The Historical Ponderings Society

[EverySongbirdSays]

Following on from the thread "What questions do you have about stuff from History or am I the only one?" Which is here

Ever wondered how we got from the clothes of Cave people to the clothes of today?

Who was the first person to make and eat Cheese? Or cake?

How ideas became widespread

Why the Aztecs didn't have the wheel?

Why Elizabeth I never married?

How accurate historical fiction is?

Then this your thread and we are your people.

PROCEED HISTORY LOVERS

I reckon the Victorians would be impressed by some things - medical advances, transportation, child mortality rates for example?

But horrified by other things - the falling influence of religion, shallow things like fashions. And what would they make of women having the vote and wearing trousers?!

Wonder what we'd be horrified by in a few generations' time?

My mum (born in Kent in the 1920’s) said that her grandmother still referred to eggs as eyren.

Bill Bryson refers to the story Trills quotes in his book Mother Tongue (another one for the reading list).

My favourite bit from that is that as you move north, people changed from saying one and twenty to twenty one and back in alternating bands of about forty miles. This was recorded in a survey of dialect words (apparently coming from an idea by JRR Tolkien) in the middle of the last century, of elderly people in rural areas who were locally born and largely illiterate, to eliminate outside influences as much as possible.

Lovely.

Someone in previous thread mentioned horses slipping into their knees on steep hills. At the Avoncrift museum there is a workshop from when nails were made as a cottage industry by women and children. When nail making became more industrial, the home industry staggered on for a while by making more specialist nails, including frost nails for horse shoes. As use of horses declined, the death knell was sounded for the industry and the industrial factories didn't make the specialist nails as they weren't cost effective.

every - oh, I'm only being daft. Some historians don't like 'the Dark Ages' cos it makes it sound, well, dark and benighted and awful, when actually you could see it as bright with all sorts of exciting enlightenment.

So why did it get the name Dark Ages to start with?

I think they'd be quite frightened by things like planes and cars, tvs and computers.

Shocked by diversity and the acceptance of it, women in trousers, girls education, girls dress, nightlife, dancing, modern courtship, lack of the vapours,

They'd think it Sodom & Gomorrah

That was in answer to Spudlet sorry

Ooooo yay. Thanks for continuing on from the original thread. I've been enjoying reading it and now have about a zillion periods of history I want to learn more about

Sign me up scotty! Especially any and all language conversations.

I also find it interesting/sad about how much innovation comes about because of war. There seemed to be such a burst of advancement during the two world wars - would that have happened if there wasn't such a drive towards wanting to slaughter people in the most efficient way possible?

Is there a way to generate such advancements again without the whole killing business?

Also, those pyramids inside pyramids in Mexico - wtf is that all about?

Oh and also, in Newgrange in Ireland the box window is aligned in such a way that the inner chamber gets illuminated by the light of the dawn (or possibly dusk) during the summer solstice. What was the weather like in Ireland where they could predict where the sun would be at any point other than 'behind the clouds. Again.?'

They might have used beeswax for lips, too.

A valley is a coombe in Dorset, like Welsh cwm.

I don't know if Victorian's would be scared by cars and so on. The first cars came in at the end of the Victorian age, and flight only a few years later. In any case, it was an age of great change and progress, and I think a lot of optimism that things would get better and better. I think this changed with WW1. So I think a lot of them would be interested in the technology and want to see how it worked.

Also, I think we might be classed as the digital age or something, since we're ALL about digitalising everything. And in a couple hundred years time they'll look back and laugh and laugh about the weird things we did, but then we didn't have whatever thing they do.
And little kids will go to school dressed as the typical woman of the day, in her skinnies and her hoodie. If her mum is super into reproduction, she'll have homemade uggs. And the wee boys will be dressed like David Bowie in Labyrinth.

I agree about the Victorian era being a time of massive innovation, technologically speaking. I'm sure there'd be an initial 'woah' moment, but after that, interest / excitement. I agree there are plenty of aspects of society today that they'd likely find challenging to deal with though. What would they make of gay marriage? Mind boggling for them!

I think they'd find it difficult to comprehend the massive decline in manufacturing too - to go from the Industrial Revolution, with mills everywhere, to the service economy we have today would be such a massive change.

Thanks for this thread, I've finally made it through all of part 1 and what exists so far of part 2.
I read a book as a teen which talked about an archaeological dig in a desert somewhere where they kept finding evidence of earlier settlements under the one they were excavating. They found multiple settlements underneath each other, then hit a sheet of glass.
The book postulated that at some point in history, mankind had reached a similar technological advance to us and made nuclear weapons, and had been wiped out in an explosion that turned the desert sand to glass.
I realise now as an adult that it was probably total fiction (seeing as I was going through a phase of reading about astral projection and spontaneous human combustion, as well as being terrified of nuclear war as it was mid-80's), but it does make me wonder about just how advanced certain ancient societies actually were, given what we do/don't know about Mayans, Incas etc

And the wee boys will be dressed like David Bowie in Labyrinth.

Actually pissing myself at this. I can picture it.
Boy: "But mum! I look weird"
Mum: "That's how all the boys dressed back then, just ask your great gran"
Boy: "Great gran is weird of course she thinks it is normal! She's old!"
Great gran: "In my day..."

cozietoesie

How did they manage to time the walk, the talk to fit in with the rocket launch behind ? That's a real Saturn-V lifting off. I don't think NASA launches rocket on the say-so of film crews ?

So why did it get the name Dark Ages to start with?

Because patronising scholars decided it was all metaphorically 'dark' because of the benighted Catholics and the lack of good, clean Classical ideas.

Re. Victorians and gay marriage - it's only just Victorian, but Anne Lister was, it would appear, married to a woman. She rocks. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Lister

(NB: having just skimmed the wiki page, I've noticed it has a really offensive racial term in it. Which I assume whoever wrote it didn't realise was so rude!)

Black country has some oddities (he says, as a Londoner).

Once, listening to the (local) radio, a chap was telling a story about having to call at his Mums (Mams) house to see if she was alright. He had to bang on the door, shouting loose me in, loose me in ("let me in, let me in").

I understood it, but had never heard it before.

The Midlands also seems to be the home of the idiom of reversing words meanings (which was really annoying, bringing DS up !!). So our mortgage consultant would say "We can borrow you up to £100K".

That learned us .

Also, "roundabouts" are unknown - certainly in the West Midlands. It's all "islands". Which is fair enough. Except as a Londoner "islands" are the bollarded bits in the middle of the road to allow the road to be crossed int two hops (which they also are in Brum) whereas roundabouts are ... well roundabouts.

On the subject of language - in Norfolk, a ladybird is a Bishy Barnaby. Why? Where did that come from?
Apparently from 'Bishop Barnaby', but hunting on Google, as website that had it as 'Bishy Barny Bee' tells me that 'The name is believed to be derived from Bishop Bonner who lived during the 16th century, and was known notoriously as 'Bloody Bonner' for his ruthless persecution of Protestants under Mary I.' Since his first name was Edmund, the 'Bishy Barny Bee' version is probably more accurate.

Also in Norfolk, as wasp is a jasper and a scarecrow a mawkin. Anyone know where those are from?

And reading Wiki while making sure I wasn't giving you a rubbish answer, I see that Horatio Nelson (one of Norfolk's most famous offspring) once ordered Hardy, 'Do you anchor.' That construction is common all over East Anglia - 'Do you read the paper', for example, means 'You must read the paper'. If you want it to be a question, you have to add 'then':

In Yorkshire they use "lend" a lot when they mean "borrow". The kids were always asking "miss, can you lend me a pen?"

Black country is Mom - is slightly further up it's mams - notts way. It's Mum in other parts of the midlands - just slightly to the west.

One black country phase I remember " is do as you've a mind" and "put it back in the old oak chest" ie don't spend the cash- my dad, Uncle and GP would occasionally slip into it when together.

Round about and island are interchangeable I think though I never realised that other areas didn't use island in that way till now.. I'm aware islands are also bollard bits in middle of road as I've lived in and near Brum as well. Never caused any confusion to me oddly.

IL call playground recs - from recreation grounds as does DH - so children know both playground and recs. Others like "snap" for lunch they've apparently assumed they meant snack so haven't picked up the difference.

It does bring it home how short a distance each varies - both my parents and DH family are from the "midlands" yet there are three different speech patterns and associate words.

I was brought up with "spent out" ie and was always asked that after a shopping trip - ie you spent all your money out of your purse. IL do same but it's "spent up" spent up to your limit.

That will learn you - is a class thing.

The kids were always asking "miss, can you lend me a pen?" - see I don't get what odd about that and I'm not from Yorkshire. Borrow in that sentence instead of lend would sound odd to me.

The kids were always asking "miss, can you lend me a pen?"

I'm Lancashire. That's right to me.
Borrow would sound wrong.

Actually thinking about it can "you borrow me a pen" would sound wrong
but I'd say:

can you lend me a pen?
or
can I borrow a pen ?

• both phrases meaning exactly the same and I would say either about equally.

Not just exclusive to Yorkshire Huck but a popular mistake on Merseyside. Liverpool itself has some great expressions fairly unique to it

RE The Victorians gay marriage is it not the case that being a gay male was illegal but being lesbian wasn't because Queen Victoria refused to believe lesbians existed.