Interesting Links for 15-07-2021

[andrewducker]

Why are British place names so hard to pronounce?

(tags:language uk history maps video )

Magic! Darkest magic!

(tags:video ViaDrCross magic )

The Ugly Carpets of Vegas are Hideously Clever Social Engineering at Work - Or Are They?

(tags:LasVegas design )

'Edinburgh Butterfly and Insect World to close doors for good after nearly 40 years (I was really looking forward to taking Sophia!)

(tags:Edinburgh insects sad )

Why the government did not 'override' an Act of Parliament over overseas aid - the concerning thing is that the government acted in accordance with the law

(tags:law UK aid )

Labels keep 86% of streaming revenues, leaving a pittance for the artists

(tags:music money )

How To Fix Your Joycon Drift Permanently!

(tags:Nintendo video fail )

Racism fuelling far-right threat in UK - MI5's Ken McCallum warns

(tags:racism uk terrorism )

EU unveils sweeping climate change plan

(tags:europe globalwarming )

Is this Britain's oldest intact home? (9th century, carved out of rock)

(tags:homes uk history )

Comments

[anna_wing]

Hiding stains and wear actually seems the most plausible reason. Airport carpets can be quite busy too, even in areas where there's nothing to sell, like gate waiting-rooms.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, dull as it is it makes perfect sense.

[cmcmck]

British place names?

Remember Meopham, Wrotham and Trottiscliffe? :o)

[dewline]

All of those are new to me.

Mind you, over in Canada, there's a goal of reviving Indigenous languages and, as part of that process, the place names from those languages. Some of the scripting of those name-words is eccentric to my Anglophone eyes by the standards of written Latin.

[dewline]

And as for Ottawa, there's several ways that I've read about for transliterating the original Anishinaabemowin word aside from the Anglicization that's taken hold here. What I've found thus far includes:

Odawa
Adàwe
Odaawaa
odaawe
Odàwàng

[cmcmck]

Pronounced mep-um, root-um and troz-lee.

Kentish place name pronunciation can be weird!

[dewline]

Is Kentish related to Gaelic?

[cmcmck]

There's a Celtic connection but way, way back pre-Roman.

[calimac]

The US also has some place-name pronunciation traps for unwary foreigners. Particularly places named in the early 19C for famous foreign places. The locals had no idea how to pronounce these, and the mispronunciation of the original name became the proper pronunciation of the American knockoff.

Most famous of these is Cairo, Illinois, which is pronounced KAIR-oh. But there are many others. Just guess how Milan (Michigan) and Madras (Oregon) are said.

Another catch: Houston, Texas, is HYU-st'n. But Houston Street in NYC is HOW-st'n. (Not a contradiction: they're named for different people.)

[snippy]

For Portland: And Willamette. And Couch Street.

[jducoeur]

A bunch of my friends in the Boston suburbs live is Berlin -- with the emphasis on the first syllable rather than the second. My understanding (possibly apocryphal) is that this was a reaction to events in the 1940s, trying to distance themselves from Germany...

[calimac]

No, I believe it's always been pronounced like that, due to not knowing otherwise as in so many other cases. Berlin, New Hampshire, is pronounced the same way, and so I believe in others.

Of course it is possible to distance yourself from Germany, and nobody went so far as Berlin, Ontario, which in 1916 (a far more Germanophobic moment than 1940) renamed itself after the recently killed-in-battle Lord Kitchener.

Record Labels vs. Artists

[dewline]

How do we help bring that equation closer to a proper balance?

[naath]

Carpet with a busy pattern is the colour of dirt, and thus hides dirt (dirt is many colours, so no solid colour manages this)

[darkoshi]

Some of those carpets look awesome to me, and I'd love to have them in my house. The Wired article shows more examples.

The dark magic video is also great.

[poshmerchant]

> Why are British place names so hard to pronounce? Slovenian example

Uh, Ptuj would be pronounced Ptooy, not Ptadzh.