Tag Archives: British Library

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Mr Tickle in a Newcastle accent

Rosy Hall is an ESRC-funded PhD student from Oxford University working with the BL’s Spoken English collections. She writes: At the Evolving English exhibition at the British Library (2010-11), we asked visitors to submit recordings of their voices in specially designed telephone booths. Around 15,000 speakers took part, and the… read more

It’s all in the tail

Tails are probably not the first things that spring to mind when thinking about animal sounds. Beautiful songs or spine-chilling cries, sure, but tails? It’s unlikely. Several animal groups use their tails to generate sound. One of the most famous of these are rattlesnakes, a group of venomous reptiles found… read more

Made-up words and coded sweet-talk

Rosy Hall is an ESRC-funded PhD student from Oxford University working with the BL’s Spoken English collections. She writes: When cataloguing the Evolving English WordBank, we often come across speakers donating words which they have invented themselves. This privileged access to speakers’ privately meaningful coinages is not only fun, but… read more

San Fairy Ann

Rosy Hall is an ESRC-funded PhD student from Oxford University working with the BL’s Spoken English collections. She writes: The phrase ‘San Fairy Ann’ might sound familiar, perhaps conjuring up memories of Paul McCartney’s 1976 song, or Barbara Windsor’s 1965 comedy of the same name. But what does it actually… read more