1.6. British regional and national shibboleths
There are countless events associated with the particular regions of the UК. Some of them are quite well known to the majority of inhabitants of the British Isles, even if only from television, radio or reading about them in the papers and, as such, they may be said to be an important part of British culture. There are events in a variety of areas, ranging from the Grand National, an annual steeplechase (a horse race with ditches and obstacles which the horses must jump) held at Aintree, Liverpool, and the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race (a rowing race between the two universities on the Thames in London), to the National and International Eisteddfods in Wales, which feature poetry, music and dancing. In Scotland, there are Highland Games, featuring such contests as 'tossing the caber' (throwing a huge log as far as you can) and Highland dancing. On such occasions, Scotsmen may wear the kilt, a garment like a heavy skirt, now part of the popular image of Scotland, but actually a nineteenth-century romantic stylization of (the bottom half of) traditional dress once worn by Scottish Highlanders, in which a tartan cloth is flung around the waist and shoulders like a short toga. Similar to a Welsh eisteddfod is an Irish or Scottish ceilidh (pronounced as ifwritten like the name Caley), a social gathering devoted to folk music, singing, dancing and story-telling.
Also some British views and attitudes are connected with regional diversity within the U K. For instance, there are many nicknames for people from various parts of the British Isles. The English may call a Scotsman 'Jock', a Welshman 'Tajfy'andstn Irishman 'Paddy'or 'Mick'. These terms may be used both to address someone. Outsiders are not advised to use them. The Scots and the Welsh have words for the English based on the word 'Saxon', Scottish 'Sassenach' and Welsh 'Sais' (pronounced to rhyme with 'nice'but not always used nicely). There are also many slang terms for people from smaller regions, for example 'Scouse' (rhyming with 'house') for Liverpool and 'Geordie' for the Tyneside area of northeastern England. Some of these terms are quite local or vary in meaning locally: for example, while some Scots use 'Sassenach'to mean an English person, some Scottish Highlanders may use the term to refer to Lowland Scots (who are mostly of Anglo-Saxon and Norman descent rather than Celtic). When southern English people speak of 'the North'or 'the North Country' or 'northerners''they are referring to northern England, not to Scotland, and as southerners they may even include some areas of 'the Midlands' (around Birmingham and Coventry) in their loose conception of 'the North'.
Since there is still considerable regional diversity in the pronunciation of English in the British Isles, many people are aware of some of the distinctive features, and these are often linked with characterizations and stereotypes. In the Midlands and north of England, many people pronounce words like 'bus, cup, mug' with a vowel that sounds to southerners more like the 'oo' of (RP) 'book, good, look', rather than their lower back vowel. In return, northerners say that the southern or RP pronunciation of 'cup, mug' makes these words sound like 'cap, mag'. Neither perception is based on accurate phonetic analysis of course, but awareness of such differences in pronunciation is often linked to sweeping generalizations about 'plumy southerners' (who talk as if they have a plum in their mouth) or 'blunt northerners'. Continuing these rash stereotypes, northerners generally pride themselves on being 'straightforward' and 'down-to-earth': their view of southerners is sometimes similar to a common foreign view of the English in general, that they are amazingly polite and perhaps artificially so. The 'West Country', referring particularly to south-western England, is an area of mild climate and relatively little heavy industry, which conjures up images of apple orchards, strong cider and cream teas. This area is one part of England in which the local pronunciation retains the post-vocalic '/■'-sound (in words like 'car, purr, sort, beard') and this means that many English people think that the utterance of a thoughtful 'arrr', sounding the final V'-sound, is Australian way of pronunciation.
British sometimes call Australians 'Aussies' (sometimes mispronounced with [s] but correctly pronounced 'Ozzies') and the Americans 'Yanks'. There are no common special terms for Canadians, New Zealanders or South Africans. (The term 'Boer', from the Dutch for a farmer or peasant, was once used of Afrikaans-speaking South Africans, but no longer.)
Religious divisions are not prominent in Britain today: the traditional church in England, with the Queen as its head, is the Church of England or Anglican Church, and many English people belong to it, nominally if not very seriously, although there are substantial numbers in other Protestant churches, sometimes called non-conformists. In Scotland, the Church of Scotland, which is a Presbyterian, not Anglican, church, has the same kind oftraditional standing as the Church of England in England. In Wales there is a strong tradition of non-Anglican Protestant churches, usually referred to as chapels, in which the preaching and singing have a reputation for vigour and liveliness. The population of the Republic of Ireland is strongly Roman Catholic and there are areas of Britain, such as the cities of Liverpool and Glasgow, where Irish immigration has resulted in substantial Catholic minorities. In Northern Ireland, the conflict between Protestants and Catholics has been tragically violent and widely reported in the media. The rest of Britain has relatively little religious tension of that kind, although there are pockets of it, for example in the rivalry between the two Glasgow football teams of Rangers and Celtic. Without official endorsement or encouragement, Rangers is identified as the Protestant team and Celtic as the (Irish) Catholic team, and violence among supporters has been notorious.
Regional stereotypes often feature in jokes. A common type of joke begins 'There was an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman' and then goes on to tell how they each behaved or reacted differently in a situation. The assumption is that the Englishman will be superior, the Irishman silly and the Scotsman mean. Although these jokes may be objected to as racist or at least shockingly over generalizing, they are not always considered offensive and Scottish people may tell jokes about mean Scotsmen, just as Jewish people tell Jewish jokes and Australians tell jokes about stupid Australians. But the characters in these jokes do vary. When someone from southern Scotland tells one of these jokes, the mean character may be a 'man from Aberdeen' rather than just a Scotsman. In fact everyone has their prejudices.
Sport is a strong ingredient of British culture and it is unthinkable that anyone would not know that the Grand National is a horse race, that Lords is one of the London cricket grounds, that Wembley is where the football cup final is played, that Wimbledon is where lawn tennis is played, and so on. In Britain, the word 'football', without qualification, means what some other countries call 'soccer'. Rugby football is usually called 'rugby' and American football is cither 'American football' or 'gridiron'. Similarly, 'hockey' refers to land hockey and ice hockey is 'ice hockey', never just 'hockey'. Sport also provides metaphors for daily discourse, like 'sticky wicket', a difficult situation in cricket, and hence a difficult situation more generally.
Notes on cricket
■ Eleven players in each team.
• Test matches between national teams can last up to five days of six hours each. Top club teams play matches lasting between two and four days. There are also one-day matches lasting about seven hours.
■ Played at top level in Australia, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the West Indies (those places in the Caribbean which once belonged to the British empire). Can be considered the 'national sport' in India and the West Indies. The team most frequently regarded as 'the best' is the West Indies.
There are many associations with particular places that need no explanation within Britain, such as Harley Street (in London, a street associated with medical specialists), the City (the old city of London, now particularly the financial district), the West End (of London, associated with theatres), Scotland Yard (in London, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police) and Oxford and Cambridge (the cities housing the two oldest universities). Newspapers and advertisers can draw on such associations with phrases like 'panic in the City' or 'a West End success'
The rest of the press
If you go into any well-stocked newsagents in Britain, you will not only find newspapers. You will also see rows and rows of magazines catering for almost every imaginable taste and specializing in almost every imaginable pastime. Among these publications there are a few weeklies dealing with news and current affairs. Partly because the national press is so predictable (and often so trivial) some of these periodicals manage to achieve a cir-culation of more than a hundred thousand.
The Economist is of the same type as Time, Newsweek, Der Spiegel and LExpress. Its analyses, however, are generally more thorough. It is fairly obviously right-wing in its views, but the writing is of very high-quality and that is why it has the reputation of being one of the best weeklies in the world.
The New Statesman and Society is the left-wing equivalent of The Economist and is equally serious and well-written.
Private Eye is a satirical magazine which makes fun of all parties and politicians, and also makes fun of the mainstream press. It specializes in political scandal and, as a result, is forever defending itself in legal actions. It is so outrageous that some chains of newsagents sometimes refuse to sell it. Although its humour is often very 'schoolboyish it is also well-written and it is said that no politician can resist reading it. The country's bestselling maga-zine is the Radio Times, which, as well as listing all the television and radio programmes for the coming week, contains some fifty pages of articles. (Note the typically British appeal to continuity in the name 'Radio Times' The magazine was first pub-lished before television existed and has never bothered to update its title.)