I'm not finished with these scones!
Well, last Friday's poll about scones did nothing to help me understand where each of the two main pronunciations is most common, or even whether the choice between 'skoan' and 'skon' is a matter of geography, or class, or what. Some people apparently believe that 'skon' is northern and 'skoan' southern, and some the complete opposite. The only mild points of agreement were a belief that people in Scotland are more likely to say 'skon' than anyone anywhere else and apparently also a marked preference overall for pronouncing the word as 'skon'.
On this latter issue, I believe that you are all Wrong. But while I'm not really bothered about 'right' and 'wrong' pronunciation in this case, I've still got a bee in my bonnet about what exactly it is that distinguishes a 'skoan'-sayer from a 'skon'-sayer.
So I am now presenting TWO separate new polls, in an attempt to find out what's at the bottom of this. This time, I am not asking about what you believe people in other parts of the country say, but only about what you say.
This is how it works: the top poll is for anyone who grew up, for the most part, north of Birmingham. Do not answer it if you grew up south of Birmingham. For you, there is the bottom poll.
Birmingham is a good point at which to divide the country in half, because I was born there, so clearly it is Very Important. If you actually grew up in Birmingham (like me), you may decide for yourself whether you feel that, on balance, you are more of a southerner or a northerner. If you grew up in Scotland or Northern Ireland, I'd say you're pretty definitively northern. The Welsh, like the Brummies, will have to make their own minds up, though, as a line drawn due west of B'ham probably doesn't have much meaning once it hits Wales.
You can also use your own judgement to decide what constitutes 'growing up' somewhere. E.g. if you were born in Newcastle, of local parents, but moved to Devon at the age of 4, you will have to decide whether your parents or your schoolmates had a greater influence on your pronunciation of the word 'scone'. Once you have decided, though, stick with your decision.
DO NOT ANSWER BOTH POLLS. I WILL BE CHECKING!
Here we go, then:
Poll Poll one: for people from OOP NORTH
Poll Poll two: for people from DAHN SARF
UPDATE: I've just realised that LJ's default method of displaying a poll is to display the questions until a person has answered them, and after that to display the answers (assuming the person remains logged in, of course). This means that no-one can see the results in the poll they didn't vote in, unless they actively click on it and go to look. I was wondering for ages why southern people seemed so much more inclined to vote that northern people... until I realised that northern people had been voting - it's just that, as a self-defined southerner, I couldn't see them.
If you're keen to see the results in the half you didn't vote in for now, you can go directly to the northern results here or the southern results here. Meanwhile, I will probably summarise them both in a separate post in the end anyway, assuming they reveal anything at all.
On this latter issue, I believe that you are all Wrong. But while I'm not really bothered about 'right' and 'wrong' pronunciation in this case, I've still got a bee in my bonnet about what exactly it is that distinguishes a 'skoan'-sayer from a 'skon'-sayer.
So I am now presenting TWO separate new polls, in an attempt to find out what's at the bottom of this. This time, I am not asking about what you believe people in other parts of the country say, but only about what you say.
This is how it works: the top poll is for anyone who grew up, for the most part, north of Birmingham. Do not answer it if you grew up south of Birmingham. For you, there is the bottom poll.
Birmingham is a good point at which to divide the country in half, because I was born there, so clearly it is Very Important. If you actually grew up in Birmingham (like me), you may decide for yourself whether you feel that, on balance, you are more of a southerner or a northerner. If you grew up in Scotland or Northern Ireland, I'd say you're pretty definitively northern. The Welsh, like the Brummies, will have to make their own minds up, though, as a line drawn due west of B'ham probably doesn't have much meaning once it hits Wales.
You can also use your own judgement to decide what constitutes 'growing up' somewhere. E.g. if you were born in Newcastle, of local parents, but moved to Devon at the age of 4, you will have to decide whether your parents or your schoolmates had a greater influence on your pronunciation of the word 'scone'. Once you have decided, though, stick with your decision.
DO NOT ANSWER BOTH POLLS. I WILL BE CHECKING!
Here we go, then:
Poll Poll one: for people from OOP NORTH
Poll Poll two: for people from DAHN SARF
UPDATE: I've just realised that LJ's default method of displaying a poll is to display the questions until a person has answered them, and after that to display the answers (assuming the person remains logged in, of course). This means that no-one can see the results in the poll they didn't vote in, unless they actively click on it and go to look. I was wondering for ages why southern people seemed so much more inclined to vote that northern people... until I realised that northern people had been voting - it's just that, as a self-defined southerner, I couldn't see them.
If you're keen to see the results in the half you didn't vote in for now, you can go directly to the northern results here or the southern results here. Meanwhile, I will probably summarise them both in a separate post in the end anyway, assuming they reveal anything at all.