And, in a nice irony, the US embassy (now moved of course) used to be in Berkeley Square ! Pronounced, in a toffee accent, something like Barkli Skwah.
@@MrJonno85 Skinlab - One of us (its because he said "one of us" and I read it in the manner it was sung by these guys - I think its about illicit drugs however.)
Almost there. To get it more exact. Living in Bedfordshire the shire sound is a cross between 'shir' and 'sheer', so 'shier'/shee-a. Then when saying it faster the 'ee' sound is still there but almost disappears.
@@WanderingRavens Lincolnshire is often said more like Lincunsh' with a very very slight/soft "schwa" at the end. Maybe Lincunsh(uh) with the uh/schwh, again pretty much 'disappearing'. xxx
Wandering Ravens: (with absolute US confidence) Burk-shire Google translate British woman: Bark-shire Wandering Ravens: (giving a curious look at eachother) It's really not. HAHAHAHA
@@WanderingRavens Speaking from Maidenhead, it is indeed pronounced Bark-shire. English people from further up North or to the West pronounce it how you did, so it's an easy mistake to make. No sweat!
We get George Gently here in the states. I love the Geordie accent. The way they say "wait ress" instead of "waitchress"... Are the accents on the show authentic?
@@yossarian6799 I actually haven't saw George gently before, but people from county Durham aren't geordie that's only people from Newcastle, people from Middlesbrough or Sunderland get really annoyed when you call them geordies 😂
I was born in Durham and have lived in several areas around the county and have noticed accents vary considerably, especially east to west so you may encounter variations of both your pronunciations.
"The City of London" is like a tiny separate city inside London, a separate thing. The queen actually needs to ask for and be granted permission to enter The City of London. They'd never say no but she technically still has to ask.
The City is a capitalist blob and should be blown up, just as the royals should be exterminated as they are scrounging twats, that many English, especially in the North of England cannot stand!
4 роки тому+3
steve brindle You’re speaking as a northerner, are you?
I believe you are correct. Wessex (now I think part of Hampshire and Dorset) was West and Middlesex was the middle/centre. For some reason, my own county of Hertfordshire is not Nossex or Nessex!
@@trickygoose2 mmm it is intersting because Hertfordshire is a Saxon/Old English name. A hart being a fully mature stag. It should be Norssex or something though haha.
@@WanderingRavens Yeah, whererver you got the list from slipped you a dud entry. By the way, a lot of (particularly southern) English accents will pronounce the 'i' in -shire, the 'e' in Sussex and the 'o' in Devon as a schwa (the neutral vowel, a bit like the 'e' in the French 'je'), so it's legit for all those vowels to sound the same.
Created in 1965 when the London boundaries were moved outwards taking in parts of Kent, Essex and Surrey. Middlesex disappeared altogether as it was swallowed up by Greater London and Hertfordshire. The GLC replaced the old London County Council and with it the boroughs were joined together to form 32 new boroughs.
@@WanderingRavens The word derby is pronounced darby in normal conversation. If we were to say a local derby in a football match for example, that would mean it's a game with a fierce rivalry because the teams are from places close to each other
Northamptonian from Northamptonshire, here! The "H" is generally dropped to make "Nor-THAMP-tun." Or, possibly more accurately among natives, "Nor-FAM-tun."
@@WanderingRavens The fact that you make the effort to educate yourselves about Britain stands you in good stead, I think we can forgive you the odd clunker in pronunciation!
I probably should have said that Derbyshire dialect has a lot in common with other northern dialects in areas that were inside the Danelaw 1,000 years ago, such as Lancashire, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. We still use the remnants of thee and thou so arta rait is phonetic for art thou (all) right? Me duck is a common greeting and some say duck derives from the Roman dux/ducis or leader. Ayup is a hangover from the Vikings and is still used in Scandinavia as something like Hey hoop.
in Northamptonshire we do pronounce the H, however some people like me get lazy when talking and usually skip out things like the letter T when it is used in the middle of words like better, water and little and sometimes don't pronounce the letter L when its at the end of words eg: even if we are being lazy we will pronounce the letter L in things like laugh, college and loud but wont pronounce it in things like battle, wall and castle
London is actually quite complicated geographically. What most people call ‘London’ is actually split into Greater London and the City of London. Greater London covers the vast majority of the area and includes everything from housing districts to museums etc. The City of London is a single square mile in the middle of London, and is the financial centre of the country. It has the headquarters of virtually all the big banks and financial industries. The City of London (also called ‘the city’ or ‘the square mile) essentially operates like its own country, it has medieval style laws, it’s own mayor who wears a funny hat, guilds and the Queen can’t go there without asking permission. It’s a remnant of when the Romans established what is now the City of London as a trading post.
Wandering Ravens yes the City of London is ancient compared to the rest of the city, it’s a very interesting place historically. The district has its own livery companies which are mind-bending, with the oldest, the Weavers’ Company, dating all the way back to 1155. There’s a really cool mix of new and old buildings, most of which were designed by Sir Christopher Wren. And I was there today! I love your channel guys, keep up the great work!
@@WanderingRavens Yeah Norfolk and Suffolk are neighbouring counties. You guessed it Suffolk is south and Norfolk is north. The names come from the Angles from the North-folk & South-Folk. They both lay in East Anglia which is still used today for an area for example news coverage you have ITV East Anglia for a local news station. Although its not an enclosed county or district, more hear say as it used to be the kingdom of East Anglia
Essex (East Saxons) Sussex (South Saxons) Middlesex (now mostly subsumed into Greater London) (Middle Saxons) Wessex (not a county but a region) (West Saxons)
In British English (especially place names) the ‘Berk’ sound is almost exclusively said as ‘bark’. So Berkshire is pronounced Barkshire. Berkeley square is pronounced ‘Barkly square’
@@WanderingRavens FYI, there is also an insult derived from this county name, to call someone a berk, sounds like burk, a stupid person, but is derived from rhyming slang which in Brit speak actually never uses the rhyming word it implies. i.e. Can I use your dog? (dog and bone. = phone). It relates to fox hunting, so the Berkshire (sounds like Barksire) hunt. But to call someone a berk, you are actually call someone a word that rhymes with hunt... Rhyming slang should keep you busy... This classic comedy sketch, even with the rhyming words left in should keep you busy... ua-cam.com/video/ij5mw_eqKuc/v-deo.html
Google translate was pretty much spot on where she changed the "e" to an "a" was correct, the only one I took issue with was Durham, she pronounced it a bit weird, Grace in this instance was correct. Oh, and Cumbria, you were correct again, I think she has a problem pronouncing "u" 😂👍
Derbyshire is beautiful you should come visit, when it's legal 😂 There's a town that has a dam that almost flooded the entire valley and 7000 people were evacuated but it's fine now 😂
"Riding' means 'a third part' (it's related to 'thrid' - an older version of 'third'). Yorkshire was traditionally split into three administrative areas, East, West, and North.
How to name a place in England: 1) take a fairly straight-forward description of the place (possibly in an ancient language). 2) mash all the words together into one word. 3) blur or drop some of the letters or syllables to make it easier to say as one word. 4) possibly make some weird, random, unpredictable change to how part of it is said, for the lulz, and to make things harder for outsiders.
You guys seem like such nice people, most Americans get deeply defensive about anything that contradicts what they’ve learnt in America, or at least they’re the ones who argue the loudest
16:45 - Correct on the rivers. My hometown is Newcastle-upon-Tyne and it sits upon the River Tyne, where our bridges are most notably the Tyne Bridge, which was built first and then the same construction company in question went on to build Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia. The river at that part in our city centre is where we divide from Newcastle to the north and Gateshead to the south. The river also is presentable in other parts of the North East, like the river tyne flows outs of Tynemouth and South Shields into the North Sea. The next city south of us is Sunderland which sits upon the River Wear.
Also, as a Norfolk native, we tend to pronounce the "folk" as the word "fuck" but without the "U" if that makes sense. Nor-fck. Although some of the older generations do still have a slight "I" sound in there but very slight.
I'm from North London but I've always pronounced most 'shire' places as 'shear' other than Cheshire and Yorkshire those to me are pronounced as "Chesh-a and Yorksh-a"
Riding is old English for third, Yorkshire was so big it was divided in to thirds. Was North, East and West Ridings. In 1974 The East Riding mostly became Humberside and part of the West Riding became the Soviet Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire. ;¬))
Fun fact for you, the West Midlands county is different than the West Midlands region. Alcester is in the West Midlands region but not the West Midlands county. It’s actually in Warwickshire. It’s quite confusing haha. I live in Redditch, which is in Worcestershire, in the West Midlands region but not the West Midlands county.
You were spot on about Tyne and Wear being rivers. It became a county in 1974, so it's quite young in comparison to a lot of the others, and might be why it's named so differently
They also mixed eras in county names. Rutland became a part of Leicester in 1974 - at the same time the three Ridings of Yorkshire were lost, East Riding being reconstituted in 1996.
I think the reason why Americans sometimes struggle with British place names is that they don't always realise that the reason that they aren't pronounced predictably in modern English is because of the extensive history of competing languages and cultures within the British Isles which change from place to place. Middle English and Cornish as just two examples will have vastly different phonetics than modern English so these really old place names still use unused sounds. Nonetheless, you guys caught on super quickly I thought and guessed things really well! heres a quite simple wikipedia article on this history!: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toponymy_of_England
If you ever go to Manchester, please pronounce it as 'Man-chester-shire", and remember to over pronounce the 'shire'. Even after they tell you that's wrong, keep doing it :-)
@@WanderingRavens Well that could be a concern. Well, there is a safeguard. if anyone in Manchester attacks you, the line "Your beetles are a great band", will surely soothe the aggressor. Also. NEVER DO THIS!
@@WanderingRavens Also there's an old statue of Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln Square, Manchester, of which there is some interesting history about and the ending of the civil war in America!
You could always ask to visit Manchesterford and see the famous Acorn Antiques shop. Alternatively, go to Stretford, just south of Manchester and ask someone where Shakespeare's house is...
Also, a fact I actually learnt from Sleepy Hollow (an american tv drama show about a 18th century british redcoat (who was a traitor) and a town that had some weird scifi things happening to it) and I checked it out and it was correct. The reason why americans pronounce things differently is due to the English academics which wanted to further (or farther!) themselves away from the motherland (thats GB by the way) and so started over pronouncing everything. (in a sort of black adder-ish kind of way) Now add that in with Thomas's hatred for pompious aristoricracy and therefore created an entire new dictionary (webber? I think) and the fact that if you were caught having different pronounciations you were checked to be a spy from the motherland (the US civil war politics here), you get the reason why americans speak so 18th century. It's tilted a bit of course, but its actually very surprising how tight it is to the way we used to speak here. I find this stuff fascinating, its also why I say america is still owned/run by the british empire (1st british empire not the to be confused with the current second british empire (Victoria's empire)) as everything is like it was back then. Even the horrible bits, which I won't go into, avoid a political debate here.
I just died a little at the thought we're now taking phonics from TV show! The er/ar is nothing more than common changes ongoing since the Great Vowel Shift
Good shout on the Ox ford thing and yes, a lot of our place names are descriptive. For instance in the midlands we have a small town called Brownhills and yes you've guessed it, there used to be opencast mining there. In the town there is a great 'sculpture' of a miner. Midlands is of course an abbreviation of middle lands, and so on.
Fire Drake Remember that at the end of 'Carry On Henry' Henry VIII (Sid James) proclaims Lord Hampton of Wick (Kenneth Connor) as The Prince of Berkshire with the following speech "Arise Prince of Berks"!
Sussex and Essex are near but don’t border!! My beautiful home county of Kent seperates Essex from sussex, from here I can go west across the river rother to east Sussex or north across the Thames into Essex or london
Wandering Ravens I expect it was named after my Kent! I was born in Margate but other than the few weeks in the hospital (and holidays) I’ve lived in herne bay all my life (come here if you want but it’s a bit of a shithole, not too much of one though) deal is nice and is quite a nice traditional beach town (but unlike herne bay hasn’t been invaded by Londoners who make it crappy). Canterbury is good but very touristy. One good thing about Kent is that almost all of it is very accessible by trains from London (a lot of places are also on the high speed line)... it is lovely in Kent but you might want to do the research before you come some places aren’t to nice
And of course they are named that because they were the 2 of the main locations the Saxons settled when they arrived, along with Wessex (East Saxons, West Saxons and South Saxons becoming Essex, Wessex and Sussex) And Kent is beautiful. Unless you are from Gillingham. Gillingham is trash. Along with the rest of Medway. I would know. :)
@@WanderingRavens with the accents you have to bear each one of the counties was a separate tribe with its own tongue and not even the same root some are celtic some germanic overlay viking and norman french go back just 200 years and someone from yorkshire would need a translator to talk to someone in hampshire if you could find one in some of the border areas towns and villages would have trouble talking to each other its similar to the american indian tribes separated by a common tongue that evolved over to time to separate dialects
Yey Shropshire I live there. I'm also studying at university in Shrewsbury, the town where Darwin was born. It was cool to learn about evolution in Darwin's own home town
@Wandering Ravens Just to add to the confusion, there are in effect two sets of county names. The Political/Administrative counties and the Ceremonial counties. The administrative counties were created in 1972 to reflect a more logical structure for the 20th century ( well at least in the eyes of the politicians ), hence you end up with counties like Tyne and Wear, Merseyside, the West Midlands and metropolitan boroughs like Greater Manchester, which effectively equate to counties ( kind of ). Many of the names for these new administrative areas were not popular. Some of these administrative counties have changed their names and borders faster than I can keep up with. Around 1997 many of the traditional county names were reintroduced as "Ceremonial Counties" aka "The Lieutenancy Areas of England" ( pronounced LEF-tenancy not LOO-tenancy ) and each county has a Lord Lieutenant, a representative of the monarch, and a purely ceremonial position. Of course these ceremonial counties should not be confused with the historic counties that existed prior to 1972. Now all you have to do is demonstrate your pronunciation skills with the Scottish, Welsh and N.Ireland counties.
It Depends on where you live for Durham my family pronounce it Derum but people 5 mins Down the road will pronounce it Duram your wife got it Right I live There the differences are Geordie (Newcastle upon Tyne Accent ) and the Wearside Accent 5 to 10 miles Difference
Vowels tend to migrate backwards over the centuries. "Err" is forward of "Arr" The spelling was cemented long enough ago to be out of date. Give it time and it will be "Beckshire" etc, then "Bickshire". Focus on where you make the vowel sounds and you can see how "Ja" became "Yes" which is pronounced "Yis" in New Zealand.
I'm impressed Grace remembered the whole Devon Vs Cornwall style scones controversy! lol. As an English native i'll add my own thoughts here and there... 6:50 - think "durr - am" ... 8:00 'Greater London' and 'City of London' are technically not the same, but i can see where the confusion comes from, i didn't understand it fully until fairly recently either lol. One worth looking up if you're interested ... 18:04 where i'm from! lol ... 18:55 Grace's shock and horror! Really looking forward to that vid! I had a go at a 'label the US States' blank map a couple of months ago and i think i managed to get about 20ish in the right place. That's after struggling to think of the names of all 50! I had to look up the last 15 or so... Great vid as always and thankyou so much for sharing
I’m glad my county gave you no problems (Somerset), although if you were local you’d pronounce it more like ‘Zummerrrzet’ - think how pirates speak. Their accent originated in the West Country (the best place in the whole of England, of course!). BTW, it continues to be a pleasure to watch Grace slowly sliding into madness. She even thinks she’s met all these people now. Aw, bless. 😂
I seem to recall the modern West Country accent is the closest nowadays to the 'standard' accent (if such a thing existed) as it was back in the times of Shakespeare. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.) Shakespeare, Sir Francis Drake and his ilk spoke with what we'd hear now as something of a West Country accent. I think was before the Great Vowel Shift though, so the english of Shakespeare's time would sound very different to how it would sound today.
@@WanderingRavens If you get the train in the day get window seats on the left hand side of the train. Then you can see one of the white horses and the part by the sea at Dawlish is impressive. Once you get past Reading (pronounce that) the views are good all the way to Penzance, from both sides but the left is better.
I'm from Wiltshire (and now Gloucestershire) and say "shur", as many people do. Some people might say "shu" (especially if "well spoken"), but the accent in the SW is rhotic so the R gets its time 👍
You are absolutely right with the etymology of Tyne and Wear. There are 2 cities in the county, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Sunderland. As you can probably tell, the Tyne runs through Newcastle, and the Wear runs through Sunderland. Extra fact: when the county was created in 1974, the original name was going to be Tyneside, but everyone in Sunderland and Wearside complained about it, so they included the names of both rivers.
You guys did so well, nice one! I love that you guys stayed in the Midlands - Alcester is also in Warwickshire though! Greater London Vs City of London is a really interesting one - you guys should look it up. The city of London is really tiny (it's also called the square mile, well, you can guess why😉), has a really long history, and covers most of the financial district where all the banks and traders work. The rest of London (where almost everyone lives) is covered by Greater London! This is actually a really interesting one; because the City of London (the square mile) is a city, Westminster (where parliament and most government departments are) is a city, but 'London' as in the massive place where 8 million people live doesn't have city status! Greater Manchester covers Manchester and surrounding towns/cities (Wigan, Bolton, Stockport, etc.). The West Midlands is a bit similar but for Birmingham. Being from the west midlands, but not being from Birmingham, I can tell you that the name 'Greater Birmingham' would not have gone down well! These videos are great btw - keep it up!❤️
Dan Simpson: 'London' (as you describe it) is Greater London, a ceremonial county created in 1965. The City of Westminster is, for administrative purposes, no more than a London borough but which also holds city status. The present London Borough of the City of Westminster was created in 1965, by the amalgamation of the Metropolitan boroughs of Westminster, Paddington and Saint Marylebone. The City of London also is a county in its own right.
Further to the excellent post above: West Midlands county was named after West Midlands Urban Area-- Birmingham and Black Country. The county also then tacked on Coventry. I can confirm Black Country and Cov folk wouldn't like have been associated with a Greater *Birmingham*!
That little quirk of not pronouncing r unless followed by a vowel is called non-rhotic English (we can still recognise its presence though as the preceding vowel is usually lengthened or sometimes changed a little: chat Vs chart). Essex = east sax Sussex = south sax Saxon influenced names
In counties, the word sex (yeah, I know, just take a quick laughing break before reading on) refers to saxon land, in the names Sussex, Essex, Wessex and Middlesex, which refer to locations relative to the general area of modern day London*. Essex (east of London) means land of the eastern saxons, and is the only one that survives as a county. The land of the Southern Saxons (Sussex, South of London) is divided into East and West to make the counties a more reasonable size. Wessex isn't anything official these days and just refers to a general area west of London including places like Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire. The trains that used to serve these areas were called Wessex electrics. Middlesex is what is now modern day North and West London, and was completely removed as an official county when Greater London was created. There is still however a cricket team called middlesex. On a side note, Sussex is absolutely beautiful and one of the warmest places in the UK, I would seriously recommend visiting when we're all able to travel again.
If you ever come to cornwall let me know and we'll go for a pint and i can give you the lowdown on cornish history. Lots of pirates, smugglers, mines, sea exploration, and ancient celtic stuff. I'm biased because i'm from here but its fucking cool
12:34 , as someone from wolverhampton, we don't pronounce the 'h' , not too sure if the posh british do but as someone who lives in wolvo, i haven't heard anyone pronounce the 'h' haha
Surprisingly Google translate got them all right in pronunciation. Would love to see you both do one based off the counties of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland and see how Google translate interprets them to sound 😂. Also I'm pretty sure that Yorkshire is split up into so many places because when the vikings came to the UK, they pretty much took over the Yorkshire area and that whole part of England was split between the English and the Danes, due to Danw law. So I think that's the reason why it has so many counties. Great video like always 😊
@@WanderingRavens Good luck. Most are not too bad, but some of them may look very intimidating. Just to help you out a bit in Welsh w and y are vowels and the y usually makes sounds like an I. Double d usually makes a th sound, double L is the sound you make when your trying to get something out of your throat. Rh is also kind of a th sound, Ph makes an f sound, but double F makes a v sound. Just remember that your probably looking at the English version of the name of the county so it's a bit easier then their Welsh names 😊. Just a few Welsh pointers to help pronunciation if you can't understand why some letters are together and as some people say it looks like someone has hit their head on a keyboard 😂.
@@mdwellington I don't think there is any other way to explain how to make that noise. It is literally doing that while also rolling your tongue at the same time. 😂
10:41 Oh, I live there! You should visit, got a lot of old hamlets and villages, and got a lot of beaches too. By the way, the translator got Durham one wrong. It's Duh Rum not Durry-uhm :)
Best way to solve the clotted cream/jam conundrum? Put jam on one half, cream on the other and sandwich the two halves together. You just have to turn it one way or the other to have it your preferred way... (also a great excuse to put extra cream and jam on to account for the extra layer of scone on top!)
I live in Northamptonshire but I pronounce it north-hamptonshire, although that might be because my accent is a bit posher. personally it only really sounds ok to drop the h if that is part of your accent, as it is just a feature of it. so whilst lots living in it call it Northamptonshire, that is mostly based on their accents and it can be pronounced either way :)
Well done Eric for getting Herefordshire right. Plus i live in the West Midlands and there is a lot of thing you still have not seen there. Plus a big thumbs up to remembering how to pronounce Worcestershire. There is no right or wrong way to eat a scone. Devon does it one way and Cornwall another and they keep arguing about it. I eat mine the Cornwall way as i prefer it that way.
West Midlands is confusing - it's both a county, *and* a region that includes several counties, only one of which is the West Midlands county. Alcester, where you stayed, is in the West Mids *region* by virtue of being in Warwickshire, but not in the West Mids *county*, which is where you find Coventry, Birmingham and Wolverhampton (I do pronounce the "h", BTW). And for Americans who don't know where the West Midlands are, tell them that Stratford-on-Avon is there and they might start to get it.
I’m from Northamptonshire, people generally pronounce it “nor-fam-ton-sheer” but the H sound being pronounced is correct as the county town’s name comes from its Saxon name of “Hamm Tun”.
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Love you to react to this, the city of London, isn't actually london, its a city (liturally) inside London XD :) ua-cam.com/video/tIuVXtwbqss/v-deo.html Though totally understand if you don't want to but love you both to watch it in your own time instead then, I think you'll find it interesting :) Or this one is much shorter though not to do with the history behind it ua-cam.com/video/jZkuwE3ocG8/v-deo.html
Found out recently, that the pronunciation of 'Shire' in counties is the result of old English in which the pronunciations are different. E's and A's were also spoken differently than today. This could also be the reason for other places sounding different to the way they are spelt. BTW Nottinghamshire - you have to pronounce the T''s guys. Thanks again for another video that made me smile!
I’ve noticed that you’ve gradually got better and better at this throughout lockdown. Answering though Northamptonshire question, it’s accent dependant, locals would say something close to norfamptnshur. So heres a question for you, I know that there are some rather significant accent changes throughout the US, what is the general etiquette at all in pronouncing place names? For example, here in the UK, it can seem condescending to pronounce places using the local accent if it wasn’t my normal accent, case in point I would not call Glasgow, glazgie because I’m not Glaswegian.
Yes, it's BARKSHIRE. Also the town of Berkeley is BARKLEY.
Noooo! We were wrong 😭😭
True but, strangely, the abbreviated rhyming slang "berk" (from "Berkley hunt") is pronounced as spelled.
I was born in Reading in Berkshire pronounced Barkshire
And, in a nice irony, the US embassy (now moved of course) used to be in Berkeley Square ! Pronounced, in a toffee accent, something like Barkli Skwah.
@@WanderingRavens - and Brits always mispronounce UC Berkeley, using the British pronunciation.
Suffolk is pronounced like Norfolk, that's just google translate screwing you over 😂
If Norfolk and Suffolk merge will they just call it "Fck"?
Dorset .. /Dorsit/
Somerset .. /Summerset/ ??
A note to all Americans.. the ‘a’ sound in Berkshire, Derbyshire etc also extends to the word ‘clerk’!
Oh no! Dogs have taken over the English language! It's all "barks" in here 😄
And Derby as in The Brown Derby.
@@WanderingRavens There is a place called Barking. It's in Essex. lol
AND Hertfordshire can be shortened to Herts but said like hearts
Barkshire
Haha, "when I was American". You're one of us now!
😆😆
reminded me of this song watch?v=UQR3tULUtYY
ironically sung by americans.
@@METALFREAK03 Which song was that?
@@MrJonno85 Skinlab - One of us
(its because he said "one of us" and I read it in the manner it was sung by these guys - I think its about illicit drugs however.)
@@METALFREAK03 I checked out that track on UA-cam - clearly not a cover of the Abba song of the same name.
Where does the Pink Panther live?
Durham,
Durham,
Durham, Durham, Durham
Durham Durhaaaam
😂😂
💀💀💀💀
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Genius
Never thought of that but that is how you say it here hahaha
14:57 Your pronunciation of Suffolk was correct, Google's was wrong.
You're correct, google is wrong
Good to know! Happy to add another point to our score :D
I totally agree. Google was wrong.
Agreed 100%
British people are softer on the R's is phonetically a good double entendre.
😂😂
I would make an exception for Scottish people who tend to roll their Rs.
@@trickygoose2 Welsh roll their R's too, must just be the English who uses soft R's
Southern English people anyway.
Not all British.
Almost there. To get it more exact. Living in Bedfordshire the shire sound is a cross between 'shir' and 'sheer', so 'shier'/shee-a. Then when saying it faster the 'ee' sound is still there but almost disappears.
Thanks for the tip! We will master British town and county names yet haha
@@WanderingRavens :D To be fair you both teach me things I didn't know before.
@@WanderingRavens Lincolnshire is often said more like Lincunsh' with a very very slight/soft "schwa" at the end. Maybe Lincunsh(uh) with the uh/schwh, again pretty much 'disappearing'. xxx
Wandering Ravens: (with absolute US confidence) Burk-shire
Google translate British woman: Bark-shire
Wandering Ravens: (giving a curious look at eachother) It's really not.
HAHAHAHA
😂😂
@@WanderingRavens Speaking from Maidenhead, it is indeed pronounced Bark-shire. English people from further up North or to the West pronounce it how you did, so it's an easy mistake to make. No sweat!
"Burkshire" and"Burkeley"sounds hideous - just so wrong! Imagine Dame Vera Lynn singing "A nightingale sang in "BURKELEY Square" - aaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!
@@kissywitch alright mate bloody hell no need to have a breakdown
My ears were impressed but also bled with some of the pronunciations. 🤣
Don't give me a microwave cup of tea. 😅
We'd never dream of offering you anything but the best, most proper cup of tea to soothe your ears 🤣
😅🤣
No. You should put tea in your mouth, not your ears...
I'm from county Durham and we pronounce it "durum"
Thank you for clearing that up for us!
We get George Gently here in the states. I love the Geordie accent. The way they say "wait ress" instead of "waitchress"...
Are the accents on the show authentic?
@@yossarian6799 I actually haven't saw George gently before, but people from county Durham aren't geordie that's only people from Newcastle, people from Middlesbrough or Sunderland get really annoyed when you call them geordies 😂
Yes, we all know that Middlesborough is the North Riding of Yorkshire :-)
I was born in Durham and have lived in several areas around the county and have noticed accents vary considerably, especially east to west so you may encounter variations of both your pronunciations.
"The City of London" is like a tiny separate city inside London, a separate thing. The queen actually needs to ask for and be granted permission to enter The City of London. They'd never say no but she technically still has to ask.
The City is a capitalist blob and should be blown up, just as the royals should be exterminated as they are scrounging twats, that many English, especially in the North of England cannot stand!
steve brindle You’re speaking as a northerner, are you?
@@stevebrindle1724 up the north
I am sure that the county's ending in sex is a reference to Saxons. Sussex was south Saxony and Essex East Saxony. if I am wrong someone correct me
You're right! Several other commenters have confirmed this :D
I believe you are correct. Wessex (now I think part of Hampshire and Dorset) was West and Middlesex was the middle/centre. For some reason, my own county of Hertfordshire is not Nossex or Nessex!
Juzr156 i live in saxton ... and there's not much going on here 😅
@@trickygoose2 mmm it is intersting because Hertfordshire is a Saxon/Old English name. A hart being a fully mature stag. It should be Norssex or something though haha.
Just Saxons. Saxon Anhalt is a German state. Both named after the Saxons , who were named after their distinctive knife, the seax
"City of London"? That's the square mile (basically the old Roman and medieval city, near enough) - the county is "Greater London".
Good to know!
@@WanderingRavens Yeah, whererver you got the list from slipped you a dud entry. By the way, a lot of (particularly southern) English accents will pronounce the 'i' in -shire, the 'e' in Sussex and the 'o' in Devon as a schwa (the neutral vowel, a bit like the 'e' in the French 'je'), so it's legit for all those vowels to sound the same.
Also the 'a' in Rutland, which I think leaves 'u' as the only vowel not to be pronounced as schwa in the list of counties.
Yeah this 2 arent very bright, i bet they confuse New York City with New York State too
Created in 1965 when the London boundaries were moved outwards taking in parts of Kent, Essex and Surrey. Middlesex disappeared altogether as it was swallowed up by Greater London and Hertfordshire. The GLC replaced the old London County Council and with it the boroughs were joined together to form 32 new boroughs.
derbyshire like Berkshire has the E pronounced as an A
Wow!! Both those towns really surprised us 😂
@@WanderingRavens in old English Derby was Deorbi and with the great vowel shift in the 17C probably explains some of the differences.
@@WanderingRavens The word derby is pronounced darby in normal conversation. If we were to say a local derby in a football match for example, that would mean it's a game with a fierce rivalry because the teams are from places close to each other
Saying all this, the locals pronounce it "Dorbeh"
Wandering Ravens TOWNS???? They are counties.
Northamptonian from Northamptonshire, here! The "H" is generally dropped to make "Nor-THAMP-tun." Or, possibly more accurately among natives, "Nor-FAM-tun."
You right
Berkshire is pronounced "Barkshire" it's the same with Derbyshire its pronounced Darbyshire
Noooo! We were wrong 😭😭
@@WanderingRavens The fact that you make the effort to educate yourselves about Britain stands you in good stead, I think we can forgive you the odd clunker in pronunciation!
Jimmy Bagshaw Arta rait, me duck? (How are you my friend? for the Ravens)
I probably should have said that Derbyshire dialect has a lot in common with other northern dialects in areas that were inside the Danelaw 1,000 years ago, such as Lancashire, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. We still use the remnants of thee and thou so arta rait is phonetic for art thou (all) right? Me duck is a common greeting and some say duck derives from the Roman dux/ducis or leader. Ayup is a hangover from the Vikings and is still used in Scandinavia as something like Hey hoop.
And Hertfordshire is pronounced Hartfordshire.
in Northamptonshire we do pronounce the H, however some people like me get lazy when talking and usually skip out things like the letter T when it is used in the middle of words like better, water and little and sometimes don't pronounce the letter L when its at the end of words eg: even if we are being lazy we will pronounce the letter L in things like laugh, college and loud but wont pronounce it in things like battle, wall and castle
The city of London isn’t London but that’s a whole different thing
City of London is the original London from Roman times (londinium or something like that) then it was expanded over time to what it is today
London is actually quite complicated geographically. What most people call ‘London’ is actually split into Greater London and the City of London. Greater London covers the vast majority of the area and includes everything from housing districts to museums etc. The City of London is a single square mile in the middle of London, and is the financial centre of the country. It has the headquarters of virtually all the big banks and financial industries. The City of London (also called ‘the city’ or ‘the square mile) essentially operates like its own country, it has medieval style laws, it’s own mayor who wears a funny hat, guilds and the Queen can’t go there without asking permission. It’s a remnant of when the Romans established what is now the City of London as a trading post.
This helps a lot! Thank you, George :D
Wandering Ravens There’s quite a good video on it done by CGP Grey
ua-cam.com/video/LrObZ_HZZUc/v-deo.html
Yes London or oriiganally londinium was from landing Romans from Italy called it! Greater or domain,
Wandering Ravens yes the City of London is ancient compared to the rest of the city, it’s a very interesting place historically. The district has its own livery companies which are mind-bending, with the oldest, the Weavers’ Company, dating all the way back to 1155. There’s a really cool mix of new and old buildings, most of which were designed by Sir Christopher Wren. And I was there today! I love your channel guys, keep up the great work!
You got the scone thing the wrong way round. Devon is jam on top, Cornwall is cream on top, the only true way. All else is heresy.
Oh no! Sorry for getting that reversed!
Scon or scone ?... There's one for you Ravens ...
Who cares .. it's gorgeous either way !
@@redbeki my Yorkshire mind says scon (laughs)
@@WanderingRavens you also said scone wrong ;)
I’m from Norfolk and the ‘shires’ I pronounce more ‘shear’ than ‘shurr’
Same
Same with me (Suffolk)
Yes! This! I'm intrigued - are there UK accents that say "shur"? I'm definitely in the "shear" camp (also from Suffolk though...)
@@amandahall5395 I’m from Hampshire. Everyone I know pronounces it “Hamp-sher”
Same with me (Somerset)
Suffolk is definitely Suff euck. Google is wrong.
Good to know! We were wondering about that!
And Feck is Irish not British!
@@WanderingRavens Yeah Norfolk and Suffolk are neighbouring counties. You guessed it Suffolk is south and Norfolk is north. The names come from the Angles from the North-folk & South-Folk. They both lay in East Anglia which is still used today for an area for example news coverage you have ITV East Anglia for a local news station. Although its not an enclosed county or district, more hear say as it used to be the kingdom of East Anglia
cos Google is American lol 😂
suffuk
Essex (East Saxons)
Sussex (South Saxons)
Middlesex (now mostly subsumed into Greater London) (Middle Saxons)
Wessex (not a county but a region) (West Saxons)
In British English (especially place names) the ‘Berk’ sound is almost exclusively said as ‘bark’. So Berkshire is pronounced Barkshire. Berkeley square is pronounced ‘Barkly square’
Thank you for letting us know!
@@WanderingRavens FYI, there is also an insult derived from this county name, to call someone a berk, sounds like burk, a stupid person, but is derived from rhyming slang which in Brit speak actually never uses the rhyming word it implies. i.e. Can I use your dog? (dog and bone. = phone). It relates to fox hunting, so the Berkshire (sounds like Barksire) hunt. But to call someone a berk, you are actually call someone a word that rhymes with hunt... Rhyming slang should keep you busy... This classic comedy sketch, even with the rhyming words left in should keep you busy... ua-cam.com/video/ij5mw_eqKuc/v-deo.html
@@paolobacardi See you next Tuesday!
@@oz25 Defo a see you next tuesday type of person.
Google translate was pretty much spot on where she changed the "e" to an "a" was correct, the only one I took issue with was Durham, she pronounced it a bit weird, Grace in this instance was correct. Oh, and Cumbria, you were correct again, I think she has a problem pronouncing "u" 😂👍
"if it wasn't for me personally you'd still be speaking German!.....Still?....." 😂
3:25
😂😂
MERSEYSIDE is basically Liverpool and the surrounding area.
Derbyshire is beautiful you should come visit, when it's legal 😂
There's a town that has a dam that almost flooded the entire valley and 7000 people were evacuated but it's fine now 😂
Soon as it's legal we'll be over! :D
Derbyshire is fucking boring get me out please
"Riding' means 'a third part' (it's related to 'thrid' - an older version of 'third'). Yorkshire was traditionally split into three administrative areas, East, West, and North.
And in Sussex they're called, unfortunately, Rapes
When you say British people are softer on the r's a substantial proportion of them just did a Frankie Howard impression.
as an explanation:ua-cam.com/video/yJLwknHXJDg/v-deo.html
Scots are harsher on the R, so what I assume they meant was English, not British.
How to name a place in England:
1) take a fairly straight-forward description of the place (possibly in an ancient language).
2) mash all the words together into one word.
3) blur or drop some of the letters or syllables to make it easier to say as one word.
4) possibly make some weird, random, unpredictable change to how part of it is said, for the lulz, and to make things harder for outsiders.
You guys seem like such nice people, most Americans get deeply defensive about anything that contradicts what they’ve learnt in America, or at least they’re the ones who argue the loudest
Try Shrewsbury...that's a tricky one. Even the locals can't settle on one pronunciation.
There is no right answer as you say.
Darwin was born in a house down the road from me. Greetings from Shrewsbury, Shropshire. ✌️
But is that SHREWsbury as in 'shroo' to rhyme with shoe, or as in shrow to rhyme with show ? :P
@@baf_mcnab3065 Shoe of course. Only posh folk and outsiders call it "Shrowsbury" 🤣
@@baf_mcnab3065 Its Shroosbury. Anyone calling it Shrowsbury is being pretentious and insufferable.
@@AlisonBryen Daccord, used to go out with a girl from Ironbridge, her family pronounced it 'shroo' but her posh friend said 'shrow...'
16:45 - Correct on the rivers.
My hometown is Newcastle-upon-Tyne and it sits upon the River Tyne, where our bridges are most notably the Tyne Bridge, which was built first and then the same construction company in question went on to build Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia. The river at that part in our city centre is where we divide from Newcastle to the north and Gateshead to the south.
The river also is presentable in other parts of the North East, like the river tyne flows outs of Tynemouth and South Shields into the North Sea.
The next city south of us is Sunderland which sits upon the River Wear.
Tyne and Wear - both rivers.
Ayy! Can't believe we got that right! :D
County was founded in 1974 for administrative convenience.
HAHAHA!!...this was GREAT!!....and ty for the 411....and BTW, u two make a really cute couple!!.....more power to you all...and keep up the FUN!!
Thank you so much!!
My Norfolk accent pronounces the "shire" as "shear" as in "shear the sheep".
Also, as a Norfolk native, we tend to pronounce the "folk" as the word "fuck" but without the "U" if that makes sense. Nor-fck. Although some of the older generations do still have a slight "I" sound in there but very slight.
i do this too! i used to live in norfolk but my accent has kind of dropped now, but i don't know if that's maybe stayed on a bit?
I'm from North London but I've always pronounced most 'shire' places as 'shear' other than Cheshire and Yorkshire those to me are pronounced as "Chesh-a and Yorksh-a"
the 'wall' in cornwall is pronounced more like how you say "wool"
You two brighten up my evenings when your videos come out. Thanks, from Whimple.
Thank you so much for your kind comment, Steve! We appreciate your support and encouragement :D
Riding is old English for third, Yorkshire was so big it was divided in to thirds. Was North, East and West Ridings. In 1974 The East Riding mostly became Humberside and part of the West Riding became the Soviet Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire. ;¬))
Thank you for taking the time to answer our question! :D
It’s back as the East Riding now. Humberside was dropped in 96
Also Cleveland
@@kevinbrownsword9558 Thanks, over 50 years since I left.
dinger40 I’ve only been here for 12 years so missed all the kerfuffle
I’m from rugby - it’s crazy that you were staying so close when you lived in the uk! Always look forward to your videos!
Great fun as usual guys. Well done Eric for getting Hertfordshire right :)
Thank you! We're improving with our pronunciation I think (I hope haha)
Fun fact for you, the West Midlands county is different than the West Midlands region. Alcester is in the West Midlands region but not the West Midlands county. It’s actually in Warwickshire. It’s quite confusing haha. I live in Redditch, which is in Worcestershire, in the West Midlands region but not the West Midlands county.
You were spot on about Tyne and Wear being rivers. It became a county in 1974, so it's quite young in comparison to a lot of the others, and might be why it's named so differently
Yay! Can we say that I get two additional points for that: ;)
Tyne and Wear WAS a county but was disbanded in 1986.
How did a video about pronouncing county's end up being a debate about wether it's the cream or jam that goes on a scone first?
They missed out Brigantia, Wessex, Votadini, Mercia etc. 😉😉
Northumbria and east anglia
They also mixed eras in county names. Rutland became a part of Leicester in 1974 - at the same time the three Ridings of Yorkshire were lost, East Riding being reconstituted in 1996.
Yorkshire was a large county, broken down into areas called "Ridings".
Definitely pronounced Barksher
Noooo! We were wrong 😭😭
Or in West Midlands ...barksheer ..all the shers or shires are pronounced sheers by Brummies ...
Barksheer in Birmingham !
I'm really proud of you guys, you cracked it with a sense of fun and humour. I love it. 😀
I think the reason why Americans sometimes struggle with British place names is that they don't always realise that the reason that they aren't pronounced predictably in modern English is because of the extensive history of competing languages and cultures within the British Isles which change from place to place. Middle English and Cornish as just two examples will have vastly different phonetics than modern English so these really old place names still use unused sounds. Nonetheless, you guys caught on super quickly I thought and guessed things really well!
heres a quite simple wikipedia article on this history!:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toponymy_of_England
18:00 sounded like that old woman from bristol on the news saying “no, not another one”
😂
Please do one of these for Wales!
Next week! :D
Merseyside is where the city of Liverpool is, I am from greater Manchester, a town called Wigan but the accent here it sounds like Wigin.
I’m from Wigan!
If you ever go to Manchester, please pronounce it as 'Man-chester-shire", and remember to over pronounce the 'shire'.
Even after they tell you that's wrong, keep doing it :-)
Dat is evil... as a life long resident of Manchester, I approve!
😂😂 But I don't want to get stabbed
@@WanderingRavens Well that could be a concern. Well, there is a safeguard. if anyone in Manchester attacks you, the line "Your beetles are a great band", will surely soothe the aggressor.
Also. NEVER DO THIS!
@@WanderingRavens Also there's an old statue of Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln Square, Manchester, of which there is some interesting history about and the ending of the civil war in America!
You could always ask to visit Manchesterford and see the famous Acorn Antiques shop. Alternatively, go to Stretford, just south of Manchester and ask someone where Shakespeare's house is...
Just found you guys and I loved this vid. I'm from the UK and thanks a bunch for a brilliant video haha! Proper job ;)
looking forward to Leominster
Ilixie pronounced by many as ‘Lem steur’
Or Wymondham...
Pádraig Floyd Oh yeah, ‘windeum’. And then there’s Saxmundham - ‘Saxeum’.
And Cleobury Mortimer while they're in the area.
Or Yeovilton!
“If it wasn’t for me personally you’d still be speaking German” Lmao
Also, a fact I actually learnt from Sleepy Hollow (an american tv drama show about a 18th century british redcoat (who was a traitor) and a town that had some weird scifi things happening to it) and I checked it out and it was correct. The reason why americans pronounce things differently is due to the English academics which wanted to further (or farther!) themselves away from the motherland (thats GB by the way) and so started over pronouncing everything. (in a sort of black adder-ish kind of way)
Now add that in with Thomas's hatred for pompious aristoricracy and therefore created an entire new dictionary (webber? I think) and the fact that if you were caught having different pronounciations you were checked to be a spy from the motherland (the US civil war politics here), you get the reason why americans speak so 18th century. It's tilted a bit of course, but its actually very surprising how tight it is to the way we used to speak here.
I find this stuff fascinating, its also why I say america is still owned/run by the british empire (1st british empire not the to be confused with the current second british empire (Victoria's empire)) as everything is like it was back then. Even the horrible bits, which I won't go into, avoid a political debate here.
So fascinating! Thank you for sharing that bit of history with us! The evolution of English is a topic we'd both love to learn more about.
I just died a little at the thought we're now taking phonics from TV show!
The er/ar is nothing more than common changes ongoing since the Great Vowel Shift
Good shout on the Ox ford thing and yes, a lot of our place names are descriptive. For instance in the midlands we have a small town called Brownhills and yes you've guessed it, there used to be opencast mining there. In the town there is a great 'sculpture' of a miner. Midlands is of course an abbreviation of middle lands, and so on.
“Berk” is typically pronounced “Bark”, that is correct.
It's like Derby. They go to the Durby and we go to Darby! 😆😆
Fire Drake Remember that at the end of 'Carry On Henry' Henry VIII (Sid James) proclaims Lord Hampton of Wick (Kenneth Connor) as The Prince of Berkshire with the following speech "Arise Prince of Berks"!
Although “Berk”
Comes from “Berkshire hunt “ we should say that someone is a Bark.
8:08 “Then there’s New York, New York” - Grace lol 😂. Does she mean the song lol 😂? Also Hertfordshire is where Hartford in Connecticut got its name.
Sussex and Essex are near but don’t border!! My beautiful home county of Kent seperates Essex from sussex, from here I can go west across the river rother to east Sussex or north across the Thames into Essex or london
Good to know! We want to visit Kent at some point and see how it compares to Washington's Kent haha 😂
Wandering Ravens I expect it was named after my Kent! I was born in Margate but other than the few weeks in the hospital (and holidays) I’ve lived in herne bay all my life (come here if you want but it’s a bit of a shithole, not too much of one though) deal is nice and is quite a nice traditional beach town (but unlike herne bay hasn’t been invaded by Londoners who make it crappy). Canterbury is good but very touristy. One good thing about Kent is that almost all of it is very accessible by trains from London (a lot of places are also on the high speed line)... it is lovely in Kent but you might want to do the research before you come some places aren’t to nice
@@tobeytransport2802 I thought Faversham was very nice and it has a brewery that is over 300 years old.
And of course they are named that because they were the 2 of the main locations the Saxons settled when they arrived, along with Wessex (East Saxons, West Saxons and South Saxons becoming Essex, Wessex and Sussex)
And Kent is beautiful. Unless you are from Gillingham. Gillingham is trash. Along with the rest of Medway. I would know. :)
@@tobeytransport2802 Washington's Kent County could be named after a person
Being from Lincolnshire, the appreciation for the midlands made me happy xD
Same from Leicestershire
Riding is an old saxon region and yorkshire was originally split into 3 Ridings, East , West and North
Good to know! :D
Not Saxon , Viking.
@@Molly-Ward West Riding.
Did you say soft Rs or sort arse?
Soft Rs. But do Brits have soft arses too? 😂
@@WanderingRavens is that your standard chat up line? Lol
@@WanderingRavens
Wouldn't YOU like to know!
4:58 Other way round. Devon puts the cream on first, but Cornwall puts on jam first.
Good to know!
Isn't that what they said?
Don't worry - nobody knows except the good folk of those counties. We just let them get on with it.
Mr. Scarlo I’m from Bristol, we’re not fussy, eat scones either way, life’s too short to argue.
So many different accents in the UK
Which one of my comments will somebody say "Youre Wrong!"
So many different accents!
@@WanderingRavens with the accents you have to bear each one of the counties was a separate tribe with its own tongue and not even the same root some are celtic some germanic overlay viking and norman french go back just 200 years and someone from yorkshire would need a translator to talk to someone in hampshire if you could find one in some of the border areas towns and villages would have trouble talking to each other its similar to the american indian tribes separated by a common tongue that evolved over to time to separate dialects
Tyne and Wear encompasses the most built-up metropolitan area of north-east England. Newcastle is on the Tyne and Sunderland is on the Wear.
Yey Shropshire I live there. I'm also studying at university in Shrewsbury, the town where Darwin was born. It was cool to learn about evolution in Darwin's own home town
Floreat Salopia
I'm at the uni there too XD
That sounds awesome. I know a fair bit about evolution but not much about Darwin.
@Wandering Ravens
Just to add to the confusion, there are in effect two sets of county names. The Political/Administrative counties and the Ceremonial counties. The administrative counties were created in 1972 to reflect a more logical structure for the 20th century ( well at least in the eyes of the politicians ), hence you end up with counties like Tyne and Wear, Merseyside, the West Midlands and metropolitan boroughs like Greater Manchester, which effectively equate to counties ( kind of ). Many of the names for these new administrative areas were not popular. Some of these administrative counties have changed their names and borders faster than I can keep up with.
Around 1997 many of the traditional county names were reintroduced as "Ceremonial Counties" aka "The Lieutenancy Areas of England" ( pronounced LEF-tenancy not LOO-tenancy ) and each county has a Lord Lieutenant, a representative of the monarch, and a purely ceremonial position. Of course these ceremonial counties should not be confused with the historic counties that existed prior to 1972.
Now all you have to do is demonstrate your pronunciation skills with the Scottish, Welsh and N.Ireland counties.
To be fair, there are quite a few of these that sound different depending on regional accents. x 😄
Haha, definitely. Everyone in Yorkshire says "shire" differently!
Like Brizzle for instance ;)
It Depends on where you live for Durham my family pronounce it Derum but people 5 mins Down the road will pronounce it Duram your wife got it Right I live There the differences are Geordie (Newcastle upon Tyne Accent ) and the Wearside Accent 5 to 10 miles Difference
Vowels tend to migrate backwards over the centuries. "Err" is forward of "Arr" The spelling was cemented long enough ago to be out of date. Give it time and it will be "Beckshire" etc, then "Bickshire". Focus on where you make the vowel sounds and you can see how "Ja" became "Yes" which is pronounced "Yis" in New Zealand.
Thank you for enlightening us! Linguistics is fascinating :D
I'm impressed Grace remembered the whole Devon Vs Cornwall style scones controversy! lol. As an English native i'll add my own thoughts here and there... 6:50 - think "durr - am" ... 8:00 'Greater London' and 'City of London' are technically not the same, but i can see where the confusion comes from, i didn't understand it fully until fairly recently either lol. One worth looking up if you're interested ... 18:04 where i'm from! lol ... 18:55 Grace's shock and horror! Really looking forward to that vid! I had a go at a 'label the US States' blank map a couple of months ago and i think i managed to get about 20ish in the right place. That's after struggling to think of the names of all 50! I had to look up the last 15 or so... Great vid as always and thankyou so much for sharing
I’m glad my county gave you no problems (Somerset), although if you were local you’d pronounce it more like ‘Zummerrrzet’ - think how pirates speak. Their accent originated in the West Country (the best place in the whole of England, of course!). BTW, it continues to be a pleasure to watch Grace slowly sliding into madness. She even thinks she’s met all these people now. Aw, bless. 😂
I seem to recall the modern West Country accent is the closest nowadays to the 'standard' accent (if such a thing existed) as it was back in the times of Shakespeare. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.) Shakespeare, Sir Francis Drake and his ilk spoke with what we'd hear now as something of a West Country accent. I think was before the Great Vowel Shift though, so the english of Shakespeare's time would sound very different to how it would sound today.
if you ever go to Cornwall would I suggest the night riveria train from Paddington station
The sleeper is good but then you would miss the views.
Thank you for the suggestion! We would love to take the train to Cornwall (train rides are one of our favourite ways to travel).
@@johnclements6614 but you get best view when you wake up in Cornwall
@@WanderingRavens If you get the train in the day get window seats on the left hand side of the train. Then you can see one of the white horses and the part by the sea at Dawlish is impressive. Once you get past Reading (pronounce that) the views are good all the way to Penzance, from both sides but the left is better.
@@thisisstuart7951 But not so good coming back waking up on platform one.
'Shire' pronounced 'shu' (short as in 'huff') not 'shurrrr'.
Are you from up north? Further south (I’m from Suffolk), we pronounce it more like shear.
I'm from Wiltshire (and now Gloucestershire) and say "shur", as many people do. Some people might say "shu" (especially if "well spoken"), but the accent in the SW is rhotic so the R gets its time 👍
1:24 "I'm pretty sure it's not"
I'm DEFINITELY sure it is, lol!
Love the isle of wit..
We do too! 😄
You are absolutely right with the etymology of Tyne and Wear. There are 2 cities in the county, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Sunderland. As you can probably tell, the Tyne runs through Newcastle, and the Wear runs through Sunderland.
Extra fact: when the county was created in 1974, the original name was going to be Tyneside, but everyone in Sunderland and Wearside complained about it, so they included the names of both rivers.
You guys did so well, nice one! I love that you guys stayed in the Midlands - Alcester is also in Warwickshire though!
Greater London Vs City of London is a really interesting one - you guys should look it up. The city of London is really tiny (it's also called the square mile, well, you can guess why😉), has a really long history, and covers most of the financial district where all the banks and traders work. The rest of London (where almost everyone lives) is covered by Greater London! This is actually a really interesting one; because the City of London (the square mile) is a city, Westminster (where parliament and most government departments are) is a city, but 'London' as in the massive place where 8 million people live doesn't have city status!
Greater Manchester covers Manchester and surrounding towns/cities (Wigan, Bolton, Stockport, etc.). The West Midlands is a bit similar but for Birmingham. Being from the west midlands, but not being from Birmingham, I can tell you that the name 'Greater Birmingham' would not have gone down well!
These videos are great btw - keep it up!❤️
Dan Simpson: 'London' (as you describe it) is Greater London, a ceremonial county created in 1965. The City of Westminster is, for administrative purposes, no more than a London borough but which also holds city status. The present London Borough of the City of Westminster was created in 1965, by the amalgamation of the Metropolitan boroughs of Westminster, Paddington and Saint Marylebone. The City of London also is a county in its own right.
Funny how UK geography works though, I think most people would say that Warwickshire is in the Midlands.
Further to the excellent post above: West Midlands county was named after West Midlands Urban Area-- Birmingham and Black Country. The county also then tacked on Coventry. I can confirm Black Country and Cov folk wouldn't like have been associated with a Greater *Birmingham*!
That little quirk of not pronouncing r unless followed by a vowel is called non-rhotic English (we can still recognise its presence though as the preceding vowel is usually lengthened or sometimes changed a little: chat Vs chart).
Essex = east sax Sussex = south sax
Saxon influenced names
I am going to say the correct way with a scone is jam first then clotted cream
Grace applauds!!
And if you prefer it the other way round, turn the scone upside down
Yes because you can spread the jam and dollop of cream 👍Mmmmmm cream
Sorry that's just wrong.
Jimmy Bagshaw Heathen!
In counties, the word sex (yeah, I know, just take a quick laughing break before reading on) refers to saxon land, in the names Sussex, Essex, Wessex and Middlesex, which refer to locations relative to the general area of modern day London*. Essex (east of London) means land of the eastern saxons, and is the only one that survives as a county. The land of the Southern Saxons (Sussex, South of London) is divided into East and West to make the counties a more reasonable size. Wessex isn't anything official these days and just refers to a general area west of London including places like Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire. The trains that used to serve these areas were called Wessex electrics. Middlesex is what is now modern day North and West London, and was completely removed as an official county when Greater London was created. There is still however a cricket team called middlesex.
On a side note, Sussex is absolutely beautiful and one of the warmest places in the UK, I would seriously recommend visiting when we're all able to travel again.
If you ever come to cornwall let me know and we'll go for a pint and i can give you the lowdown on cornish history. Lots of pirates, smugglers, mines, sea exploration, and ancient celtic stuff. I'm biased because i'm from here but its fucking cool
We'll take you up on that!!
@@WanderingRavens But can you pronounce 'Mousehole'?
@@Steve14ps I bet they can't even tell the difference between a Donkey and an arse. lol
12:34 , as someone from wolverhampton, we don't pronounce the 'h' , not too sure if the posh british do but as someone who lives in wolvo, i haven't heard anyone pronounce the 'h' haha
Surprisingly Google translate got them all right in pronunciation. Would love to see you both do one based off the counties of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland and see how Google translate interprets them to sound 😂. Also I'm pretty sure that Yorkshire is split up into so many places because when the vikings came to the UK, they pretty much took over the Yorkshire area and that whole part of England was split between the English and the Danes, due to Danw law. So I think that's the reason why it has so many counties. Great video like always 😊
Thank you!! We're so glad you enjoyed it :D And wish us luck - we're doing Welsh counties next week and Scottish the week after!
@@WanderingRavens Good luck. Most are not too bad, but some of them may look very intimidating. Just to help you out a bit in Welsh w and y are vowels and the y usually makes sounds like an I. Double d usually makes a th sound, double L is the sound you make when your trying to get something out of your throat. Rh is also kind of a th sound, Ph makes an f sound, but double F makes a v sound. Just remember that your probably looking at the English version of the name of the county so it's a bit easier then their Welsh names 😊.
Just a few Welsh pointers to help pronunciation if you can't understand why some letters are together and as some people say it looks like someone has hit their head on a keyboard 😂.
Oh yes! Let's hear "Kirkcudbright"
@@felicitydavies3227 'Double L is the sound you make when your trying to get something out of your throat.' 🤣🤣🤣 It's funny cos it's true.
@@mdwellington I don't think there is any other way to explain how to make that noise. It is literally doing that while also rolling your tongue at the same time. 😂
10:41 Oh, I live there! You should visit, got a lot of old hamlets and villages, and got a lot of beaches too. By the way, the translator got Durham one wrong. It's Duh Rum not Durry-uhm :)
Merseyside, where the scousers live!
Best way to solve the clotted cream/jam conundrum? Put jam on one half, cream on the other and sandwich the two halves together. You just have to turn it one way or the other to have it your preferred way... (also a great excuse to put extra cream and jam on to account for the extra layer of scone on top!)
Grace has just got herself banned from Devon. 🤣
I live in Northamptonshire but I pronounce it north-hamptonshire, although that might be because my accent is a bit posher. personally it only really sounds ok to drop the h if that is part of your accent, as it is just a feature of it. so whilst lots living in it call it Northamptonshire, that is mostly based on their accents and it can be pronounced either way :)
Yes North Hampton but come south and you'll find South ampton, we're not fans of 'h' down 'ere' 😉👍😁
@@wencireone Wasn't Hampshire called Southamptonshire at one time?
@@leohickey4953 yes you're very knowledgeable, bit before my time though 😉👍
Well done Eric for getting Herefordshire right. Plus i live in the West Midlands and there is a lot of thing you still have not seen there. Plus a big thumbs up to remembering how to pronounce Worcestershire.
There is no right or wrong way to eat a scone. Devon does it one way and Cornwall another and they keep arguing about it. I eat mine the Cornwall way as i prefer it that way.
Thank you! We're getting better and better at speaking English 😄
Ay fellow West Midlands
Devon are wrong though. 🤣🤣🤣
West Midlands is confusing - it's both a county, *and* a region that includes several counties, only one of which is the West Midlands county. Alcester, where you stayed, is in the West Mids *region* by virtue of being in Warwickshire, but not in the West Mids *county*, which is where you find Coventry, Birmingham and Wolverhampton (I do pronounce the "h", BTW). And for Americans who don't know where the West Midlands are, tell them that Stratford-on-Avon is there and they might start to get it.
I’m from Northamptonshire, people generally pronounce it “nor-fam-ton-sheer” but the H sound being pronounced is correct as the county town’s name comes from its Saxon name of “Hamm Tun”.
🔴Watch next: Americans Try Saying British CITIES! ua-cam.com/video/Rum4irM5rQQ/v-deo.html
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FYI, BARK shire is correct.
The scone debate will go on forever
Try Welsh County names I dare you, to be honest most are easy 😁
Love you to react to this, the city of London, isn't actually london, its a city (liturally) inside London XD :) ua-cam.com/video/tIuVXtwbqss/v-deo.html
Though totally understand if you don't want to but love you both to watch it in your own time instead then, I think you'll find it interesting :)
Or this one is much shorter though not to do with the history behind it
ua-cam.com/video/jZkuwE3ocG8/v-deo.html
@@eanjamesmogg9488 We're doing those next week!
17:32 Not all of it, I live in the west midlands and the town that where I live classifies under (Walsall) is a bit naf tbf
Good to know
Found out recently, that the pronunciation of 'Shire' in counties is the result of old English in which the pronunciations are different. E's and A's were also spoken differently than today. This could also be the reason for other places sounding different to the way they are spelt. BTW Nottinghamshire - you have to pronounce the T''s guys. Thanks again for another video that made me smile!
I’ve noticed that you’ve gradually got better and better at this throughout lockdown. Answering though Northamptonshire question, it’s accent dependant, locals would say something close to norfamptnshur. So heres a question for you, I know that there are some rather significant accent changes throughout the US, what is the general etiquette at all in pronouncing place names? For example, here in the UK, it can seem condescending to pronounce places using the local accent if it wasn’t my normal accent, case in point I would not call Glasgow, glazgie because I’m not Glaswegian.