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
This week’s selection comes from Cheryl Tipp, Curator of Wildlife & Environmental Sounds. If you find yourself in East Yorkshire during the summer holidays, be sure to pay a visit to the stunning seabird colonies at Bempton Cliffs. Every year nearly half a million seabirds congregate on the hard chalk… read more
Rosy Hall is an ESRC-funded PhD student from Oxford University working with the BL’s Spoken English collections. She writes: One of the joys of cataloguing the Evolving English WordBank is discovering all the weird and wonderful phrases donated to the British Library by speakers from around the world. Researching their… read more