Rosy Hall is an ESRC-funded PhD student from Oxford University working with the BL’s Spoken English collections. She writes: At the Evolving English exhibition at the British Library (2010-11), we asked visitors to submit recordings of their voices in specially designed telephone booths. Around 15,000 speakers took part, and the… read more
This week’s selection comes from Dr Janet Topp Fargion, Lead Curator of World and Traditional Music. Dr Peter Cooke has been researching music in Uganda since the 1960s. In 1968 he was in the Kisoro area in western Uganda where he recorded a few songs performed by members of the… read more
Tails are probably not the first things that spring to mind when thinking about animal sounds. Beautiful songs or spine-chilling cries, sure, but tails? It’s unlikely. Several animal groups use their tails to generate sound. One of the most famous of these are rattlesnakes, a group of venomous reptiles found… read more
Rosy Hall is an ESRC-funded PhD student from Oxford University working with the BL’s Spoken English collections. She writes: When cataloguing the Evolving English WordBank, we often come across speakers donating words which they have invented themselves. This privileged access to speakers’ privately meaningful coinages is not only fun, but… read more
Rosy Hall is an ESRC-funded PhD student from Oxford University working with the BL’s Spoken English collections. She writes: The phrase ‘San Fairy Ann’ might sound familiar, perhaps conjuring up memories of Paul McCartney’s 1976 song, or Barbara Windsor’s 1965 comedy of the same name. But what does it actually… read more