An Adult Should Really Know This - Silly Things You've Had to Tell People

[Teenyweeny]

...   "Say, sonny, can ya tell us the way to the CATH-uh-DRAHL?"  ...

I've lived in the U.S. my whole life and I've never heard an American pronounce cathedral that way!   

I've never heard Cathedral pronounced that way either and I've never met an American who didn't know what the word meant.  Of course, here in NYC we have several.  Old St. Patrick's (below Houston St.) wouldn't pass muster as a modern Cathedral but, in the early 19th century, it was pretty imposing.

I can sort of imagine Kevin Spacey's character in House of Cards talking like that. A very deep, old-school, southern drawl.

[Hmmmmm]

I thought that it was reasonably common but maybe it isn't, the more common word for Lutheran cathedrals (which most of the cathedrals here are) comes from the German Domkirche.

I didn't realise that Lutherans had cathedrals -- ah, well, ignorance combatted !

This discussion makes a story from our family, hard to resist; though it's really about the "two nations divided by a common language" thing.  Way back before World War II, my mother and her brothers lived in an English cathedral city.  My uncles, as kids, were occasionally asked for directions by American tourists in the city.  Sometimes when this happened, they found the accent very strange (Americans were rarely encountered then, in provincial towns in Britain) -- like, "Say, sonny, can ya tell us the way to the CATH-uh-DRAHL?"  In these circumstances, my uncles were apt to play the prank of pretending not to understand what the tourist was saying: looking completely blank, and not giving the desired directions.

This was of course highly reprehensible, and very definitely bad behaviour !  My uncles used to tell us the tale, many decades later, with a mixture of shame and amusement.

Lutherans, Methodist and Episcopal all have Cathedrals. Not really sure about other Protestant religions.

I wonder if our uncle's remembered the accent a little wrong. I can definitely hear a southerner drawing out ca-THEEEE-dwaall.

[nutraxfornerves]

The people of Wells
Have a cathedral all to theirsel's;
But of their bishop they have to give half
To "Barf".

That definitely does not work in most American accents, which are rhotic (that is, the letter R is always pronounced.)  So "Barf" is not going to come out as "Bahf" (a non standard pronunciation of the city of Bath), but rather as "barrf" (to vomit).

I do agree that most Americans would think of a cathedral as a large, ornate church, probably Catholic or perhaps, Episcopalian (Anglican).

[jaxsue]

I'm guessing it's a language thing? In the UK, cathedral is a reasonably common word. Every city has a cathedral. In fact, I think it might be (and definitely used to be) part of the definition of a UK city was that it had a cathedral and a university. That's why you can get UK cities that are smaller than large towns. For example, Reading (with a population of 150,000 ish) is a town, as it has a university but has never had a cathedral. Durham (with a population of about 85,000) is a city, as it has both.

Perhaps the word isn't as widely used in Finland?

IME, "cathedral" is pretty common states-side, too. Every major city has cathedrals, which are usually Episcopal. This seems to be especially true for older cities like NYC, Boston, etc.

[jaxsue]

I thought that it was reasonably common but maybe it isn't, the more common word for Lutheran cathedrals (which most of the cathedrals here are) comes from the German Domkirche.

I didn't realise that Lutherans had cathedrals -- ah, well, ignorance combatted !

This discussion makes a story from our family, hard to resist; though it's really about the "two nations divided by a common language" thing.  Way back before World War II, my mother and her brothers lived in an English cathedral city.  My uncles, as kids, were occasionally asked for directions by American tourists in the city.  Sometimes when this happened, they found the accent very strange (Americans were rarely encountered then, in provincial towns in Britain) -- like, "Say, sonny, can ya tell us the way to the CATH-uh-DRAHL?"  In these circumstances, my uncles were apt to play the prank of pretending not to understand what the tourist was saying: looking completely blank, and not giving the desired directions.

This was of course highly reprehensible, and very definitely bad behaviour !  My uncles used to tell us the tale, many decades later, with a mixture of shame and amusement.

I'd say they'd encountered some ignorant tourists.  Cathedrals are quite common in larger cities in the states.

[Snooks]

A University wasn't a requirement for City status in England,  just a cathedral.(or, more specifically, a Bishop).  Which is why Wells, in Somerset, is a city, despite being a small market town.

I *think* that a Royal Charter is required to create a city so the criteria doesn't apply any longer.

Yeah, I knew the cathedral was a definite. As you say, it's all done by Royal charter now.

Aren't both Oxford and Cambridge cities without cathedrals?  I'm guessing their city status has something to do with royalty attending the universities.

[Jocelyn]

I can sort of imagine that by university (which I associate with professors), the professors would be "beyond" marking and taking points off for misspellings/typos, in the sense that they're looking at the bigger picture of concepts, citations, etc.. But I think that is predicated on the fact that by university, the students should be beyond making such simple errors on an assignment they turn in. So if a professor took the time to mark the single typo in my ten-page essay, I would find that kind of odd, though honestly I would be more irritated at myself for leaving it in. However, if a paper was riddled with typos and mistakes, or had repeated misuse of an important term, that seems like cause for losing points.
 

I go on the assumption that students have prepared the very best paper they can- so if I ignore their errors, I'm not giving them feedback that they are making them. There are diligent students who proofread and edit their papers- but  for every 1 of them, there's at least 2 students who think nothing of submitting a paper with the little squiggly error marks in Word...and another 1 or 2 who don't use standard punctuation, spelling, or grammar. I got a paper last fall which was written in text abbreviations (4eva) and at no point in the paper did the student capitalize the word 'I'. If I don't mark errors, how is the student to know that an error was made? If an error is obvious enough to catch my attention, I'll circle it, but I won't take off until there's several of them. Because while I start with the assumption that students are doing the best they can...I'm aware that many students just don't think that proofreading is important. I've had students write comments on my evals that it's not fair that I correct their writing, as I'm not an English professor. Yeah...it's not important to them to turn in a technically good paper in any other topic, because it's not 'fair' for professors of other subjects to expect them to write well.

[cabbageweevil]

The people of Wells
Have a cathedral all to theirsel's;
But of their bishop they have to give half
To "Barf".

That definitely does not work in most American accents, which are rhotic (that is, the letter R is always pronounced.)  So "Barf" is not going to come out as "Bahf" (a non standard pronunciation of the city of Bath), but rather as "barrf" (to vomit).

Apologies -- the business of "rhotic you, non-rhotic us" -- which I know in theory, but tend to forget in practice, especially in the heat of posting. I should have spelt it "Bahf".

[Yvaine]

...   "Say, sonny, can ya tell us the way to the CATH-uh-DRAHL?"  ...

I've lived in the U.S. my whole life and I've never heard an American pronounce cathedral that way!   

Neither have I, though I did have the "big imposing old church" misconception about it for years. I had it explained to me in my twenties that it has a specific meaning in church bureaucracy.

[cabbageweevil]

A University wasn't a requirement for City status in England,  just a cathedral.(or, more specifically, a Bishop).  Which is why Wells, in Somerset, is a city, despite being a small market town.

I *think* that a Royal Charter is required to create a city so the criteria doesn't apply any longer.

Yeah, I knew the cathedral was a definite. As you say, it's all done by Royal charter now.

Aren't both Oxford and Cambridge cities without cathedrals?  I'm guessing their city status has something to do with royalty attending the universities.

Cambridge is cathedral-less: the area's cathedral and bishop are located some fifteen miles down the road, at Ely. I'd figure that Cambridge's city status is, in one way or another, an exception derived from the place's being the site "since forever", of a prestigious university.

Oxford has a bishop, and a cathedral -- said cathedral being within -- and the place of worship serving -- Oxford University's Christ Church College.  All Oxford and Cambridge colleges, except maybe some of the newest ones, have in-built chapels, in which services of worship take place.  Christ Church College, Oxford, has a centuries-old reputation for being the university's most insufferably snooty-and-snobby college -- it's where the gilded and supercilious scions of the aristocracy have long gone for their studies: students at Christ Church have long taken it for granted that they are "the People, and the Only People" -- proles at other colleges, are beneath contempt. (OK, a bit of exaggeration and cherished-Oxford-myth stuff there.)  Thus, Christ Church bods have long been fond of saying: "you low-lifes have mere chapels in your colleges. We've got a cathedral."

[Slartibartfast]

The people of Wells
Have a cathedral all to theirsel's;
But of their bishop they have to give half
To "Barf".

That definitely does not work in most American accents, which are rhotic (that is, the letter R is always pronounced.)  So "Barf" is not going to come out as "Bahf" (a non standard pronunciation of the city of Bath), but rather as "barrf" (to vomit).

Apologies -- the business of "rhotic you, non-rhotic us" -- which I know in theory, but tend to forget in practice, especially in the heat of posting. I should have spelt it "Bahf".

I knew what you meant, but I did enjoy having a little giggle about it 

[cabbageweevil]

Bath is generally reckoned one of Britain's loveliest cities; and overall, a pleasant location in which to live -- throwing-up, not an image usually suggested by mention of the place !

[GreenHall]

Bath is generally reckoned one of Britain's loveliest cities; and overall, a pleasant location in which to live -- throwing-up, not an image usually suggested by mention of the place !

I did a pub crawl with the hostel I stayed at in Bath.  I don't consider them completely unrelated 

[gramma dishes]

Bath is generally reckoned one of Britain's loveliest cities; and overall, a pleasant location in which to live -- throwing-up, not an image usually suggested by mention of the place !

I did a pub crawl with the hostel I stayed at in Bath.  I don't consider them completely unrelated 

 

[jedikaiti]

Apparently the word cathedral isn't common knowledge here. We had to edit some ads we did for a client's series of concerts, called "Music in the Cathedral" because someone called them angry and complained about how the ads don't say where the concerts are (there's only one cathedral in our town). I was telling a friend about it and he didn't know what it meant either. To be fair, we do usually use another word for that type of church and he isn't Christian but neither am I (and he's lived close to the cathedral his whole life) and I don't find it particularly obscure.

Wow, really? Even my friends from the US (where we typically don't have "cathedrals", just churches) would all know what a cathedral was!

I think most US cities have at least one Cathedral - at least cities of a certain size. Of course, I wouldn't necessarily know anything about where it was since I'm not religious anymore, but when I was, I always knew of at least one in whatever city if I spent enough time there.