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What’s in a (place) name?

David Crystal
David Crystal

Happy Labor Day weekend to those of you in the United States. Speaking of labor, few people work harder than legendary linguist David Crystal, who has just completed three years’ work on his new website, TraceThatPlace.com. The site allows users to explore “the story and sound of place names on the road signs and railway stations of Britain.”

David joins Paul on this month’s episode of the In a Manner of Speaking podcast to discuss the site and the history of place names in Great Britain. Go here to listen.

Episode 80 (Trace That Place)

David Crystal

Podcast favorite David Crystal returns to In a Manner of Speaking for the September 2024 episode. The legendary linguist is back to discuss his new website, TraceThatPlace.com, which allows users to enter a British place name and learn all about its origin and history. You’ll also be able to hear the place’s (often bizarre, ambiguous) pronunciation.

Billed as the site that allows you to explore “the story and sound of place names on the road signs and railway stations of Britain,” TraceThatPlace took David about three years to create. On this month’s podcast, he and Paul discuss not just the site but the fascinating etymology and evolution of place names.

This is David’s sixth appearance on the podcast. His prior appearances:
June 2018 (Episode 5): Pragmatics
November 2019 (Episode 22): Received Pronunciation (RP)
September 2021 (Episode 44): Let’s Talk
September 2022 (Episode 56): Sounds Appealing
September 2023 (Episode 68): English Through the Ages

For more information about David, visit DavidCrystal.com and ShakespearesWords.com. And visit his YouTube channel.

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

 

Episode 68 (English Through the Ages)

David Crystal

The September 2023 episode of In a Manner of Speaking features a trip through time:  a conversation between Paul and distinguished linguist David Crystal about the history of the English language. David traces the development of English from the Roman occupation of Britain to the spread of Modern English around the world.

Highlights include a discussion of Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English (and Original Pronunciation), along with a brief look at the contributions of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and French.

David (a native of Liverpool, England, and North Wales) has authored more than 100 books in the field of language, including several Penguin books, but is perhaps best known for his two encyclopedias for Cambridge University Press, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. His books on English phonetics and phonology include Prosodic Systems and Intonation in English and The English Tone of Voice.

He was founder-editor of the Journal of Child Language (1973-85), Child Language Teaching and Therapy (1985-96), and Linguistics Abstracts (1985-96), and associate editor of the Journal of Linguistics (1970-73). In addition, he has been a consultant, contributor, or presenter on several radio and television programs and series. David is currently patron of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL) and the Association for Language Learning (ALL); president of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading, the UK National Literacy Association, and the Johnson Society of London; and an honorary vice president of the Institute of Linguists and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

David is also a renowned Shakespeare and Original Pronunciation (OP) scholar. For more on his work with the Bard, visit ShakespearesWords.com.

For a full biography and more information on David, visit his website, DavidCrystal.com. Go here for a list of all of David’s published works.

Further links to David’s books:
Oxford Dictionary of Original Shakespearean Pronunciation
Shakespeare’s Words
Everyday Shakespeare: Lines for Life (co-authored with Ben Crystal)
Shakespeare’s Original Pronunciation website
A Date with Language

YouTube videos on the history of English:

This is David’s fifth appearance on the podcast. He appeared previously in episodes 5 in June 2018 (Pragmatics), 22 in November 2019 (Received Pronunciation)44 in September 2021 (“Let’s Talk), and 56 in September 2022 (“Sounds Appealing”).

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

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David Crystal: ‘Sounds Appealing’

David Crystal

A discussion with the great linguist and author David Crystal always sounds appealing. But on this month’s In a Manner of Speaking podcast, David and Paul are taking the phrase literally: by discussing David’s 2018 book, Sounds Appealing. They discuss various topics related to the book, including pronunciation, phonetics, phoneticians, speech melody, intonation, and stress patterning.

Go here to listen to the podcast and learn more about David Crystal.

Episode 56 (Sounds Appealing)

David Crystal

For the September 2022 episode of In a Manner of Speaking, Paul welcomes back renowned linguist and author David Crystal for his fourth appearance on the podcast. They discuss various topics related to David’s 2018 book, Sounds Appealing, including pronunciation, phonetics, phoneticians, speech melody, intonation, and stress patterning.

David ( a native of Liverpool, England, and North Wales) has authored more than 100 books in the field of language, including several Penguin books, but is perhaps best known for his two encyclopedias for Cambridge University Press, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. His books on English phonetics and phonology include Prosodic Systems and Intonation in English and The English Tone of Voice.

He was founder-editor of the Journal of Child Language (1973-85), Child Language Teaching and Therapy (1985-96), and Linguistics Abstracts (1985-96), and associate editor of the Journal of Linguistics (1970-73). In addition, he has been a consultant, contributor, or presenter on several radio and television programs and series. David is currently patron of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL) and the Association for Language Learning (ALL); president of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading, the UK National Literacy Association, and the Johnson Society of London; and an honorary vice president of the Institute of Linguists and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

David is also a renowned Shakespeare and Original Pronunciation (OP) scholar. For more on his work with the Bard, visit ShakespearesWords.com.

For a full biography and more information on David, visit his website, DavidCrystal.com. Go here for a list of all of David’s published works and here to purchase them.

Visit David’s YouTube channel for more information relevant to this podcast. We present here just two of his many videos.

Lastly, for a discussion of English long and short vowels, one of the topics that David and Paul discuss on this podcast, go here.

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

Episode 44 (Let’s Talk)

David Crystal

Paul’s guest for September 2021 is the respected linguist David Crystal, who is making his third appearance on the podcast. Inspired by Let’s Talk, one of David’s latest books, Paul and David converse about … conversation itself.

To learn about David, visit his website and Wikipedia, or listen to David’s two prior appearances on this podcast: June 2018 and November 2019.

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

Episode 22 (Received Pronunciation)

David Crystal

Paul’s guest for November 2019 is eminent linguist David Crystal. Paul and David discuss the history of Received Pronunciation (RP), also known as the Queen’s English, BBC English, and Standard British English. They also discuss the newer dialect often referred to as Estuary.

For more information about David, visit DavidCrystal.com, OriginalPronunciation.com, and ShakespearesWords.com.

Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.

 

Episode 5 (Pragmatics, with David Crystal)

David Crystal

Paul’s guest for June 2018 is David Crystal, one of the world’s most famous linguists and the leader of the modern movement we call OP: Original Pronunciation of Shakespeare’s works. David explains the fascinating linguistic subfield called Pragmatics, which he defines as the “study of the choices that you make when you use language, the reasons for those choices, and the effects that the choices convey.” See David’s websites: http://originalpronunciation.com/, www.davidcrystal.com, and https://www.shakespeareswords.com/.