Archers thread #154: Cider with Fat Rosie, Meadow Rise to Candleford or The Darling Horrobins of September? Get your rural saga fix – Discuss The Archers here!

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed, and of course we are always delighted to welcome back former or occasional listeners/posters. We don't all agree on all points, although we do mostly try to be civil about it. Most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you'd be euphoric about getting a job in an abattoir, or other unusual views.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please! We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the weeknight episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/radio_addicts/4888492-the-archers-spoilers-thread-8-cant-wait-for-702pm-join-us-here, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

For newer listeners, lurkers or those who just have no idea what we're talking about, @DadDadDad has created this useful thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3557323-For-Archers-fans-a-guide-to-acronyms-on-the-long-running-discussion-threads-and-any-other-meta-thread-questions-you-may-have - BOOP point for him! (See thread for explanation.)

Thanks for the thread title suggestions. @HumanWetWipe came up with Cider with Fat Rosie and @BeardieWeirdie thought up Meadow Rise to Candleford. I wish I could have put in the Line of Duty mashups from the end of the last thread. Another time.

Heading for a ferry shortly, so nothing more from me for now. Over to you!

My parents had a postman who wore a kilt all year round. Worn with jumper or t-shirt it doesn't look formal.

This reminded me of Duncan in Monarch of the Glen... kilt, casual jumper and leather jacket!

The casting of Rob and Miles is brilliant I think. They definitely sound related, if that makes sense?!

This thread seems to be moving unusually fast. I just noticed that we're on Page 10 (900+ posts) already less than 2 weeks after starting. Any stats on average time to fill up a thread @DadDadDad ? I know you have posted such in the past, and that it fluctuates depending on whether there's a big SL going on, but I can't remember what the average actually is. Maybe this is normal and I just don't pay attention to how quickly they go by.

They should still be listed on a schedule of courses, though. Unfortunately, ad.ed. funded has been slashed in recent years, so there is just far less available.

Off topic but I know you guys will know the answer

is analogous pronounced with a soft or hard g?

Hard g, assuming you aren’t American.

I'd use a soft g but I can't actually remember ever saying it out loud.

Hard g is the standard pronunciation in both the UK and the US, but soft g is a minority pronunciation heard in both. Many dictionaries just list the hard g:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/analogous

I’m British and have always used a soft g - also in analogy.

in my 40’s and still finding things about my upbringing that aren’t British!

Thank you - I think it’s too ingrained to change how i say it so I’ll have to stick with being in the minority!!

Just be aware that I'm a trained linguist, so I think of things as alternatives pronunciations that are interesting variations without ascribing a moral value to them ... non-linguists may think you are plain wrong 😆

Analogy with a soft g is the standard.

Well you are the right person to ask then! Why is analogy a soft g and analogous a hard g?

on the university thing - it does often feel like the sw want to keep characters in their place. Making Brad end up at felpersham would be in line with that attitude

Too late to edit, but I do know that we don't make adjectives agree with the noun in English (alternatives pronunciations)! 🙄

I think this is absolutely spot on with what annoyed me about this episode. Yes to all of this.

My parents were both the first in their family to go to university, one of them having grown up in a very working class, poor Northern Irish family. They met at a good university in England, where my poor working class parent got the highest first in the year. That parent could have gone to Oxbridge but didn’t think it was for working class people so didn’t even apply.

I’m MC as they come (only one parent went to uni - first in family etc etc) and I didn’t fit in at uni at all (not because they were all UMC and UC). So constantly telling WC kids they won’t fit in irritates me!

Just a thought but is Robs denouement going to be on Halloween?

This.

Abusers (and sometimes their families) never consider themselves abusive.

(Rob as a furry 😆)

Well, ‘why’ is really more of a philosophical question! And this isn’t my area of expertise, but I’ll hazard an explanation:

In English, how the g is pronounced usually – though not always – relates to which language group it originally came from. Analogy and analogous come from Latin, and before that from Greek. The normal – though there are always exceptions! – rule there is for G followed by the sounds a, o, u, or a consonant to be hard, and followed by the sounds æ, i, e, or y (used as a vowel) to be soft. This overrides the more common occurrence of a suffix added to a -g word, where usually the g keeps the sound it had in the root word, because in analogy and analogous, both words come directly from Latin, including the suffix (analogous is actually closer to the root word, analogy is a derivation). So the g in analogy is followed by y as a vowel and is soft; the g in analogous is followed by an o and is hard.

By the way, we also have a third G sound in English, which you’ll hear in words of French origin, like genre. This has no relevance for either analogy or analogous, unless you’re putting on a French accent!

I would assume that most people who pronounce analogy and analogous with the same G aren't doing it for any grand linguistic purposes, they probably just subconciously think that words in the same family would have the same G sound, which is the more normal occurence. I think of it a bit like how many people pronounce grievous as grevious because the -ious ending is so much more common across other words.

Was it Brad who listed Warwick as a top place to do Maths, or did we just discuss it on here?

I quite liked the student ambassador, better than trolling out some ancient sounding don anyway.

my money is on Brad ending up at Warwick or Birmingham - both fab unis but much more poppable from Ambridge. Of course we don’t know where his beloved wants to go. Why are we assuming it wouldn’t be somewhere like Durham?

And the fact that they try to paint the victim who eventually snapped as the abuser or guilty party is also par for the course.

Miles's 'everyone's forgiven Helen' as though both sides had some blame to share just made me nauseous.

Really interesting Fink. I'd always wondered where "grevious" crept in!

Thanks Fink

When I got to Durham, my room-mate and her friend, from The Wirral, had considered London, quite a place to be a student in 1970, as a very attractive alternative.

But for me, being a long way away from family, yet on the East Coast line, was a perfect combination. This was before high-speed trains, remember. Durham to Kings X took 5 hours, against today's fastest journeys of ~3 hours.

Do it Brad! You won't regret it. Please, not Felpersham. After all, Phoebe Aldridge went to Oxford