Archers thread #196: Run, Rex, run! 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 like to marry Pip, 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/4636789-the-archers-spoilers-thread-7-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.)

So now we know who bonked George on the head. Will the stunning revelation lead to anything interesting or credible happening? Answers on a postcard, please!

Will Alice and Rex become an item? Will Amber come to her senses? Has Adam's constant languor and fatigue now removed his ability to speak on air?

Over to you!

even if they pronounce it as cl or similar. NO!!!
It's not CL or THL or CH (or even TCH - looking at you Nick Robinson). The video pp (about 1:33 in) has words starting with LL.

I'd have thought most British adults would know a Welsh ll is different - I don't think they would. I don't think I'd know Spanish LL was different if nobody had told me. Would I have twigged that Marbella didn't sound like Mar Bella?

A conversation I had recently, an acquaintance, someone I'd considered reasonably intelligent and cultured, was telling me about a seaside trip to Llandudno. I said 'Oh Llandudno's lovely, did you like it?' and he said 'I've never been there, I went to Lan-DUD-know'.

I think there are a lot of British adults there who have only recently realised that Do Buy Dubai is about as far from Iran as Canterbury is from Calais.

Can anyone remind me - how good friends are Rex and Chris? Sorry if this has been covered but there are 180 new messages and I haven’t had time to catch up.

I think Rex and Alice are quite well matched - mildly posh sporty types with a farming tinge. He’s obviously a would be rescuer type. Not sure why Chris would be surprised Rex was her type when Rex is almost the centre of the Venn diagram of Chris and the alcoholic ex boyfriend.

Delving into different languages, pronunciations and spellings is a vast topic creating a lot of, um, "lively debate" and interest, might be worthy of its own thread on Mumsnet? It's only really tangentially related to The Archers.

They get along OK, @WitcheryDivine . Not best mates but no disagreements.
They both are easy-going with no underlying weirdness AFAIK.

@MorningCoffeePlease , true. Not sure where it would go.
The one about Kenton had a disclaimer.

I put to you the place names Leominster and Teignmouth and Bicester and Southwell and the perennial favourite Shrewsbury (which it is impossible not to get wrong according to at least some of the people who live there, no matter how you pronounce it).

What a silly language English is, to be sure.

Even if people pronounce the Welsh "ll" as ch/thl etc it's still clear which word they're trying to say. "Lan dud no" seems a reasonable attempt( and I live in Wales), not offensive, and you knew what he was saying.

But Irish is a different matter. For years, even decades, I had occasionally heard the name Siobhan but when I saw it written down I thought it was an entirely different name, something like See ob an. I once had written communication with someone called Aine, which I thought was pronounced Ane, yet when I met her it turns out it's pronounced Awn yuh. It's very hard to have a guess when the pronunciations are so far from how it's written. To me it's a bit like looking at a language in an entirely different script eg Arabic or Japanese, you just haven't got a clue how to even have an attempt at saying the words.

I keep looking back on here to see if it’s safe to come back yet ..but nope!

Disclaimer: not related to current threads

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime , Lemster, Tinmuth, Bister, Suthul (th like in this) or Southwell.
Shrewsbury is Shoosbry. If you don't live there, it's Shroasbry or Shroosbry.

It's not a silly language, it's just a bit more complicated. It's acquired many words from various sources making it richer.

@SPQRomanus , Even if people pronounce the Welsh "ll" as ch/thl etc it's still clear which word they're trying to say.
Not so. The stress goes awry too and you're sometimes trying to figure out where it could be from context and a couple of letters.
An example might be someone saying they'd been on holiday to Bligh-now or joking about a cheese called If Any.

"Lan dud no" seems a reasonable attempt( and I live in Wales), not offensive, and you knew what he was saying.*
Of course I knew where he meant, and I wasn't particularly bothered by it, but it was him correcting me that was weird.

I understand what you mean, though I think the Scottish and Northern Irish will certainly have had some exposure to the Gaelic languages, even if it’s just in names etc.
I also think some Irish and Scottish names are fairly well known throughout the UK as I mentioned upthread, and that might give some clues as to how other names are pronounced.

But Irish spellings seem to rarely match the pronunciation, in fact they often seem to be miles away, so it can be almost impossible to attempt to spell a name if you've only heard it spoken and vice versa.
Just wanted to reframe this because the fact is Irish spellings almost always match their Irish pronunciation. Irish is much more a phonetic language than English is. The trouble for English speakers is that the sounds the letter combinations represent aren’t the same as they are in English.

Whether you can pronounce them or not isn't particularly relevant; would a person from Finland or Greece or Milwaukee be expected to? First try?

Probably not.

(I admire your confidence in the matter of Shrewsbury, but I know quite a few people who live there, and they do not agree as to how it is pronounced. That was my point.)

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime ,I agree about Shrewsbury but the argument is usually about Shroa vs Shrew, but many of the locals don't say either of them.

I've no idea if someone from Finland or Milwaukee would know but I expect that I'd get place names in Milwaukee and Finland wrong.
I get place names wrong, I get corrected, I learn.

If you've only heard the incorrect pronunciation, you won't know it's not right.

Whatever you say there will be someone who lives there and thinks you got it wrong.

Berry/ Boory? How about burry? Or brih?

In fact, just as Ruairi is "the unspellable one", Shrewsbury is "the unpronounceable one". (Spellcheck can't deal with it at all, and offers me "shrewish".)

I could not agree more.

The trouble is, TA is often so boring at the moment that there's nothing in it to discuss, so any diversion is welcome.

Agree that Blue Lights is definitely worth a watch.

Just throwing Slaithwaite out there.

As a proud Salopian, I can confirm that how to pronounce Shrewsbury is as vexed a question as cream or jam first

My family pronounce it like small insectivore meets smelly cheese - shrews-brie. Poshos call it Shrows-berry 😉

I'm trying to think of a single SL that's interesting at the moment.
The possibility of a 47-yr old being pregnant? A smelly horsebox becoming a va-va-vroom-vroom? 2 housemates in their 40s watching a police drama? Whether narrowboats rock if you get jiggy in it? The Amborge baby?

Isn't it Slough-it (slough as in despond)?.

Siobhán - Giovanna.

Not that different.

I’d also point out that its poor @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g who sets up new threads and its not really on when threads fill up so fast on non related stuff.

Do you think the thread should be policed and any discussion on anything other than what is on the programme should not be permitted and deleted?

If that's the case and most other people agree then it needs to be clearly stated at the start of each thread.

I don't agree but if the majority on the thread do then I'd of course go along with it.

I get the impression that people on this thread are generally intelligent and articulate people capable of having a reasonable discussion. That certainly isn't the case on many other areas of Mumsnet.

No im not saying that. I just think sometimes these derailments go on too long and this particular one has caused a lot of hurt. But I’ve said my piece and Im not going to be a hypocrite and keep going on about it myself!

Pedants, pedants', or pedant's corner.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/pedantscorner

I sympathise with the cause (am foreign with foreign frequently first and surname living in the UK), but also please go there.

Back to TA: I was amused at Kate's continued happiness to be far, far away from all her children.

Happisburgh and Stiffkey.

But Kate is a wonderful mother.

Cunning linguists would probably be the place. The word cunning puts me off going there. Pedants' corner tends to get infiltrated by posters who are offended when their posts are nit-picked by pedants.
The thread got derailed by a post about a TA character, the response to it, and the responses to that one fed it. It probably wouldn't have been a thread on its own.

Haze-bruh, I think, and Stooky.

Woolfardisworthy.