Cultural Geography Blog

This is helping me through the marking tonight…

While driving home yesterday I was listening to an interview on BBC Radio Norfolk with one of the people behind the English Dialects app . They were explaining the way that it works, by listening to particular words and how they are pronounced, and also the emphasis on vowels, along with local dialect words. There are a few of these in the quiz, such as the choice of word for a 'splinter' of wood that might get stuck under your skin... is that called a spell where you're from? There's a Telegraph article on the app here. I had a go and submitted my answers and location - it was not too accurate, but then I've spent half my life in Yorkshire and (just over) half in Norfolk - which are two quite different dialects... and have a sort of neither one nor the other accent... Interesting to try with students perhaps if you have airplay...

Voting for these awards is now open , and you can apparently vote for my LivingGeography blog to win in the education category if you had a mind to… Click the picture below to be taken to the voting page. Voting is open from 4th to 26th January 2016 - thanks if you vote for me - I have no expectation of winning, but you've got to be in in to win it...

Every now and again, we add some real cultural geography here amongst the melange of 'cultural' posts which have a connection with some of the broad ideas. Sam Kinsley is a cultural geographer who works at the University of Exeter. I've got a good connection with this university through my previous work with Ian Cook's  Follow the Things project, helping to create their education materials in a 'previous life', and ongoing support for the project. Sam's blog has some interesting posts which would be of interest to teachers. I was interested in the Bristol Festival of Ideas session featuring Bradley Garrett , Leo Hollis and Anna Minton - I drew on books by all three of them when writing urban chapters for a forthcoming 'A' level textbook.