Melvyn Bragg RP RIP?

[salymap]

Well S_A, if I've got it right it won't be useful to just me then

[Serial_Apologist]

Well S_A, if I've got it right it won't be useful to just me then

xx

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

"Brahsses" does rhyme with something else though...

But not in the USA.

[Roslynmuse]

It's still'wireless' to one of the BBC presenters, I heard it the other day, with some surprise.

I heard that too - can't remember if it was on R3 or R4 but I think it was sometime Weds early evening - maybe between In Tune and CotW??

[Serial_Apologist]

But not in the USA.

No, over there it rhymes with Masses

[barber olly]

I like RP, just as I like good English. I don't speak the former, but try to speak the latter.

However, a northern accents is better for poetry, as "masses" rhymes with "brasses", whereas "brahsses" does not rhyme with "messes" and sounds silly in the Chorus of Peers in Iolanthe.

Surely it was "wireless" then?

And if Bath was meant to pronounced baath it would have an r like a*se!

[Chris Newman]

Berber Olly, Quite! After my thirty five years of living in Salisbury my sister from Sussex pointed out that I say "Bath" as in "Math". I had not noticed but that's what we call the place and the implement around here.

[Serial_Apologist]

Berber Olly, Quite! After my thirty five years of living in Salisbury my sister from Sussex pointed out that I say "Bath" as in "Math". I had not noticed but that's what we call the place and the implement around here.

I remember the first time I took a train from Paddington to Bristol, the driver announcing in a strong West Country accent: "The train on Platform 1 will be calling at Reddin, Did Cut, Swindon, Chippnum, Baaaaath Spaaaah , Bristle and Wessun Super Mare.

[Segilla]

'Math' is an unnecessary transatlantic import. Why change from 'Maths'?

I once heard Mark Coles of BBC World Service use 'Math'. I wonder how he'd like it if people decided to call him Mark Cole?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

And if Bath was meant to pronounced baath it would have an r like a*se!

The snag here would be the tendency of the Scots, Irish and Americans to actually pronounce the 'mute' R.

[ahinton]

I remember the first time I took a train from Paddington to Bristol, the driver announcing in a strong West Country accent: "The train on Platform 1 will be calling at Reddin, Did Cut, Swindon, Chippnum, Baaaaath Spaaaah , Bristle and Wessun Super Mare.

I heard some of that myself years ago, although I doubt it if was ever from a driver. I did wonder who might have been handling a Smith and Wessun in case there were trouble on't train, though some other customers might have Bristled at such a thought. But what is this "West Country"? I lived in Bath for almost a quarter century people in London considered that I therefore lived in the "West Country"; you could go west from there more than twice as far as one would have needed to go east in order to get to London. Bizarre. Anyway, once the new allegedly "high" speed rail link between central London and Birmingham is complete and in operation and Birmingham International airport is accordingly renamed "London Birmingham airport" (can London Manchester et al be far behind?), it will perhaps at last be recognised that, at least to Londoners (that's to say anyone living anywhere in central and southern England), "the West Country" is, at most, that bit of England currently known and recognised as Devon and Cornwall...

[french frank]

But what is this "West Country"? I lived in Bath for almost a quarter century people in London considered that I therefore lived in the "West Country"; you could go west from there more than twice as far as one would have needed to go east in order to get to London.

Well, you could go south west from there twice as far. There are no precise boundaries and West Coiuntry can mean different things depending on what the person means who's using it.

For some purposes, the West Country is the northern part of the South West, and the southern part is the South West. Around Bristol the area is also called Wess Vinglun.