Westminstenders: The Tory Party Spectacular

[RedToothBrush]

A row over parliamentary language and conduct and how MPs are afraid of extremists has over shadowed talk of Brexit.

Cummings has said if you don't want to leave without a deal, vote for a deal.

Yet there isn't a Johnson approved one in front of the Commons and the EU are utterly despairing of Johnson's blank non papers and his full on Trump bullshit.

Then there's the threats to the rule of law.

Apparently there are five known suggestions to bypass the Benn Act and refuse to ask for an extension.
See Twitter Thread Here

This weekend sees the start of the Tory Party Conference. With a parliamentary vote to block a recess, its rather scuppered plans for the rest of the conference. Johnson's planned speech at the conference clashes with PMQ so he may well not attend the Commons.

Expect the conference to be.... Er... Inflammatory...

"not all of Italy spoke Italian"

I vaguely knew that Italy was created as a country only in the 19th Century with Garibaldi, but I hadn't realised about the language, DG

This is a very informative late bit of the thread

Up in the Tyrol around Bolzano they speak Sud-Deutsche

Weird factoid about Italian languages - the majority of 'Italian' immigrants to the US were from the south and Sicily, bringing with them their language and traditional cuisine, which changed very little in the US even as the Italian (northern) language came to dominate the entire peninsula in the age of mass communications. Italian American communities are little linguistic time capsules.

Weird factoid about Italian languages - the majority of 'Italian' immigrants to the US were from the south and Sicily, bringing with them their language and traditional cuisine, which changed very little in the US even as the Italian (northern) language came to dominate the entire peninsula in the age of mass communications. Italian American communities are little linguistic time capsules.

Tell me about it - especially with family in New York and New Jersey.

But there's a similar thing with English - parts of the Appalachians have retained a much older form of English from the colonial days.

And of course US English fossilized things like "fall" for autumn, spellings like "check" for cheque, and "sidewalk" for pavement.

Love little language tales. We all have kitchen presses in Ireland as the English for a cupboard used to be a press, apparently!

There are lots of hangovers from older English in Hiberno English. Language has become almost completely homogenised in Ireland since the 80s, but people of my grandparents' generation (born late 19th century/early 20th century) in a south east county had words and phrases that drew from Norman and subsequent waves of non-Irish speaking arrivals. The 'haggart' / 'haggard' (from hag-yard) was the farm yard.

It was fascinating moving to Brum and hearing words I'd never heard before in London ... less than 100 miles away. "Bobowler" for moth anyone ? Or "Islands" for roundabouts.

There was a Rutherford & Fry podcast about accents a while back. Apparently the British Isles still has an incredible spread - varying across only a few miles.

Scots also still have presses - nowadays usually referring to the narrow cupboards built into the thick stone walls of Victorian houses and tenements.

It’s “bobhowler” (rather than “bobowler”) in the Black Country.

It’s “bobhowler” (rather than “bobowler”) in the Black Country.

It may be the same in Brum - I wrote what I hear .