Meow

Got it, read it. Plus several others.

He has been at LitFest for the past couple of years and I've been to several of his sessions. He did the Orwell Lecture this year as well. Very friendly and happy to chat. His son Ben was here this year too and he's also lovely.

scrubbedexpat141

It's much nicer than Portsmouth, which is the main thing. But having been born and brought up in Southampton for most of my life before moving here it's actually quite sad going back and noticing 'faults' (in my opinion).

It's a good fun city, it's big enough but doesn't have to feel huge, the student aspect is actually good, but like any large city some of the areas are run down and need help and investment. They've been getting on to it I know but it just sometimes feel like it's a little bit-part and isolated.

Don't get me wrong, I'll be looking to move back to Hampshire in a few years time for sure and will want to be close to Southampton, if not in it.

One of the best? It's THE best team in the Premier League. All hail King Koeman.

Millhouse

It's the Dubai of the South of England.

I actually really liked it. Also quite liked Portsmouth but I must admit I only went to the waterfront to get the ferry to the Isle of Widget.

scrubbedexpat141

As bad as it is for me to say, Portsmouth isn't bad. Well, Southsea is lovely and I argue that it's not really Portsmouth. Gunwharf is cool, the old town around Nelson is alright too. For a night out Portsmouth competes for sure.

It's just the rest of it and the peasant people that infest the city.

Maxima

You would be surprised to hear this, but quite a few of the cleaner types actually lived in better environs back home than in the Gulf; better as in more living space, far better food, better "entertainment" and so on.


They are not here for a better living standard, but for the cash they get after every month which they send back home to support anything from 3-10 family members. The luckier ones have siblings doing the same so there is not much pressure on any one member.


Their choice is between better living conditions and little to no cash back home or sleeping 6 to a room here, with 500-800 dhs left over after every month.

Standanista

Agreed, although those cash figures are optimistic for many. The cleaners at our place are on 600 a month gross - a sizeable chunk of which has to go back home - plus camp accommodation, but no food. There are tea boys on 450. Albeit, those sums will get topped up a bit by ad hoc tips.

Standanista

Good subject. I think you're out on those dates though. The Romans left by 410 and by the early 600s the majority of what is now England, plus south eastern Scotland, was already speaking variants of Anglo-Saxon. The only exceptions by that point were the upland, and hence more easily defended, Celtic areas (Cornwall/Devon obviously, plus parts of what is now Lancashire and Cumbria), plus the bits the Jutes took which was only really Kent and the Isle of Wight. Hill country is the same reason that Welsh survived where it did, "Welsh" being a derivative of the Anglo-Saxon word for foreigner.

While respective British and English communities did at times live side by side, the lack of Celtic vocabulary in English is ultimately indicative of the extent to which the English language arrived in Britain at the point of a sword. (So much for multiculturalism.) The remnants are in place names, e.g. Leeds, Avon. This is mirrored in the archeological record, e.g. pots and stuff.

The Romans had enough military in Britain, plus the road and barrack infrastructure to easily move them where needed, to keep both German raiders plus any errant Romano-British earls in check. Once they left, the British (who had gone soft at this point after nearly four centuries of saunas, cheap prosseco and relative peace & prosperity) began to rely increasingly on Germanic mercenaries to fight their battles for them. There was no shortage of these, given the population pressures on the Continent at the time. It didn't take long for a few of the said troops to meet their mate fighting for the opposition on the battlefield, wonder what was happening, realise that the place was up for the taking and put a post on Facebook saying come on over; "the rest, as they say, is history".

A lot more Norse got into English than is credited but largely in Northern dialects, i.e. north of the Wirral-Wash boundary which marked the southern edge of the Danelaw. Place names are also a big marker, e.g. anything with a -by suffix. Curiously though they didn't leave too much in the DNA record.

Then the Normans came and really ****ed it up.

Angle, Anglo-Saxon, Saxon, Jutish and Danish all gradually started to mingle (never fully, hence we still have regional accents today) but the big step change in standardisation was the printing press. Coincidentally this technology popped up around the time the Great Vowel Shift was happening, which accounts for English's screwed up vowel spellings.

Meow

The dates were off the top of my head and I wasn't going to look them up for this place!

My info is generally from Professor David Crystal, a renounced expert on linguistics and I'll accept what he says over something C&P'd from a random website.

The printing press essentially introduced standardised spelling and as many of the original printers were Flemish we have them to thank for things like silent Gs (ghost for example) in the English language.

Standanista

As you should. Just to be clear however, that was all off the top of my head too, not C&P - also a pet subject! Better to use a variety of sources than rely on one academic, also. There's always room for opinion in this stuff.

Didn't know that about the Flemish, interesting.

Standanista

Another good entry-level resource in this area is The Story of English, which is a BBC series and accompanying book. It's been around donkey's years but still good. If you want to dig a bit deeper into the early stuff check out Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader.

Meow

Entry level? Thanks for the mansplaining...

Standanista

You're one better than me, I just had to look up what that meant!

Wasn't having a go at all. I figured that if you were interested in this area then that was a series you might enjoy looking at, rather than bore you with more academia.

Standanista

Crystal & Son on OP Shakespeare:

Kakawax

I'm sure you would enjoy the Open University course U214 Worlds of English, certainly the best module I ever took, though the fee for it has increased dramatically since. It a one year course, very well structured in three parts, the formation of English in Britain, it's dispersion around the globe and subsequent diversification, and the politics of modern English as in identity and social policy. Lots of interesting facts and cultural perspectives, and a solid academic foundation on the subject.

nonthaburi

I remember spending some time in Gosport, doing some work on naval bases down there. Don't miss that place that's for sure.