf it would probably describe most of our political class nowadays, and PB for that matter.
The Scots have sectarianism, the English have class. As it were
Liz Truss has claimed that Boris Johnson confirmed suspicions about Michael Gove leaking damaging information during the 2019 Tory leadership contest.
Tensions between Truss and Gove were exacerbated after he withdrew his support for Johnson’s campaign to lead the Conservative Party, she said.
Details of the long, fractious relationship between the two leading Tories have been disclosed in her new book, Ten Years to Save the West. Truss has written a memoir about her 49 days as prime minister, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail.
She describes her anger at Gove when he withdrew his support at the last minute for Johnson’s first attempt to lead the Tory party in 2016. She wrote that, three years later, during a further leadership contest after Theresa May resigned, Johnson phoned her. He asked Truss whether “I’d leaked something”.
She replied: “I told him it had been Michael Gove — and what did he expect, given that Gove was a serial offender? I pressed him: ‘Did he think Gove had been leaking?’ Mr Johnson replied: ‘Do bears shit in the woods?’”
Has anyone ever actually seen a bear shitting in the woods? I haven’t. I bet no one on here has, either. It’s just one of those things we take as accepted: bears defecate in forested areas. It’s probably not true. Maybe they poo in glades. Maybe they go off and do their business by the sides of rivers, or in dedicated timber latrines constructed by beavers. Maybe they never poo at all, the same way sharks don’t urinate
I’ve also got my doubts about the orthodoxy of the Pontiff, but that’s for another time
I've encountered Black bears in the Cascades, annoyingly hanging around where we were indending to camp, but as it was the time of year for Huckleberries they were not defecating in the woods but in the open.
I think to encounter the phenomenon you would need to get closer than perhaps might be desired.
Naturally we pitched our tents elsewhere and we especially careful about hauling food into a tree about 100m away.
In any case, Leon's 'glades' are by definition in forested areas ...
Presidential 'debates' have become purely performative —counterparts to Survivor or Bachelor or, in Trump's case, his shaving Vince McMahon's head on WrestleMania. This is 1000x true for any 'debate' involving Trump.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
The truth is scone is one of few words without a strong class or North-South aspect to its pronunciation. It's a complex fractured map. So everyone things their way is the normal and natural way and the other way is pretentious, but they're mistaken.
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
The late Queen said scone to rhyme with gone. That’s the posh and proper way. Below that is a layer of insecure middle class people. Or working class people trying to be middle class - @kinabalu - they say scone like cone
Below that is the uncaring working class and the feral Celts, they say it like the Queen
This isn’t actually an unusual pattern in British life. See the Brexit vote. Working class and very posh: Leave. Insecure middle: Remain
No, look at the map - the "cone" pronunciation is most prevalent in the midlands, the deindustrialised north and the Thames estuary, prime Leave areas, and least prevalent in the Remain heartland of Scotland. It's just another example of Leave voters being wrong about everything.
Belief in ghosts also exhibits this weird social pattern - it is found in the working and upper classes. The insecure middle is profoundly skeptic
This is true, btw. Its a sociological known
Another thing the middle classes are right about.
Quite possibly so. I’m not being down on the aspiring middle classes
They are the people that get things done. The strivers. The shopkeepers. The accountants. The money men and the IT people and the managers of things. I just keep my social intercourse with them to a minimum because of the Cringe Factor
I’ve heard that you try to avoid the tradesman’s entrance.
Though we Scots are less class obsessed I always liked counter jumper as an anachronistic class based insult. Tbf it would probably describe most of our political class nowadays, and PB for that matter.
The Scots have sectarianism, the English have class. As it were
I'm always astounded at the depths of PBScotch Expertise.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
I take exception to that, Kinabalu !
- don't worry, I meant IRL. A guy I used to work with.
"Order anything. It'll be delicious, we're in Italy." "The Swiss are natural hoteliers." "Glenfiddich, the poor man's single malt." "Sorry about the skis, I've come straight from the airport."
Always coming out with stuff like that.
The Swiss are natural hoteliers because they have the most famous and respected hotel management schools, and hotel management is an established and desired career in Switzerland in a way it is not anywhere else in the world. This comes from them having to use three languages, which helps, and also being the cradle of global tourism, when the world’s first tourists - rich Brits in the 19th century - started visiting the Alps
So, again, in trying to display your insouciant superiority you merely reveal your plebeian ignorance
I hear Bruges is nice in the spring
No, that tells us that the Swiss *train* lots of hoteliers.
Much like finding people in the vicinity of Cambridge who are good at maths doesn’t mean that the locals are natural mathematicians.
Interesting short segment of the Labour Candidate for Ashfield on Regional political TV, Rhea Keehn, with the probably-about-to-be-ejected Conservative MP for Gedling. 1 minute in.
RK sounds reasonable but trained to say not-a-lot at this stage; leave the Tories to kneecap themselves.
Gedling MP Tom Randall also sounds sane, but has a majority of about 1% so is (unless something local is going on) most likely headed for the exit.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Anyway, Devon seems ambivalent/in places scone (cone) favouring and Cornwall goes for scone (cone). So surely that seals it. Plus parts of God's Own County, plus much of Essex.
The debate is over, my friends.
ETA: And the great seat of learning that is Kingston Upon Hull
The late Queen pronounce it 'scon'. And TSE is, of course, a republican.
But let us not stoop to the misplaced pedantry of Professor Higgins.
...An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him. One common language I'm afraid we'll never get. Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose English is painful to your ears? The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely
Disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!..
The Queen's mother was Scottish, of course, which may account for her pronunciation.
I think 'scon' is RP. Though the notion of RP is also hotly contested these days.
Indeed. It's fascinating to observe how HMQE2's accent evolved over the years.
When it came to scones, she remained adamantine.
A sad statement on the times that no one gives a feck how her etiolated heirs and their marry-ins pronounce it. Though no doubt the Mail is preparing a hit piece on Meghan pronouncing it skawn.
You could argue that RP - with all its modulations over the decades - died with her.
It really hasn’t. My older daughter goes to a quite posh, highly coveted state Sixth Form in north London. They all speak pretty standard RP - not extreme like the young QE2 but deffo RP
It is still the accepted and necessary accent if you want to get on. Thank god. Because Multicultural London English is HIDEOUS
Maybe RP is still a thing because multicultural London English is hideous? Whereas in places with less grating accents it never really caught on. There's not a great deal of difference, for example, between working class Mancunian and middle class Mancunian. I'm not saying Terry Christian = Michael Atherton, but the gap between them is a lot less than the gap between either of them and either RP or MLE.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Scone with the short 'o' reminds me of that same way of pronouncing hotel which some people do. It does have a Hyacinth Bouquet ring to it. No crime, far from it, but perhaps not something to aim for.
The opposite is true for me - scone to rhyme with cone sounds pretentious like 'an hotel'. But while it's not generally geographical, the map shows that you are from prime cone country, and scone to rhyme with cone no doubt sounds reassuringly authentic to you in the opposite way that scon does for me.
While we're on about this, I feel exactly the same way about the word 'dessert' - it sounds pretentious, like someone who consider the more authentic word 'pudding' indelicate. But my Irish friend feels exactly the opposite: to her, 'pudding' sounds posh, and 'dessert' more authentic.
You can have a pudding for dessert, along with many other dishes - but a dessert for pudding ?
I accept that there is a common use of pudding to mean a particular sort of (*cringe*) dessert e.g. a sponge pudding. But to me a pudding is simply the last course of your meal (as long as it's sweet - though if someone said they were having cheese for their pudding, I wouldn't object). Also a steak and kidney pudding is a pudding. But to me that is an entirely different sense of the word pudding.
Pudding. It's just a much more enjoyable word. It can also be used as a mild insult. I don't really trust words like 'Dessert' where the emphasis is on the second syllable rather than the first. See also Cherie Blair.
I've never felt entirely comfortable about either usage, to be honest. I agree about the vibe of pudding/dessert, but dislike the lexical contradictions of the former.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Anyway, Devon seems ambivalent/in places scone (cone) favouring and Cornwall goes for scone (cone). So surely that seals it. Plus parts of God's Own County, plus much of Essex.
The debate is over, my friends.
ETA: And the great seat of learning that is Kingston Upon Hull
The late Queen pronounce it 'scon'. And TSE is, of course, a republican.
But let us not stoop to the misplaced pedantry of Professor Higgins.
...An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him. One common language I'm afraid we'll never get. Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose English is painful to your ears? The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely
Disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!..
The Queen's mother was Scottish, of course, which may account for her pronunciation.
I think 'scon' is RP. Though the notion of RP is also hotly contested these days.
Indeed. It's fascinating to observe how HMQE2's accent evolved over the years.
When it came to scones, she remained adamantine.
A sad statement on the times that no one gives a feck how her etiolated heirs and their marry-ins pronounce it. Though no doubt the Mail is preparing a hit piece on Meghan pronouncing it skawn.
You could argue that RP - with all its modulations over the decades - died with her.
It really hasn’t. My older daughter goes to a quite posh, highly coveted state Sixth Form in north London. They all speak pretty standard RP - not extreme like the young QE2 but deffo RP
It is still the accepted and necessary accent if you want to get on. Thank god. Because Multicultural London English is HIDEOUS
My daughter goes to a fairly average state primary school in Brockley with a mixed intake, and the children almost all speak RP with a few ethnic and national variations on the theme. In most cases they sound much posher than their parents or their teachers. No idea where it comes from.
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
What happens when the first deportee to Rwanda finds their way back here and is offered asylum as a result of being politically persecuted by the Rwandan government?
They mentioned on the news this morning that the government were in talks with other countries about replicating the Rwanda plan and one of those countries listed was Costa Rica.
It made me think, if Costa Rica became the destination it would make sense for anyone from the UK who is on their uppers to get over to France, lose their passport and pretend they can’t speak English and get on a small boat. You get moved to Costa Rica free of charge for a new start in the sun.
Funny, I thought similar. I found myself applying the Place in the Sun filter to the destinations mentioned. Armenia was another one. Why would Armenia be interested in Britain's asylum seekers? What if some of them were Azerbaijanis fleeing persecution in Iran? Or Turks?
Armenia might just be the worst country I’ve ever visited. In terms of hideous buildings and depressing architecture and awful weather. Despite its latitude it’s on a high plateau so it’s windy and cold most of the time. The Soviets left behind a ton of dreadful buildings and the Armenians have only added to that. In addition, the women are beautiful, the people are friendly, and the food is surprisingly good apart from the dried fish. I loved it
What other culture brought us * such a great mystical alphabet that's far deeper than any 22-letter crap and writes words in the proper direction * a stone circle that's far cooler than most because the stones have holes in them, and * Leonardo da Vinci?
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Scone with the short 'o' reminds me of that same way of pronouncing hotel which some people do. It does have a Hyacinth Bouquet ring to it. No crime, far from it, but perhaps not something to aim for.
The opposite is true for me - scone to rhyme with cone sounds pretentious like 'an hotel'. But while it's not generally geographical, the map shows that you are from prime cone country, and scone to rhyme with cone no doubt sounds reassuringly authentic to you in the opposite way that scon does for me.
While we're on about this, I feel exactly the same way about the word 'dessert' - it sounds pretentious, like someone who consider the more authentic word 'pudding' indelicate. But my Irish friend feels exactly the opposite: to her, 'pudding' sounds posh, and 'dessert' more authentic.
You can have a pudding for dessert, along with many other dishes - but a dessert for pudding ?
I accept that there is a common use of pudding to mean a particular sort of (*cringe*) dessert e.g. a sponge pudding. But to me a pudding is simply the last course of your meal (as long as it's sweet - though if someone said they were having cheese for their pudding, I wouldn't object). Also a steak and kidney pudding is a pudding. But to me that is an entirely different sense of the word pudding.
Pudding. It's just a much more enjoyable word. It can also be used as a mild insult. I don't really trust words like 'Dessert' where the emphasis is on the second syllable rather than the first. See also Cherie Blair.
Agreed. Sometimes I like to go even further and reduce the enjoyable “pudding” to the shocking terseness of “pud”
“Dessert” is Cringe Factor 8. The solidly working class “afters” is better, and it’s arguable that even “sweet” is preferable
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
The truth is scone is one of few words without a strong class or North-South aspect to its pronunciation. It's a complex fractured map. So everyone things their way is the normal and natural way and the other way is pretentious, but they're mistaken.
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
The late Queen said scone to rhyme with gone. That’s the posh and proper way. Below that is a layer of insecure middle class people. Or working class people trying to be middle class - @kinabalu - they say scone like cone
Below that is the uncaring working class and the feral Celts, they say it like the Queen
This isn’t actually an unusual pattern in British life. See the Brexit vote. Working class and very posh: Leave. Insecure middle: Remain
No, look at the map - the "cone" pronunciation is most prevalent in the midlands, the deindustrialised north and the Thames estuary, prime Leave areas, and least prevalent in the Remain heartland of Scotland. It's just another example of Leave voters being wrong about everything.
Belief in ghosts also exhibits this weird social pattern - it is found in the working and upper classes. The insecure middle is profoundly skeptic
This is true, btw. Its a sociological known
Another thing the middle classes are right about.
Quite possibly so. I’m not being down on the aspiring middle classes
They are the people that get things done. The strivers. The shopkeepers. The accountants. The money men and the IT people and the managers of things. I just keep my social intercourse with them to a minimum because of the Cringe Factor
I’ve heard that you try to avoid the tradesman’s entrance.
Though we Scots are less class obsessed I always liked counter jumper as an anachronistic class based insult. Tbf it would probably describe most of our political class nowadays, and PB for that matter.
The Scots have sectarianism, the English have class. As it were
I'm always astounded at the depths of PBScotch Expertise.
I strongly believe that the prejudice against blending and the worship of single malts is a mistake.
Much as the worship of wine from single, often tiny, piece of land is to neglect a whole host of skills in the truly able winemaker.
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
What happens when the first deportee to Rwanda finds their way back here and is offered asylum as a result of being politically persecuted by the Rwandan government?
They mentioned on the news this morning that the government were in talks with other countries about replicating the Rwanda plan and one of those countries listed was Costa Rica.
It made me think, if Costa Rica became the destination it would make sense for anyone from the UK who is on their uppers to get over to France, lose their passport and pretend they can’t speak English and get on a small boat. You get moved to Costa Rica free of charge for a new start in the sun.
Funny, I thought similar. I found myself applying the Place in the Sun filter to the destinations mentioned. Armenia was another one. Why would Armenia be interested in Britain's asylum seekers? What if some of them were Azerbaijanis fleeing persecution in Iran? Or Turks?
Armenia might just be the worst country I’ve ever visited. In terms of hideous buildings and depressing architecture and awful weather. Despite its latitude it’s on a high plateau so it’s windy and cold most of the time. The Soviets left behind a ton of dreadful buildings and the Armenians have only added to that. In addition, the women are beautiful, the people are friendly, and the food is surprisingly good apart from the dried fish. I loved it
I always think countries with a lot of turmoil such as invasions and revolutions have the most beautiful women. Its natural selection as women compete for scarce men. Sadly the uk hasnt had an invasion or revolution for a long time.
I'm not sure natural selection works that quickly.
That said, I think it's true that during and immediately after wars, there tends to be a slight abundance of daughters born over sons (submariners and policemen, famously, tend to have daughters, ISTR). Not sure why that is. (Though I understand it's also true that men with a lot of testosterone disproportionately have daughters - perhaps that's the reason; during wars, men produce more testosterone?)
The submariners one, from a quick google, looks like a case of green jelly beans giving you acne. There is a dose response in one article[1] (although not consistently) but for things like this you really want a randomised sample. Survey may not cut it, particularly if the expected association is known - fathers of girls think, "hey I wonder if there really is anything in that rumour; I'll respond". Only some studies find associations [1,2,3]
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Anyway, Devon seems ambivalent/in places scone (cone) favouring and Cornwall goes for scone (cone). So surely that seals it. Plus parts of God's Own County, plus much of Essex.
The debate is over, my friends.
ETA: And the great seat of learning that is Kingston Upon Hull
The late Queen pronounce it 'scon'. And TSE is, of course, a republican.
But let us not stoop to the misplaced pedantry of Professor Higgins.
...An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him. One common language I'm afraid we'll never get. Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose English is painful to your ears? The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely
Disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!..
The Queen's mother was Scottish, of course, which may account for her pronunciation.
I think 'scon' is RP. Though the notion of RP is also hotly contested these days.
Indeed. It's fascinating to observe how HMQE2's accent evolved over the years.
When it came to scones, she remained adamantine.
A sad statement on the times that no one gives a feck how her etiolated heirs and their marry-ins pronounce it. Though no doubt the Mail is preparing a hit piece on Meghan pronouncing it skawn.
You could argue that RP - with all its modulations over the decades - died with her.
It really hasn’t. My older daughter goes to a quite posh, highly coveted state Sixth Form in north London. They all speak pretty standard RP - not extreme like the young QE2 but deffo RP
It is still the accepted and necessary accent if you want to get on. Thank god. Because Multicultural London English is HIDEOUS
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Scone with the short 'o' reminds me of that same way of pronouncing hotel which some people do. It does have a Hyacinth Bouquet ring to it. No crime, far from it, but perhaps not something to aim for.
The opposite is true for me - scone to rhyme with cone sounds pretentious like 'an hotel'. But while it's not generally geographical, the map shows that you are from prime cone country, and scone to rhyme with cone no doubt sounds reassuringly authentic to you in the opposite way that scon does for me.
While we're on about this, I feel exactly the same way about the word 'dessert' - it sounds pretentious, like someone who consider the more authentic word 'pudding' indelicate. But my Irish friend feels exactly the opposite: to her, 'pudding' sounds posh, and 'dessert' more authentic.
Well I'm with you on that one. "What's for pudding?" is what you say when you've finished your meat and two veg.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
The truth is scone is one of few words without a strong class or North-South aspect to its pronunciation. It's a complex fractured map. So everyone things their way is the normal and natural way and the other way is pretentious, but they're mistaken.
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
The late Queen said scone to rhyme with gone. That’s the posh and proper way. Below that is a layer of insecure middle class people. Or working class people trying to be middle class - @kinabalu - they say scone like cone
Below that is the uncaring working class and the feral Celts, they say it like the Queen
This isn’t actually an unusual pattern in British life. See the Brexit vote. Working class and very posh: Leave. Insecure middle: Remain
No, look at the map - the "cone" pronunciation is most prevalent in the midlands, the deindustrialised north and the Thames estuary, prime Leave areas, and least prevalent in the Remain heartland of Scotland. It's just another example of Leave voters being wrong about everything.
Belief in ghosts also exhibits this weird social pattern - it is found in the working and upper classes. The insecure middle is profoundly skeptic
This is true, btw. Its a sociological known
Another thing the middle classes are right about.
Quite possibly so. I’m not being down on the aspiring middle classes
They are the people that get things done. The strivers. The shopkeepers. The accountants. The money men and the IT people and the managers of things. I just keep my social intercourse with them to a minimum because of the Cringe Factor
I’ve heard that you try to avoid the tradesman’s entrance.
Though we Scots are less class obsessed I always liked counter jumper as an anachronistic class based insult. Tbf it would probably describe most of our political class nowadays, and PB for that matter.
The Scots have sectarianism, the English have class. As it were
I'm always astounded at the depths of PBScotch Expertise.
I strongly believe that the prejudice against blending and the worship of single malts is a mistake.
Much as the worship of wine from single, often tiny, piece of land is to neglect a whole host of skills in the truly able winemaker.
There are some excellent blends around - most obviously Grouse.
Actually, there's a lot to be said for Glenfiddich as an *introduction* to single malts for the timid southron. It certainly expanded the market in that sense, historically, and it has that role still even now.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
The truth is scone is one of few words without a strong class or North-South aspect to its pronunciation. It's a complex fractured map. So everyone things their way is the normal and natural way and the other way is pretentious, but they're mistaken.
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
The late Queen said scone to rhyme with gone. That’s the posh and proper way. Below that is a layer of insecure middle class people. Or working class people trying to be middle class - @kinabalu - they say scone like cone
Below that is the uncaring working class and the feral Celts, they say it like the Queen
This isn’t actually an unusual pattern in British life. See the Brexit vote. Working class and very posh: Leave. Insecure middle: Remain
No, look at the map - the "cone" pronunciation is most prevalent in the midlands, the deindustrialised north and the Thames estuary, prime Leave areas, and least prevalent in the Remain heartland of Scotland. It's just another example of Leave voters being wrong about everything.
Belief in ghosts also exhibits this weird social pattern - it is found in the working and upper classes. The insecure middle is profoundly skeptic
This is true, btw. Its a sociological known
Another thing the middle classes are right about.
Quite possibly so. I’m not being down on the aspiring middle classes
They are the people that get things done. The strivers. The shopkeepers. The accountants. The money men and the IT people and the managers of things. I just keep my social intercourse with them to a minimum because of the Cringe Factor
I’ve heard that you try to avoid the tradesman’s entrance.
Though we Scots are less class obsessed I always liked counter jumper as an anachronistic class based insult. Tbf it would probably describe most of our political class nowadays, and PB for that matter.
The Scots have sectarianism, the English have class. As it were
I'm always astounded at the depths of PBScotch Expertise.
You are so pathetically sensitive to anything that might insult Scotland. You do know this exhibits a ginormous inferiority complex?
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Scone with the short 'o' reminds me of that same way of pronouncing hotel which some people do. It does have a Hyacinth Bouquet ring to it. No crime, far from it, but perhaps not something to aim for.
The opposite is true for me - scone to rhyme with cone sounds pretentious like 'an hotel'. But while it's not generally geographical, the map shows that you are from prime cone country, and scone to rhyme with cone no doubt sounds reassuringly authentic to you in the opposite way that scon does for me.
While we're on about this, I feel exactly the same way about the word 'dessert' - it sounds pretentious, like someone who consider the more authentic word 'pudding' indelicate. But my Irish friend feels exactly the opposite: to her, 'pudding' sounds posh, and 'dessert' more authentic.
You can have a pudding for dessert, along with many other dishes - but a dessert for pudding ?
I accept that there is a common use of pudding to mean a particular sort of (*cringe*) dessert e.g. a sponge pudding. But to me a pudding is simply the last course of your meal (as long as it's sweet - though if someone said they were having cheese for their pudding, I wouldn't object). Also a steak and kidney pudding is a pudding. But to me that is an entirely different sense of the word pudding.
Pudding. It's just a much more enjoyable word. It can also be used as a mild insult. I don't really trust words like 'Dessert' where the emphasis is on the second syllable rather than the first. See also Cherie Blair.
This is problematic.
Savoury puddings are a long tradition, as part of the main course.
For example onion pudding, or even Yorkshire Pudding.
Around here (the core "scone as in cone" country) we also use "pudding" for "scone as in gone" types - as in "you daft pudding".
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Anyway, Devon seems ambivalent/in places scone (cone) favouring and Cornwall goes for scone (cone). So surely that seals it. Plus parts of God's Own County, plus much of Essex.
The debate is over, my friends.
ETA: And the great seat of learning that is Kingston Upon Hull
The late Queen pronounce it 'scon'. And TSE is, of course, a republican.
But let us not stoop to the misplaced pedantry of Professor Higgins.
...An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him. One common language I'm afraid we'll never get. Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose English is painful to your ears? The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely
Disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!..
The Queen's mother was Scottish, of course, which may account for her pronunciation.
I think 'scon' is RP. Though the notion of RP is also hotly contested these days.
Indeed. It's fascinating to observe how HMQE2's accent evolved over the years.
When it came to scones, she remained adamantine.
A sad statement on the times that no one gives a feck how her etiolated heirs and their marry-ins pronounce it. Though no doubt the Mail is preparing a hit piece on Meghan pronouncing it skawn.
You could argue that RP - with all its modulations over the decades - died with her.
It really hasn’t. My older daughter goes to a quite posh, highly coveted state Sixth Form in north London. They all speak pretty standard RP - not extreme like the young QE2 but deffo RP
It is still the accepted and necessary accent if you want to get on. Thank god. Because Multicultural London English is HIDEOUS
My daughter goes to a fairly average state primary school in Brockley with a mixed intake, and the children almost all speak RP with a few ethnic and national variations on the theme. In most cases they sound much posher than their parents or their teachers. No idea where it comes from.
At secondary school the girls' and boys' accents diverge in a weird way. The girls are all Oh yah and the boys are You get me, blud?
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
The truth is scone is one of few words without a strong class or North-South aspect to its pronunciation. It's a complex fractured map. So everyone things their way is the normal and natural way and the other way is pretentious, but they're mistaken.
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
The late Queen said scone to rhyme with gone. That’s the posh and proper way. Below that is a layer of insecure middle class people. Or working class people trying to be middle class - @kinabalu - they say scone like cone
Below that is the uncaring working class and the feral Celts, they say it like the Queen
This isn’t actually an unusual pattern in British life. See the Brexit vote. Working class and very posh: Leave. Insecure middle: Remain
No, look at the map - the "cone" pronunciation is most prevalent in the midlands, the deindustrialised north and the Thames estuary, prime Leave areas, and least prevalent in the Remain heartland of Scotland. It's just another example of Leave voters being wrong about everything.
Belief in ghosts also exhibits this weird social pattern - it is found in the working and upper classes. The insecure middle is profoundly skeptic
This is true, btw. Its a sociological known
Another thing the middle classes are right about.
Quite possibly so. I’m not being down on the aspiring middle classes
They are the people that get things done. The strivers. The shopkeepers. The accountants. The money men and the IT people and the managers of things. I just keep my social intercourse with them to a minimum because of the Cringe Factor
I’ve heard that you try to avoid the tradesman’s entrance.
Though we Scots are less class obsessed I always liked counter jumper as an anachronistic class based insult. Tbf it would probably describe most of our political class nowadays, and PB for that matter.
The Scots have sectarianism, the English have class. As it were
I'm always astounded at the depths of PBScotch Expertise.
You are so pathetically sensitive to anything that might insult Scotland. You do know this exhibits a ginormous inferiority complex?
Not insult, just flat out inaccuracy. It offends me. Inherently. Like claiming that Hereford is in Essex.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Scone with the short 'o' reminds me of that same way of pronouncing hotel which some people do. It does have a Hyacinth Bouquet ring to it. No crime, far from it, but perhaps not something to aim for.
The opposite is true for me - scone to rhyme with cone sounds pretentious like 'an hotel'. But while it's not generally geographical, the map shows that you are from prime cone country, and scone to rhyme with cone no doubt sounds reassuringly authentic to you in the opposite way that scon does for me.
While we're on about this, I feel exactly the same way about the word 'dessert' - it sounds pretentious, like someone who consider the more authentic word 'pudding' indelicate. But my Irish friend feels exactly the opposite: to her, 'pudding' sounds posh, and 'dessert' more authentic.
You can have a pudding for dessert, along with many other dishes - but a dessert for pudding ?
I accept that there is a common use of pudding to mean a particular sort of (*cringe*) dessert e.g. a sponge pudding. But to me a pudding is simply the last course of your meal (as long as it's sweet - though if someone said they were having cheese for their pudding, I wouldn't object). Also a steak and kidney pudding is a pudding. But to me that is an entirely different sense of the word pudding.
Pudding. It's just a much more enjoyable word. It can also be used as a mild insult. I don't really trust words like 'Dessert' where the emphasis is on the second syllable rather than the first. See also Cherie Blair.
Agreed. Sometimes I like to go even further and reduce the enjoyable “pudding” to the shocking terseness of “pud”
“Dessert” is Cringe Factor 8. The solidly working class “afters” is better, and it’s arguable that even “sweet” is preferable
'Afters' is fine - perfectly acceptable to say, though as you say, quite working class, which means that if you are middle class and use it you sound like you're needlessly trying to give the impression that you aren't middle class. 'Sweet' is slightly ridiculous, but still probably better than 'dessert'. But both - along with dessert - have the feeling of a euphemism for something that really doesn't need a euphemism. I blame the sort of women who think that pudding is somehow naughty.
Overnight, Ukraine has gone from exporter to blackout: exploiting weakened air defense, Russia destroyed 70-75% of Ukraine's thermal power production and 35-40% of hydro production in a spring spree of missile attacks https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1779812066330567001
There have been quite a few comments from Ukrainians contrasting the way Iran's attack on Israel was repelled with the lack of air defence support for Ukraine.
Also this kind of comment.
The United States has supplied 0 out of 841 of its F-16 fighters to Ukrainian defenders, 0 out of 60 of its Patriot batteries, and 31 of its 8000 reserve Abrams tanks.
The comparison isn't a direct one - Ukraine is a far larger country than Israel, with very different air defence challenges (though facing a lot of the same weapons) - but it's not unfair.
The fact that they're also desperately short of such low end but essential stuff like mortar bombs -for their own defence - is a huge contrast between the treatment of the two states.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
The truth is scone is one of few words without a strong class or North-South aspect to its pronunciation. It's a complex fractured map. So everyone things their way is the normal and natural way and the other way is pretentious, but they're mistaken.
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
The late Queen said scone to rhyme with gone. That’s the posh and proper way. Below that is a layer of insecure middle class people. Or working class people trying to be middle class - @kinabalu - they say scone like cone
Below that is the uncaring working class and the feral Celts, they say it like the Queen
This isn’t actually an unusual pattern in British life. See the Brexit vote. Working class and very posh: Leave. Insecure middle: Remain
No, look at the map - the "cone" pronunciation is most prevalent in the midlands, the deindustrialised north and the Thames estuary, prime Leave areas, and least prevalent in the Remain heartland of Scotland. It's just another example of Leave voters being wrong about everything.
Belief in ghosts also exhibits this weird social pattern - it is found in the working and upper classes. The insecure middle is profoundly skeptic
This is true, btw. Its a sociological known
Another thing the middle classes are right about.
Quite possibly so. I’m not being down on the aspiring middle classes
They are the people that get things done. The strivers. The shopkeepers. The accountants. The money men and the IT people and the managers of things. I just keep my social intercourse with them to a minimum because of the Cringe Factor
I’ve heard that you try to avoid the tradesman’s entrance.
Though we Scots are less class obsessed I always liked counter jumper as an anachronistic class based insult. Tbf it would probably describe most of our political class nowadays, and PB for that matter.
The Scots have sectarianism, the English have class. As it were
The Scots have class too, watch (or read) Trainspotting, it's all about class.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Anyway, Devon seems ambivalent/in places scone (cone) favouring and Cornwall goes for scone (cone). So surely that seals it. Plus parts of God's Own County, plus much of Essex.
The debate is over, my friends.
ETA: And the great seat of learning that is Kingston Upon Hull
The late Queen pronounce it 'scon'. And TSE is, of course, a republican.
But let us not stoop to the misplaced pedantry of Professor Higgins.
...An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him. One common language I'm afraid we'll never get. Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose English is painful to your ears? The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely
Disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!..
The Queen's mother was Scottish, of course, which may account for her pronunciation.
I think 'scon' is RP. Though the notion of RP is also hotly contested these days.
Indeed. It's fascinating to observe how HMQE2's accent evolved over the years.
When it came to scones, she remained adamantine.
A sad statement on the times that no one gives a feck how her etiolated heirs and their marry-ins pronounce it. Though no doubt the Mail is preparing a hit piece on Meghan pronouncing it skawn.
You could argue that RP - with all its modulations over the decades - died with her.
It really hasn’t. My older daughter goes to a quite posh, highly coveted state Sixth Form in north London. They all speak pretty standard RP - not extreme like the young QE2 but deffo RP
It is still the accepted and necessary accent if you want to get on. Thank god. Because Multicultural London English is HIDEOUS
That's no longer RP; it's just richspeak.
There was a time when the two weren't identical.
Probably true but I think that’s because the super poshos came somewhat downmarket as they started to sound ridiculous. Like the young QE2
It is a fascinating subject. Like - why do Scottish accents often sound quite posh and educated to RP English people (not Glasgow obvs) yet Irish, Welsh and West Country do not?
It must be a legacy of when Scotland - before the SNP - had a good education system and exported a lot of doctors, engineers, scientists etc
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Anyway, Devon seems ambivalent/in places scone (cone) favouring and Cornwall goes for scone (cone). So surely that seals it. Plus parts of God's Own County, plus much of Essex.
The debate is over, my friends.
ETA: And the great seat of learning that is Kingston Upon Hull
The late Queen pronounce it 'scon'. And TSE is, of course, a republican.
But let us not stoop to the misplaced pedantry of Professor Higgins.
...An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him. One common language I'm afraid we'll never get. Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose English is painful to your ears? The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely
Disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!..
The Queen's mother was Scottish, of course, which may account for her pronunciation.
I think 'scon' is RP. Though the notion of RP is also hotly contested these days.
Indeed. It's fascinating to observe how HMQE2's accent evolved over the years.
When it came to scones, she remained adamantine.
A sad statement on the times that no one gives a feck how her etiolated heirs and their marry-ins pronounce it. Though no doubt the Mail is preparing a hit piece on Meghan pronouncing it skawn.
You could argue that RP - with all its modulations over the decades - died with her.
It really hasn’t. My older daughter goes to a quite posh, highly coveted state Sixth Form in north London. They all speak pretty standard RP - not extreme like the young QE2 but deffo RP
It is still the accepted and necessary accent if you want to get on. Thank god. Because Multicultural London English is HIDEOUS
That's something we can all agree on. Bring back Cockney.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Scone with the short 'o' reminds me of that same way of pronouncing hotel which some people do. It does have a Hyacinth Bouquet ring to it. No crime, far from it, but perhaps not something to aim for.
The opposite is true for me - scone to rhyme with cone sounds pretentious like 'an hotel'. But while it's not generally geographical, the map shows that you are from prime cone country, and scone to rhyme with cone no doubt sounds reassuringly authentic to you in the opposite way that scon does for me.
While we're on about this, I feel exactly the same way about the word 'dessert' - it sounds pretentious, like someone who consider the more authentic word 'pudding' indelicate. But my Irish friend feels exactly the opposite: to her, 'pudding' sounds posh, and 'dessert' more authentic.
You can have a pudding for dessert, along with many other dishes - but a dessert for pudding ?
I accept that there is a common use of pudding to mean a particular sort of (*cringe*) dessert e.g. a sponge pudding. But to me a pudding is simply the last course of your meal (as long as it's sweet - though if someone said they were having cheese for their pudding, I wouldn't object). Also a steak and kidney pudding is a pudding. But to me that is an entirely different sense of the word pudding.
Pudding. It's just a much more enjoyable word. It can also be used as a mild insult. I don't really trust words like 'Dessert' where the emphasis is on the second syllable rather than the first. See also Cherie Blair.
This is problematic.
Savoury puddings are a long tradition, as part of the main course.
For example onion pudding.
Around here (the core "scone as in cone" country) we also use "pudding" for "scone as in gone" types - as in "you daft pudding".
Indeed, yes. No problem with that. I'll have a steak and kidney pudding, and then sponge pudding for pudding.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Yes, “scone” to rhyme with “cone” is surely a lower middle class genteelism, like “serviette”. I can see John Betjeman quietly wincing when I hear it
Opposite - the short 'o' for scone sounds odd and pretentious to me. Maybe because the only person I know who says it that way is odd and pretentious.
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
The truth is scone is one of few words without a strong class or North-South aspect to its pronunciation. It's a complex fractured map. So everyone things their way is the normal and natural way and the other way is pretentious, but they're mistaken.
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
The late Queen said scone to rhyme with gone. That’s the posh and proper way. Below that is a layer of insecure middle class people. Or working class people trying to be middle class - @kinabalu - they say scone like cone
Below that is the uncaring working class and the feral Celts, they say it like the Queen
This isn’t actually an unusual pattern in British life. See the Brexit vote. Working class and very posh: Leave. Insecure middle: Remain
No, look at the map - the "cone" pronunciation is most prevalent in the midlands, the deindustrialised north and the Thames estuary, prime Leave areas, and least prevalent in the Remain heartland of Scotland. It's just another example of Leave voters being wrong about everything.
Belief in ghosts also exhibits this weird social pattern - it is found in the working and upper classes. The insecure middle is profoundly skeptic
This is true, btw. Its a sociological known
Another thing the middle classes are right about.
Quite possibly so. I’m not being down on the aspiring middle classes
They are the people that get things done. The strivers. The shopkeepers. The accountants. The money men and the IT people and the managers of things. I just keep my social intercourse with them to a minimum because of the Cringe Factor
I’ve heard that you try to avoid the tradesman’s entrance.
Though we Scots are less class obsessed I always liked counter jumper as an anachronistic class based insult. Tbf it would probably describe most of our political class nowadays, and PB for that matter.
The Scots have sectarianism, the English have class. As it were
The Scots have class too, watch (or read) Trainspotting, it's all about class.
Comments
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-is-latin-america-so-violent/
My favourite on this is when you get people who naturally do short 'a's (eg people from the North) trying too hard to change to the (perceived) classier Southern long 'a' sound.
It can lead to horrors such as the "garse cooker".
I struggle to think of another word like that in the English language.
I am getting new insights into the fake-posh (rhyming with dosh, not dorsh) population of PB.
Below that is the uncaring working class and the feral Celts, they say it like the Queen
This isn’t actually an unusual pattern in British life. See the Brexit vote. Working class and very posh: Leave. Insecure middle: Remain
This has now happened it seems - gun-show-sellers and online gun-sellers are now not able to dodge doing background checks.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/11/gun-show-internet-sale-mandatory-background-check
Though the notion of RP is also hotly contested these days.
This is true, btw. Its a sociological known
"Order anything. It'll be delicious, we're in Italy."
"The Swiss are natural hoteliers."
"Glenfiddich, the poor man's single malt."
"Sorry about the skis, I've come straight from the airport."
Always coming out with stuff like that.
Eg that fatuous wankstain SCon Michael Forsyth was instrumental in returning the Stane of Scone to Scotland, though to Edinburgh rather than Scone Abbey.
Does my fucking head in.
As for scone of course it's like gone. Leon is right tone is v non PLU.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1779812066330567001
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/15/sydney-stabbing-joel-cauchi-father-speaks-about-sons-attack/
So, again, in trying to display your insouciant superiority you merely reveal your plebeian ignorance
I hear Bruges is nice in the spring
Pity poor Kinabalu's wife having to wince through his pronunciation of it as though it didn't matter.
Same when she took him home for lunch for the first time and he held his knife like a pen.
Actually pity poor Kinabalu's wife full stop.
That said, I think it's true that during and immediately after wars, there tends to be a slight abundance of daughters born over sons (submariners and policemen, famously, tend to have daughters, ISTR). Not sure why that is. (Though I understand it's also true that men with a lot of testosterone disproportionately have daughters - perhaps that's the reason; during wars, men produce more testosterone?)
Up here we fry them as part of the Scottish Breakfast, though, to be fair, beside the Stornoway black pudding, Ayrshire bacon and so on.
They are the people that get things done. The strivers. The shopkeepers. The accountants. The money men and the IT people and the managers of things. I just keep my social intercourse with them to a minimum because of the Cringe Factor
But while it's not generally geographical, the map shows that you are from prime cone country, and scone to rhyme with cone no doubt sounds reassuringly authentic to you in the opposite way that scon does for me.
While we're on about this, I feel exactly the same way about the word 'dessert' - it sounds pretentious, like someone who consider the more authentic word 'pudding' indelicate. But my Irish friend feels exactly the opposite: to her, 'pudding' sounds posh, and 'dessert' more authentic.
I’ve stopped chuckling at @kinabalu
Though no doubt the Mail is preparing a hit piece on Meghan pronouncing it skawn.
For instance, the Peacock Inn at Newhaven used to specialise in high teas in late afternoon - fried local fish and chips being the bedrock - though I'm ashamed to admit that I always had a pint of 70/- or heavy instead of the tea. There's now a Harry Ramsden s more or less opposite, but ...
https://www.newhavenstravaigs.scot/locations/03-peacock-inn/
Also a steak and kidney pudding is a pudding. But to me that is an entirely different sense of the word pudding.
Pudding. It's just a much more enjoyable word. It can also be used as a mild insult.
I don't really trust words like 'Dessert' where the emphasis is on the second syllable rather than the first. See also Cherie Blair.
I think to encounter the phenomenon you would need to get closer than perhaps might be desired.
Naturally we pitched our tents elsewhere and were especially careful about hauling food into a tree about 100m away.
Though we Scots are less class obsessed I always liked counter jumper as an anachronistic class based insult. Tbf it would probably describe most of our political class nowadays, and PB for that matter.
It is still the accepted and necessary accent if you want to get on. Thank god. Because Multicultural London English is HIDEOUS
Presidential 'debates' have become purely performative —counterparts to Survivor or Bachelor or, in Trump's case, his shaving Vince McMahon's head on WrestleMania. This is 1000x true for any 'debate' involving Trump.
Not the place for unified media "stand."
https://twitter.com/JamesFallows/status/1779537889908367558
I really wish my dad had shaved G.H.W Bush’s head in one of the debates. Would def have changed the trajectory of the campaign.
https://twitter.com/JDukakis/status/1779542515500368279
Me too.
“Sydney church stabbing live: Stabbing attack reported at Sydney Church”
Telegraph
This is ANOTHER one
Much like finding people in the vicinity of Cambridge who are good at maths doesn’t mean that the locals are natural mathematicians.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/15/false-claims-started-spreading-about-the-bondi-junction-stabbing-attack-as-soon-as-it-happened
RK sounds reasonable but trained to say not-a-lot at this stage; leave the Tories to kneecap themselves.
Gedling MP Tom Randall also sounds sane, but has a majority of about 1% so is (unless something local is going on) most likely headed for the exit.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001ycv9/politics-east-midlands-14042024
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/rachel-riley-says-she-s-sorry-if-racist-post-about-sydney-attack-was-misunderstood/ar-BB1lDDfu?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=2be44f43e35b4d948e5e09b1d37c824a&ei=12
I agree about the vibe of pudding/dessert, but dislike the lexical contradictions of the former.
And "Pudding" looks daft on a menu.
* such a great mystical alphabet that's far deeper than any 22-letter crap and writes words in the proper direction
* a stone circle that's far cooler than most because the stones have holes in them, and
* Leonardo da Vinci?
“Dessert” is Cringe Factor 8. The solidly working class “afters” is better, and it’s arguable that even “sweet” is preferable
Much as the worship of wine from single, often tiny, piece of land is to neglect a whole host of skills in the truly able winemaker.
There was a time when the two weren't identical.
Actually, there's a lot to be said for Glenfiddich as an *introduction* to single malts for the timid southron. It certainly expanded the market in that sense, historically, and it has that role still even now.
Moving on...
Savoury puddings are a long tradition, as part of the main course.
For example onion pudding, or even Yorkshire Pudding.
Around here (the core "scone as in cone" country) we also use "pudding" for "scone as in gone" types - as in "you daft pudding".
But both - along with dessert - have the feeling of a euphemism for something that really doesn't need a euphemism. I blame the sort of women who think that pudding is somehow naughty.
The United States has supplied 0 out of 841 of its F-16 fighters to Ukrainian defenders, 0 out of 60 of its Patriot batteries, and 31 of its 8000 reserve Abrams tanks.
Through reflexive control and active measures, fascist Russia has beaten the United States into submission.
https://twitter.com/JDukakis/status/1779542515500368279
The comparison isn't a direct one - Ukraine is a far larger country than Israel, with very different air defence challenges (though facing a lot of the same weapons) - but it's not unfair.
The fact that they're also desperately short of such low end but essential stuff like mortar bombs -for their own defence - is a huge contrast between the treatment of the two states.
It is a fascinating subject. Like - why do Scottish accents often sound quite posh and educated to RP English people (not Glasgow obvs) yet Irish, Welsh and West Country do not?
It must be a legacy of when Scotland - before the SNP - had a good education system and exported a lot of doctors, engineers, scientists etc
Toilet, karzi, bog, lav, lavatory, jakes or loo?
I find I vary it according to company; I’ve even caught myself saying “restroom” in certain circumstances
Conservative Home is all that is wrong with the present conservative party membership who may as well be in Reform
I doubt Sunak gives it a moments notice