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The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

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Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

#21

Post by oblio »

mc32 wrote: post #6
Synaesthesia wrote: post #3

"But the famous ‘insularity’ and ‘xenophobia’ of the English is far stronger in the working class than in the bourgeoisie. In all countries the poor are more national than the rich, but the English working class are outstanding in their abhorrence of foreign habits. Even when they are obliged to live abroad for years they refuse either to accustom themselves to foreign food or to learn foreign languages. Nearly every…

What's worse, that or not speaking a perfect Frankish language of when in the land of Franks? At least the English tolerate all kinds of foreign mangling pretty well.

> At least the English tolerate all kinds of foreign mangling pretty well.

That's because they mangle their own language awfully enough.

I'm not a native English speaker but I've heard quite a few native Englishmen and their accents are horrible. Received Pronunciation is obviously nice to hear and quite clear, but those local accents... oh my!

I'm not saying that my accent is any better, but at least I try to make my sounds be as close as possible to the actual letters used in the word! :)

Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

#22

Post by Accacin »

oblio wrote: post #21
mc32 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's worse, that or not speaking a perfect Frankish language of when in the land of Franks? At least the English tolerate all kinds of foreign mangling pretty well.

> At least the English tolerate all kinds of foreign mangling pretty well. That's because they mangle their own language awfully enough. I'm not a native English speaker but I've heard quite a few native Englishmen and their accents are horrible. Received Pronunciation is obviously nice to hear and quite clear, but those local accents... oh my! I'm not saying that my accent is any better, but at least I try to make m…

Some of those "horrible" accents are some of the oldest accents in the UK.

Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

#23

Post by pif »

mc32 wrote: post #6
Synaesthesia wrote: post #3

"But the famous ‘insularity’ and ‘xenophobia’ of the English is far stronger in the working class than in the bourgeoisie. In all countries the poor are more national than the rich, but the English working class are outstanding in their abhorrence of foreign habits. Even when they are obliged to live abroad for years they refuse either to accustom themselves to foreign food or to learn foreign languages. Nearly every…

What's worse, that or not speaking a perfect Frankish language of when in the land of Franks? At least the English tolerate all kinds of foreign mangling pretty well.

I suppose you've been to Paris :-)

I was there, too, and I got the same impression as you. What a surprise when I later discovered how warmly welcomed you'll be anywhere else in France!

Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

#24

Post by e12e »

kbart wrote: post #13
f_allwein wrote: post #8

"In the minds of many Brits, umbrella usage was symptomatic of a weakness of character, particularly among men. Few people ever dared to be seen with such a detestable, effeminate contraption. To carry an umbrella when it rained was to incur public ridicule." This sentiment is very much alive today. I'm always surprised how I seem to be the only person carrying an umbrella in London when it rains. Especially bankers…

I doubt that it's to show ones manliness. When you are used to rain (I bet everyone that lived in London for more than a week is), you know when it's not strong enough to get you wet and when it's really time to take your umbrella or get a shelter. I usually carry an umbrella, but use it only when I see that otherwise I'm going to get soaked. Walking down a crowded street with an umbrella is often simply too much of…

When you've lived long enough in Bergen, Norway you realize it rains very few other places in the world. It's just that locals around the world whine a lot ;-)

I love this (presumably automatic) characterization from:

https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-precipitatio...

"A lot of rain (rainy season) falls in the months: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December."

Yeah, sounds about right.

Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

#25

Post by jasonkester »

seizethecheese wrote: post #10
f_allwein wrote: post #8

"In the minds of many Brits, umbrella usage was symptomatic of a weakness of character, particularly among men. Few people ever dared to be seen with such a detestable, effeminate contraption. To carry an umbrella when it rained was to incur public ridicule." This sentiment is very much alive today. I'm always surprised how I seem to be the only person carrying an umbrella in London when it rains. Especially bankers…

This is definitely alive in Portland, OR. There's a pride in handling the rain.

Portland and Seattle are interesting though. It rains a lot, but it never seems to rain on you.

I walked to work in Portland for two years, and while the streets were normally wet and it had clearly been raining recently, there were only a handful of days where I actually got wet during the half hour I was walking. I never carried an umbrella.

Compare that to England, where the rain will wait until you're a few hundred yards out of your house, then attack from otherwise sunny skies to blast you from dead sideways with that particularly English tiny-dropped dense-yet-light-seeming rain that soaks your clothes completely in two minutes flat. Then it will stop and let you carry on to your destination wet.

You can never leave the house here unprepared.

Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

#26

Post by CalRobert »

f_allwein wrote: post #8

"In the minds of many Brits, umbrella usage was symptomatic of a weakness of character, particularly among men. Few people ever dared to be seen with such a detestable, effeminate contraption. To carry an umbrella when it rained was to incur public ridicule." This sentiment is very much alive today. I'm always surprised how I seem to be the only person carrying an umbrella in London when it rains. Especially bankers…

In Dublin, I think it's considered, if not rude, at least not the height of courtesy, to use an umbrella in dense areas where you will be bumping in to people and essentially pushing your water on to them.

However, my feeling is that the real lunacy here is having very narrow pavements (sidewalks) carrying dozens or hundreds of people while having streets, which might be carrying ten or twenty people along the same stretch of road in taxis (which most cars are in Dublin city centre on a weekday morning), get 8-10x as much space. (I am much more sympathetic to buses).

Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

#27

Post by cperciva »

yodon wrote: post #4

Those of us who live in Seattle tend to feel the same way. If you see someone carrying an umbrella here you can bet they're a tourist.

Pretty similar in Vancouver too, although I'd say "from Eastern Canada" rather than "tourist" -- the main tourism season is in the drier months.

Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

#28

Post by oblio »

Accacin wrote: post #22
oblio wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least the English tolerate all kinds of foreign mangling pretty well. That's because they mangle their own language awfully enough. I'm not a native English speaker but I've heard quite a few native Englishmen and their accents are horrible. Received Pronunciation is obviously nice to hear and quite clear, but those local accents... oh my! I'm not saying that my accent is any better, but at least I try to make m…

Some of those "horrible" accents are some of the oldest accents in the UK.

And as we all know, backwards compatibility is a bitch!

Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

#29

Post by BjoernKW »

oblio wrote: post #21
mc32 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's worse, that or not speaking a perfect Frankish language of when in the land of Franks? At least the English tolerate all kinds of foreign mangling pretty well.

> At least the English tolerate all kinds of foreign mangling pretty well. That's because they mangle their own language awfully enough. I'm not a native English speaker but I've heard quite a few native Englishmen and their accents are horrible. Received Pronunciation is obviously nice to hear and quite clear, but those local accents... oh my! I'm not saying that my accent is any better, but at least I try to make m…

There's no letter-to-sound correspondence in English. English probably - at least compared with other European language - is one of the most irregular languages in terms of pronunciation:

http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/english1.html

This is simply due to the language having been heavily influenced by a host of other - quite different - languages over the centuries, Old Norse and French in particular.

There's also the interesting fact that as the first human language in history English is spoken by more non-native speakers than native speakers. Some linguists say we might very well see some sort of International English that's highly influenced by foreign accents.

In fact there already is such a variety although it's only used by a rather small group of people: The kind of English used by the European Union, its officials and bureaucrats. EU English is littered with bureaucratic expressions, loan words and false friends (particularly from French).

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