Accents
Twitter is its own wonderful mini-rabbit hole in the realm of the internet. You learn so many incredible things by following a diversity of people on there.
I can’t quite remember how I ended up following the British Library sound archives on Twitter, but I did, and they tweet so many interesting things there. As a bit of a research boondoggle this morning, I poked around the actual website of the archive and came across this map:
http://sounds.bl.uk/maps/Accents-and-dialects.html
By clicking on the little red pins, you can listen to dialect from anywhere in England. I was listening to an older gentleman from Pontefract, Yorkshire talk about the mining industry there, and it was like listening to my much-missed Grandpa! It made me all teary and everything.
Still, it doesn’t compare to listening to Peter Sellers wander through English accents in this short bit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLsVh6Qrpew
It always amazes me, watching that promotional piece from Dr. Strangelove.
Offf to write!