Americans Try To Pronounce ENGLAND County Names (48 Difficult UK Place Names)
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- čas přidán 31. 05. 2024
- Two Americans try to pronounce English county names. Starting with Bedfordshire, talking a stroll through Gloucestershire, and ending in Worcestershire, here are all 48 of England’s UK counties, said by Americans. 😂
Do you know how to say the British English counties we got wrong? Let us know down in the comments!
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Hi! We're Eric & Grace, a couple of travelers who have been wandering around the world for over 3 years. We make videos about travel and British culture and release new episodes 3x per week.
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Our favorite aspect of doing CZcams is interacting with you in the comments, so make sure you stop by and say hi! 😊 Do you know how to say all of England's counties? 😄
#britishculture #britishvsamerican #britishenglish
A note to all Americans.. the ‘a’ sound in Berkshire, Derbyshire etc also extends to the word ‘clerk’!
Oh no! Dogs have taken over the English language! It's all "barks" in here 😄
And Derby as in The Brown Derby.
@@WanderingRavens There is a place called Barking. It's in Essex. lol
AND Hertfordshire can be shortened to Herts but said like hearts
Barkshire
Yes, it's BARKSHIRE. Also the town of Berkeley is BARKLEY.
Noooo! We were wrong 😭😭
True but, strangely, the abbreviated rhyming slang "berk" (from "Berkley hunt") is pronounced as spelled.
I was born in Reading in Berkshire pronounced Barkshire
And, in a nice irony, the US embassy (now moved of course) used to be in Berkeley Square ! Pronounced, in a toffee accent, something like Barkli Skwah.
@@WanderingRavens - and Brits always mispronounce UC Berkeley, using the British pronunciation.
Haha, "when I was American". You're one of us now!
😆😆
reminded me of this song watch?v=UQR3tULUtYY
ironically sung by americans.
@@METALFREAK03 Which song was that?
@@MrJonno85 Skinlab - One of us
(its because he said "one of us" and I read it in the manner it was sung by these guys - I think its about illicit drugs however.)
@@METALFREAK03 I checked out that track on CZcams - clearly not a cover of the Abba song of the same name.
Suffolk is pronounced like Norfolk, that's just google translate screwing you over 😂
If Norfolk and Suffolk merge will they just call it "Fck"?
Dorset .. /Dorsit/
Somerset .. /Summerset/ ??
Wandering Ravens: (with absolute US confidence) Burk-shire
Google translate British woman: Bark-shire
Wandering Ravens: (giving a curious look at eachother) It's really not.
HAHAHAHA
😂😂
@@WanderingRavens Speaking from Maidenhead, it is indeed pronounced Bark-shire. English people from further up North or to the West pronounce it how you did, so it's an easy mistake to make. No sweat!
"Burkshire" and"Burkeley"sounds hideous - just so wrong! Imagine Dame Vera Lynn singing "A nightingale sang in "BURKELEY Square" - aaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!
@@kissywitch alright mate bloody hell no need to have a breakdown
Where does the Pink Panther live?
Durham,
Durham,
Durham, Durham, Durham
Durham Durhaaaam
😂😂
💀💀💀💀
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Genius
Never thought of that but that is how you say it here hahaha
My ears were impressed but also bled with some of the pronunciations. 🤣
Don't give me a microwave cup of tea. 😅
We'd never dream of offering you anything but the best, most proper cup of tea to soothe your ears 🤣
😅🤣
No. You should put tea in your mouth, not your ears...
Almost there. To get it more exact. Living in Bedfordshire the shire sound is a cross between 'shir' and 'sheer', so 'shier'/shee-a. Then when saying it faster the 'ee' sound is still there but almost disappears.
Thanks for the tip! We will master British town and county names yet haha
@@WanderingRavens :D To be fair you both teach me things I didn't know before.
@@WanderingRavens Lincolnshire is often said more like Lincunsh' with a very very slight/soft "schwa" at the end. Maybe Lincunsh(uh) with the uh/schwh, again pretty much 'disappearing'. xxx
British people are softer on the R's is phonetically a good double entendre.
😂😂
I would make an exception for Scottish people who tend to roll their Rs.
@@trickygoose2 Welsh roll their R's too, must just be the English who uses soft R's
Southern English people anyway.
Not all British.
I'm from county Durham and we pronounce it "durum"
Thank you for clearing that up for us!
We get George Gently here in the states. I love the Geordie accent. The way they say "wait ress" instead of "waitchress"...
Are the accents on the show authentic?
@@yossarian6799 I actually haven't saw George gently before, but people from county Durham aren't geordie that's only people from Newcastle, people from Middlesbrough or Sunderland get really annoyed when you call them geordies 😂
Yes, we all know that Middlesborough is the North Riding of Yorkshire :-)
I was born in Durham and have lived in several areas around the county and have noticed accents vary considerably, especially east to west so you may encounter variations of both your pronunciations.
"The City of London" is like a tiny separate city inside London, a separate thing. The queen actually needs to ask for and be granted permission to enter The City of London. They'd never say no but she technically still has to ask.
The City is a capitalist blob and should be blown up, just as the royals should be exterminated as they are scrounging twats, that many English, especially in the North of England cannot stand!
steve brindle You’re speaking as a northerner, are you?
@@stevebrindle1724 up the north
Just found you guys and I loved this vid. I'm from the UK and thanks a bunch for a brilliant video haha! Proper job ;)
"if it wasn't for me personally you'd still be speaking German!.....Still?....." 😂
3:25
😂😂
Google translate was pretty much spot on where she changed the "e" to an "a" was correct, the only one I took issue with was Durham, she pronounced it a bit weird, Grace in this instance was correct. Oh, and Cumbria, you were correct again, I think she has a problem pronouncing "u" 😂👍
I'm really proud of you guys, you cracked it with a sense of fun and humour. I love it. 😀
Northamptonian from Northamptonshire, here! The "H" is generally dropped to make "Nor-THAMP-tun." Or, possibly more accurately among natives, "Nor-FAM-tun."
You right
Weird I'm from Leicestershire and we call it both. Oh but the f bit is definitely correct.
Edit: after asking around the general consensus in Leicester is to pronounce the 'h' in Northamptonshire.
Essex (East Saxons)
Sussex (South Saxons)
Middlesex (now mostly subsumed into Greater London) (Middle Saxons)
Wessex (not a county but a region) (West Saxons)
London is actually quite complicated geographically. What most people call ‘London’ is actually split into Greater London and the City of London. Greater London covers the vast majority of the area and includes everything from housing districts to museums etc. The City of London is a single square mile in the middle of London, and is the financial centre of the country. It has the headquarters of virtually all the big banks and financial industries. The City of London (also called ‘the city’ or ‘the square mile) essentially operates like its own country, it has medieval style laws, it’s own mayor who wears a funny hat, guilds and the Queen can’t go there without asking permission. It’s a remnant of when the Romans established what is now the City of London as a trading post.
This helps a lot! Thank you, George :D
Wandering Ravens There’s quite a good video on it done by CGP Grey
czcams.com/video/LrObZ_HZZUc/video.html
Yes London or oriiganally londinium was from landing Romans from Italy called it! Greater or domain,
Wandering Ravens yes the City of London is ancient compared to the rest of the city, it’s a very interesting place historically. The district has its own livery companies which are mind-bending, with the oldest, the Weavers’ Company, dating all the way back to 1155. There’s a really cool mix of new and old buildings, most of which were designed by Sir Christopher Wren. And I was there today! I love your channel guys, keep up the great work!
You two brighten up my evenings when your videos come out. Thanks, from Whimple.
Thank you so much for your kind comment, Steve! We appreciate your support and encouragement :D
How to name a place in England:
1) take a fairly straight-forward description of the place (possibly in an ancient language).
2) mash all the words together into one word.
3) blur or drop some of the letters or syllables to make it easier to say as one word.
4) possibly make some weird, random, unpredictable change to how part of it is said, for the lulz, and to make things harder for outsiders.
14:57 Your pronunciation of Suffolk was correct, Google's was wrong.
You're correct, google is wrong
Good to know! Happy to add another point to our score :D
I totally agree. Google was wrong.
Agreed 100%
Great fun as usual guys. Well done Eric for getting Hertfordshire right :)
Thank you! We're improving with our pronunciation I think (I hope haha)
HAHAHA!!...this was GREAT!!....and ty for the 411....and BTW, u two make a really cute couple!!.....more power to you all...and keep up the FUN!!
Thank you so much!!
Der-Ham XD lol
and nice to see you are using my trick ;) for shire :D
"City of London"? That's the square mile (basically the old Roman and medieval city, near enough) - the county is "Greater London".
Good to know!
@@WanderingRavens Yeah, whererver you got the list from slipped you a dud entry. By the way, a lot of (particularly southern) English accents will pronounce the 'i' in -shire, the 'e' in Sussex and the 'o' in Devon as a schwa (the neutral vowel, a bit like the 'e' in the French 'je'), so it's legit for all those vowels to sound the same.
Also the 'a' in Rutland, which I think leaves 'u' as the only vowel not to be pronounced as schwa in the list of counties.
Yeah this 2 arent very bright, i bet they confuse New York City with New York State too
Created in 1965 when the London boundaries were moved outwards taking in parts of Kent, Essex and Surrey. Middlesex disappeared altogether as it was swallowed up by Greater London and Hertfordshire. The GLC replaced the old London County Council and with it the boroughs were joined together to form 32 new boroughs.
I’m from Norfolk and the ‘shires’ I pronounce more ‘shear’ than ‘shurr’
Same
Same with me (Suffolk)
Yes! This! I'm intrigued - are there UK accents that say "shur"? I'm definitely in the "shear" camp (also from Suffolk though...)
@@amandahall5395 I’m from Hampshire. Everyone I know pronounces it “Hamp-sher”
Same with me (Somerset)
I’m from rugby - it’s crazy that you were staying so close when you lived in the uk! Always look forward to your videos!
Love you guys. Such fun vlogs and I love the way you don't take yourselves too seriously which is really refreshing in this pretty strange time that we are living.
We're so glad you like them! :D
"Riding' means 'a third part' (it's related to 'thrid' - an older version of 'third'). Yorkshire was traditionally split into three administrative areas, East, West, and North.
And in Sussex they're called, unfortunately, Rapes
My Norfolk accent pronounces the "shire" as "shear" as in "shear the sheep".
Also, as a Norfolk native, we tend to pronounce the "folk" as the word "fuck" but without the "U" if that makes sense. Nor-fck. Although some of the older generations do still have a slight "I" sound in there but very slight.
i do this too! i used to live in norfolk but my accent has kind of dropped now, but i don't know if that's maybe stayed on a bit?
I'm from North London but I've always pronounced most 'shire' places as 'shear' other than Cheshire and Yorkshire those to me are pronounced as "Chesh-a and Yorksh-a"
Yorkshire was a large county, broken down into areas called "Ridings".
Derbyshire is beautiful you should come visit, when it's legal 😂
There's a town that has a dam that almost flooded the entire valley and 7000 people were evacuated but it's fine now 😂
Soon as it's legal we'll be over! :D
Derbyshire is fucking boring get me out please
derbyshire like Berkshire has the E pronounced as an A
Wow!! Both those towns really surprised us 😂
@@WanderingRavens in old English Derby was Deorbi and with the great vowel shift in the 17C probably explains some of the differences.
@@WanderingRavens The word derby is pronounced darby in normal conversation. If we were to say a local derby in a football match for example, that would mean it's a game with a fierce rivalry because the teams are from places close to each other
Saying all this, the locals pronounce it "Dorbeh"
Wandering Ravens TOWNS???? They are counties.
I am sure that the county's ending in sex is a reference to Saxons. Sussex was south Saxony and Essex East Saxony. if I am wrong someone correct me
You're right! Several other commenters have confirmed this :D
I believe you are correct. Wessex (now I think part of Hampshire and Dorset) was West and Middlesex was the middle/centre. For some reason, my own county of Hertfordshire is not Nossex or Nessex!
Juzr156 i live in saxton ... and there's not much going on here 😅
@@trickygoose2 mmm it is intersting because Hertfordshire is a Saxon/Old English name. A hart being a fully mature stag. It should be Norssex or something though haha.
Just Saxons. Saxon Anhalt is a German state. Both named after the Saxons , who were named after their distinctive knife, the seax
Good shout on the Ox ford thing and yes, a lot of our place names are descriptive. For instance in the midlands we have a small town called Brownhills and yes you've guessed it, there used to be opencast mining there. In the town there is a great 'sculpture' of a miner. Midlands is of course an abbreviation of middle lands, and so on.
@Wandering Ravens
Just to add to the confusion, there are in effect two sets of county names. The Political/Administrative counties and the Ceremonial counties. The administrative counties were created in 1972 to reflect a more logical structure for the 20th century ( well at least in the eyes of the politicians ), hence you end up with counties like Tyne and Wear, Merseyside, the West Midlands and metropolitan boroughs like Greater Manchester, which effectively equate to counties ( kind of ). Many of the names for these new administrative areas were not popular. Some of these administrative counties have changed their names and borders faster than I can keep up with.
Around 1997 many of the traditional county names were reintroduced as "Ceremonial Counties" aka "The Lieutenancy Areas of England" ( pronounced LEF-tenancy not LOO-tenancy ) and each county has a Lord Lieutenant, a representative of the monarch, and a purely ceremonial position. Of course these ceremonial counties should not be confused with the historic counties that existed prior to 1972.
Now all you have to do is demonstrate your pronunciation skills with the Scottish, Welsh and N.Ireland counties.
The city of London isn’t London but that’s a whole different thing
City of London is the original London from Roman times (londinium or something like that) then it was expanded over time to what it is today
You guys seem like such nice people, most Americans get deeply defensive about anything that contradicts what they’ve learnt in America, or at least they’re the ones who argue the loudest
1:24 "I'm pretty sure it's not"
I'm DEFINITELY sure it is, lol!
Essex, Sussex and the old county of Middlesex (in which London was situated) are all ancient names dating back to the Saxon settlers in what is now England. Essex (the land of East Saxons), Sussex (South Saxons), MIddlesex (MIddle Saxons) and the old kingdom in the west country called Wessex (West Saxons) of which Alfred the Great (c848-899) was the most famous king.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_the_Great
You got the scone thing the wrong way round. Devon is jam on top, Cornwall is cream on top, the only true way. All else is heresy.
Oh no! Sorry for getting that reversed!
Scon or scone ?... There's one for you Ravens ...
Who cares .. it's gorgeous either way !
@@redbeki my Yorkshire mind says scon (laughs)
@@WanderingRavens you also said scone wrong ;)
You were spot on about Tyne and Wear being rivers. It became a county in 1974, so it's quite young in comparison to a lot of the others, and might be why it's named so differently
Yay! Can we say that I get two additional points for that: ;)
Tyne and Wear WAS a county but was disbanded in 1986.
in Northamptonshire we do pronounce the H, however some people like me get lazy when talking and usually skip out things like the letter T when it is used in the middle of words like better, water and little and sometimes don't pronounce the letter L when its at the end of words eg: even if we are being lazy we will pronounce the letter L in things like laugh, college and loud but wont pronounce it in things like battle, wall and castle
You are absolutely right with the etymology of Tyne and Wear. There are 2 cities in the county, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Sunderland. As you can probably tell, the Tyne runs through Newcastle, and the Wear runs through Sunderland.
Extra fact: when the county was created in 1974, the original name was going to be Tyneside, but everyone in Sunderland and Wearside complained about it, so they included the names of both rivers.
When you say British people are softer on the r's a substantial proportion of them just did a Frankie Howard impression.
as an explanation:czcams.com/video/yJLwknHXJDg/video.html
Scots are harsher on the R, so what I assume they meant was English, not British.
In British English (especially place names) the ‘Berk’ sound is almost exclusively said as ‘bark’. So Berkshire is pronounced Barkshire. Berkeley square is pronounced ‘Barkly square’
Thank you for letting us know!
@@WanderingRavens FYI, there is also an insult derived from this county name, to call someone a berk, sounds like burk, a stupid person, but is derived from rhyming slang which in Brit speak actually never uses the rhyming word it implies. i.e. Can I use your dog? (dog and bone. = phone). It relates to fox hunting, so the Berkshire (sounds like Barksire) hunt. But to call someone a berk, you are actually call someone a word that rhymes with hunt... Rhyming slang should keep you busy... This classic comedy sketch, even with the rhyming words left in should keep you busy... czcams.com/video/ij5mw_eqKuc/video.html
@@paolobacardi See you next Tuesday!
@@oz25 Defo a see you next tuesday type of person.
Best way to solve the clotted cream/jam conundrum? Put jam on one half, cream on the other and sandwich the two halves together. You just have to turn it one way or the other to have it your preferred way... (also a great excuse to put extra cream and jam on to account for the extra layer of scone on top!)
Good job, guys! Nice to know that even though you've got this pronunciation thing sorted, we can still throw a few spanners in the works for you! Keeps you on your toes! ;-) Looking forwards to the map video...! ^^
Tyne and Wear - both rivers.
Ayy! Can't believe we got that right! :D
County was founded in 1974 for administrative convenience.
Riding is old English for third, Yorkshire was so big it was divided in to thirds. Was North, East and West Ridings. In 1974 The East Riding mostly became Humberside and part of the West Riding became the Soviet Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire. ;¬))
Thank you for taking the time to answer our question! :D
It’s back as the East Riding now. Humberside was dropped in 96
Also Cleveland
@@kevinbrownsword9558 Thanks, over 50 years since I left.
dinger40 I’ve only been here for 12 years so missed all the kerfuffle
I live in a town where people pronounce the name 3 different ways. We're a funny old bunch 😆
Try Shrewsbury...that's a tricky one. Even the locals can't settle on one pronunciation.
There is no right answer as you say.
the 'wall' in cornwall is pronounced more like how you say "wool"
Darwin was born in a house down the road from me. Greetings from Shrewsbury, Shropshire. ✌️
But is that SHREWsbury as in 'shroo' to rhyme with shoe, or as in shrow to rhyme with show ? :P
@@baf_mcnab3065 Shoe of course. Only posh folk and outsiders call it "Shrowsbury" 🤣
@@baf_mcnab3065 Its Shroosbury. Anyone calling it Shrowsbury is being pretentious and insufferable.
@@AlisonBryen Daccord, used to go out with a girl from Ironbridge, her family pronounced it 'shroo' but her posh friend said 'shrow...'
I’m from Northamptonshire, people generally pronounce it “nor-fam-ton-sheer” but the H sound being pronounced is correct as the county town’s name comes from its Saxon name of “Hamm Tun”.
Great video- can tell the learning Is paying off! One big tip for putting them on the map- the Yorkshires are all close to each other
I’m glad my county gave you no problems (Somerset), although if you were local you’d pronounce it more like ‘Zummerrrzet’ - think how pirates speak. Their accent originated in the West Country (the best place in the whole of England, of course!). BTW, it continues to be a pleasure to watch Grace slowly sliding into madness. She even thinks she’s met all these people now. Aw, bless. 😂
I seem to recall the modern West Country accent is the closest nowadays to the 'standard' accent (if such a thing existed) as it was back in the times of Shakespeare. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.) Shakespeare, Sir Francis Drake and his ilk spoke with what we'd hear now as something of a West Country accent. I think was before the Great Vowel Shift though, so the english of Shakespeare's time would sound very different to how it would sound today.
“Berk” is typically pronounced “Bark”, that is correct.
It's like Derby. They go to the Durby and we go to Darby! 😆😆
Fire Drake Remember that at the end of 'Carry On Henry' Henry VIII (Sid James) proclaims Lord Hampton of Wick (Kenneth Connor) as The Prince of Berkshire with the following speech "Arise Prince of Berks"!
Although “Berk”
Comes from “Berkshire hunt “ we should say that someone is a Bark.
Fun fact about Gloucester, when the Gloucester aircraft company was set up, they changed the name to Gloster to be easier to spell and pronounce. That company produced many great designs including the first and only allied jet fighter (the Gloster Meteor) to enter service in the Second World War (the Germans did beat us to it though with more than one design), but it was later merged out of existence as with almost all of our aerospace companies.
This of course all happened long before autocorrect made it much harder to type Gloster than Gloucester
18:00 sounded like that old woman from bristol on the news saying “no, not another one”
😂
I think the reason why Americans sometimes struggle with British place names is that they don't always realise that the reason that they aren't pronounced predictably in modern English is because of the extensive history of competing languages and cultures within the British Isles which change from place to place. Middle English and Cornish as just two examples will have vastly different phonetics than modern English so these really old place names still use unused sounds. Nonetheless, you guys caught on super quickly I thought and guessed things really well!
heres a quite simple wikipedia article on this history!:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toponymy_of_England
They missed out Brigantia, Wessex, Votadini, Mercia etc. 😉😉
Northumbria and east anglia
They also mixed eras in county names. Rutland became a part of Leicester in 1974 - at the same time the three Ridings of Yorkshire were lost, East Riding being reconstituted in 1996.
Counties with names ending in 'sex' refer to Saxon settlements after the Saxon invasions. Wessex refers to west Saxons, Sussex - south Saxons, Essex - east Saxons etc. Anglia refers to the areas where the Angles settled.
I’m from Shropshire and I was dead impressed to hear you say it like that usually people say it like sh-rope-shire but you said it the right way. But Shrewsbury is something everyone in our country is torn on 😅, I’m from Telford too
Also, a fact I actually learnt from Sleepy Hollow (an american tv drama show about a 18th century british redcoat (who was a traitor) and a town that had some weird scifi things happening to it) and I checked it out and it was correct. The reason why americans pronounce things differently is due to the English academics which wanted to further (or farther!) themselves away from the motherland (thats GB by the way) and so started over pronouncing everything. (in a sort of black adder-ish kind of way)
Now add that in with Thomas's hatred for pompious aristoricracy and therefore created an entire new dictionary (webber? I think) and the fact that if you were caught having different pronounciations you were checked to be a spy from the motherland (the US civil war politics here), you get the reason why americans speak so 18th century. It's tilted a bit of course, but its actually very surprising how tight it is to the way we used to speak here.
I find this stuff fascinating, its also why I say america is still owned/run by the british empire (1st british empire not the to be confused with the current second british empire (Victoria's empire)) as everything is like it was back then. Even the horrible bits, which I won't go into, avoid a political debate here.
So fascinating! Thank you for sharing that bit of history with us! The evolution of English is a topic we'd both love to learn more about.
I just died a little at the thought we're now taking phonics from TV show!
The er/ar is nothing more than common changes ongoing since the Great Vowel Shift
Suffolk is definitely Suff euck. Google is wrong.
Good to know! We were wondering about that!
And Feck is Irish not British!
@@WanderingRavens Yeah Norfolk and Suffolk are neighbouring counties. You guessed it Suffolk is south and Norfolk is north. The names come from the Angles from the North-folk & South-Folk. They both lay in East Anglia which is still used today for an area for example news coverage you have ITV East Anglia for a local news station. Although its not an enclosed county or district, more hear say as it used to be the kingdom of East Anglia
cos Google is American lol 😂
suffuk
‘Tyne and Wear...Maybe these are both rivers’....nicely guessed!
Well done for guessing Tyne and Wear are rivers, although given Newcastle and Sunderland rivalry, it's best not to get them mixed up!
Berkshire is pronounced "Barkshire" it's the same with Derbyshire its pronounced Darbyshire
Noooo! We were wrong 😭😭
@@WanderingRavens The fact that you make the effort to educate yourselves about Britain stands you in good stead, I think we can forgive you the odd clunker in pronunciation!
Jimmy Bagshaw Arta rait, me duck? (How are you my friend? for the Ravens)
I probably should have said that Derbyshire dialect has a lot in common with other northern dialects in areas that were inside the Danelaw 1,000 years ago, such as Lancashire, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. We still use the remnants of thee and thou so arta rait is phonetic for art thou (all) right? Me duck is a common greeting and some say duck derives from the Roman dux/ducis or leader. Ayup is a hangover from the Vikings and is still used in Scandinavia as something like Hey hoop.
And Hertfordshire is pronounced Hartfordshire.
Being from Lincolnshire, the appreciation for the midlands made me happy xD
Same from Leicestershire
I'm impressed Grace remembered the whole Devon Vs Cornwall style scones controversy! lol. As an English native i'll add my own thoughts here and there... 6:50 - think "durr - am" ... 8:00 'Greater London' and 'City of London' are technically not the same, but i can see where the confusion comes from, i didn't understand it fully until fairly recently either lol. One worth looking up if you're interested ... 18:04 where i'm from! lol ... 18:55 Grace's shock and horror! Really looking forward to that vid! I had a go at a 'label the US States' blank map a couple of months ago and i think i managed to get about 20ish in the right place. That's after struggling to think of the names of all 50! I had to look up the last 15 or so... Great vid as always and thankyou so much for sharing
Sussex was split in to East Sussex and West Sussex years ago. It is famous for the Battle of Hastings. Also some of these counties are more recently created. For example Greater Manchester. Sometimes urban areas break away from their historical County Councils to become “Unitary Authorities”. They feel that this way they can better manage local issues.
Please do one of these for Wales!
Next week! :D
So many different accents in the UK
Which one of my comments will somebody say "Youre Wrong!"
So many different accents!
@@WanderingRavens with the accents you have to bear each one of the counties was a separate tribe with its own tongue and not even the same root some are celtic some germanic overlay viking and norman french go back just 200 years and someone from yorkshire would need a translator to talk to someone in hampshire if you could find one in some of the border areas towns and villages would have trouble talking to each other its similar to the american indian tribes separated by a common tongue that evolved over to time to separate dialects
You two always brighten up my day. You got my county right LAnkuhSHuh. :)
Absolutely spot on with the rivers being Tyne and Wear. Wear is the better side though 😂
Sussex and Essex are near but don’t border!! My beautiful home county of Kent seperates Essex from sussex, from here I can go west across the river rother to east Sussex or north across the Thames into Essex or london
Good to know! We want to visit Kent at some point and see how it compares to Washington's Kent haha 😂
Wandering Ravens I expect it was named after my Kent! I was born in Margate but other than the few weeks in the hospital (and holidays) I’ve lived in herne bay all my life (come here if you want but it’s a bit of a shithole, not too much of one though) deal is nice and is quite a nice traditional beach town (but unlike herne bay hasn’t been invaded by Londoners who make it crappy). Canterbury is good but very touristy. One good thing about Kent is that almost all of it is very accessible by trains from London (a lot of places are also on the high speed line)... it is lovely in Kent but you might want to do the research before you come some places aren’t to nice
@@tobeytransport2802 I thought Faversham was very nice and it has a brewery that is over 300 years old.
And of course they are named that because they were the 2 of the main locations the Saxons settled when they arrived, along with Wessex (East Saxons, West Saxons and South Saxons becoming Essex, Wessex and Sussex)
And Kent is beautiful. Unless you are from Gillingham. Gillingham is trash. Along with the rest of Medway. I would know. :)
@@tobeytransport2802 Washington's Kent County could be named after a person
You guys did so well, nice one! I love that you guys stayed in the Midlands - Alcester is also in Warwickshire though!
Greater London Vs City of London is a really interesting one - you guys should look it up. The city of London is really tiny (it's also called the square mile, well, you can guess why😉), has a really long history, and covers most of the financial district where all the banks and traders work. The rest of London (where almost everyone lives) is covered by Greater London! This is actually a really interesting one; because the City of London (the square mile) is a city, Westminster (where parliament and most government departments are) is a city, but 'London' as in the massive place where 8 million people live doesn't have city status!
Greater Manchester covers Manchester and surrounding towns/cities (Wigan, Bolton, Stockport, etc.). The West Midlands is a bit similar but for Birmingham. Being from the west midlands, but not being from Birmingham, I can tell you that the name 'Greater Birmingham' would not have gone down well!
These videos are great btw - keep it up!❤️
Dan Simpson: 'London' (as you describe it) is Greater London, a ceremonial county created in 1965. The City of Westminster is, for administrative purposes, no more than a London borough but which also holds city status. The present London Borough of the City of Westminster was created in 1965, by the amalgamation of the Metropolitan boroughs of Westminster, Paddington and Saint Marylebone. The City of London also is a county in its own right.
Funny how UK geography works though, I think most people would say that Warwickshire is in the Midlands.
Further to the excellent post above: West Midlands county was named after West Midlands Urban Area-- Birmingham and Black Country. The county also then tacked on Coventry. I can confirm Black Country and Cov folk wouldn't like have been associated with a Greater *Birmingham*!
@wanderingravens - there are a lot of comments regarding my beloved Yorkshire, but in a nutshell ….there are 4 modern day counties of Yorkshire - North, South, West and East (which uniquely is known as the East Riding of Yorkshire) and 3 historical Ridings - North, West and East.
Talk of city mayors, boundary changes and the changes of 1974 (when the East Riding was temporarily abolished until it rose like a Phoenix again in 1996) serve only to confuse!
Well done for getting Leicestershire! I think you should do some smaller town names too, like there's a place in Northamptonshire called 'Cogenhoe' but it's pronounced 'cookna' by the locals 😁
That makes Towcester being pronounced "toaster" seem almost obvious.
looking forward to Leominster
Ilixie pronounced by many as ‘Lem steur’
Or Wymondham...
Pádraig Floyd Oh yeah, ‘windeum’. And then there’s Saxmundham - ‘Saxeum’.
And Cleobury Mortimer while they're in the area.
Or Yeovilton!
If you ever go to Manchester, please pronounce it as 'Man-chester-shire", and remember to over pronounce the 'shire'.
Even after they tell you that's wrong, keep doing it :-)
Dat is evil... as a life long resident of Manchester, I approve!
😂😂 But I don't want to get stabbed
@@WanderingRavens Well that could be a concern. Well, there is a safeguard. if anyone in Manchester attacks you, the line "Your beetles are a great band", will surely soothe the aggressor.
Also. NEVER DO THIS!
@@WanderingRavens Also there's an old statue of Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln Square, Manchester, of which there is some interesting history about and the ending of the civil war in America!
You could always ask to visit Manchesterford and see the famous Acorn Antiques shop. Alternatively, go to Stretford, just south of Manchester and ask someone where Shakespeare's house is...
I’m from Essex and I live in a small town surrounded by forests and farmlands. Another county I spend a lot of time in is Norfolk as my grandparents live there and it’s beautiful up there.
To help you understand the funky spelling research the vowel shift. Also, check out Jay Foreman's video on English town names like Frome
Definitely pronounced Barksher
Noooo! We were wrong 😭😭
Or in West Midlands ...barksheer ..all the shers or shires are pronounced sheers by Brummies ...
Barksheer in Birmingham !
Yey Shropshire I live there. I'm also studying at university in Shrewsbury, the town where Darwin was born. It was cool to learn about evolution in Darwin's own home town
Floreat Salopia
I'm at the uni there too XD
That sounds awesome. I know a fair bit about evolution but not much about Darwin.
Anything with the word Greater preceding a city name encompasses not only the area of the city but anywhere within around a 10 mile radius (postcode area) of that city, also in context the City of London is where most of the bigger (multinational) financial institutions have their British headquarters
16:45 - Correct on the rivers.
My hometown is Newcastle-upon-Tyne and it sits upon the River Tyne, where our bridges are most notably the Tyne Bridge, which was built first and then the same construction company in question went on to build Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia. The river at that part in our city centre is where we divide from Newcastle to the north and Gateshead to the south.
The river also is presentable in other parts of the North East, like the river tyne flows outs of Tynemouth and South Shields into the North Sea.
The next city south of us is Sunderland which sits upon the River Wear.
To be fair, there are quite a few of these that sound different depending on regional accents. x 😄
Haha, definitely. Everyone in Yorkshire says "shire" differently!
Like Brizzle for instance ;)
Vowels tend to migrate backwards over the centuries. "Err" is forward of "Arr" The spelling was cemented long enough ago to be out of date. Give it time and it will be "Beckshire" etc, then "Bickshire". Focus on where you make the vowel sounds and you can see how "Ja" became "Yes" which is pronounced "Yis" in New Zealand.
Thank you for enlightening us! Linguistics is fascinating :D
Lol. Google’s accent isn’t posh. That proper made me laugh
I live in Northamptonshire but I pronounce it north-hamptonshire, although that might be because my accent is a bit posher. personally it only really sounds ok to drop the h if that is part of your accent, as it is just a feature of it. so whilst lots living in it call it Northamptonshire, that is mostly based on their accents and it can be pronounced either way :)
Yes North Hampton but come south and you'll find South ampton, we're not fans of 'h' down 'ere' 😉👍😁
@@wencireone Wasn't Hampshire called Southamptonshire at one time?
@@leohickey4953 yes you're very knowledgeable, bit before my time though 😉👍
Love the isle of wit..
We do too! 😄
🔴Watch next: Americans Try Saying British CITIES! czcams.com/video/Rum4irM5rQQ/video.html
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FYI, BARK shire is correct.
The scone debate will go on forever
Try Welsh County names I dare you, to be honest most are easy 😁
Love you to react to this, the city of London, isn't actually london, its a city (liturally) inside London XD :) czcams.com/video/tIuVXtwbqss/video.html
Though totally understand if you don't want to but love you both to watch it in your own time instead then, I think you'll find it interesting :)
Or this one is much shorter though not to do with the history behind it
czcams.com/video/jZkuwE3ocG8/video.html
@@eanjamesmogg9488 We're doing those next week!
Yup, Tyne & Wear are both rivers. The Tyne is a large river in Newcastle where Geordies come from. The River Wear goes through Sunderland (Newcastle's rival).
The River Wear also goes through Durham, however Durham is not in Tyne & Wear, it's in County Durham.
When we had the great vowel shift, some words didn't change like shire, Berkshire (barkshire), Derby (darby), clerk (clark) etc...
Surprisingly Google translate got them all right in pronunciation. Would love to see you both do one based off the counties of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland and see how Google translate interprets them to sound 😂. Also I'm pretty sure that Yorkshire is split up into so many places because when the vikings came to the UK, they pretty much took over the Yorkshire area and that whole part of England was split between the English and the Danes, due to Danw law. So I think that's the reason why it has so many counties. Great video like always 😊
Thank you!! We're so glad you enjoyed it :D And wish us luck - we're doing Welsh counties next week and Scottish the week after!
@@WanderingRavens Good luck. Most are not too bad, but some of them may look very intimidating. Just to help you out a bit in Welsh w and y are vowels and the y usually makes sounds like an I. Double d usually makes a th sound, double L is the sound you make when your trying to get something out of your throat. Rh is also kind of a th sound, Ph makes an f sound, but double F makes a v sound. Just remember that your probably looking at the English version of the name of the county so it's a bit easier then their Welsh names 😊.
Just a few Welsh pointers to help pronunciation if you can't understand why some letters are together and as some people say it looks like someone has hit their head on a keyboard 😂.
Oh yes! Let's hear "Kirkcudbright"
@@felicitydavies3227 'Double L is the sound you make when your trying to get something out of your throat.' 🤣🤣🤣 It's funny cos it's true.
@@mdwellington I don't think there is any other way to explain how to make that noise. It is literally doing that while also rolling your tongue at the same time. 😂
If you ever come to cornwall let me know and we'll go for a pint and i can give you the lowdown on cornish history. Lots of pirates, smugglers, mines, sea exploration, and ancient celtic stuff. I'm biased because i'm from here but its fucking cool
We'll take you up on that!!
@@WanderingRavens But can you pronounce 'Mousehole'?
@@Steve14ps I bet they can't even tell the difference between a Donkey and an arse. lol
Fun fact: Bristol is only pronounced and spelt with the l on the end because of the Bristolian accent, which adds an l to words ending in a vowel. The city used to be called Bristow (and presumably rhymed with Bisto... for people without a Bristol accent, anyway!).
Technically your list is the 48 "counties and areas for the purposes of the lieutenancies" - the Association of British Counties would be quick to tell you that the historical counties are still recognised too, with places like Rutland and Huntingdonshire. And then there are some that were created and then uncreated again, like Avon... The government even created a helpful interactive map so you can overlay the traditional counties on the modern ones: communities.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Compare/storytelling_compare/index.html?appid=7b0e661ef66b4a7aacb5a9acf55108ac
I live in Northamptonshire (the longest single word county) which has a couple of intresting pronounced villages. How would you say Walgrave or Cogenhoe?
The first is war grave and the second cook know.