Why People from Manchester Are Mancunians, Not Manchesterians | Hacker News Reader

Why People from Manchester Are Mancunians, Not Manchesterians

atlasobscura.com

186 pointssohkamyung131 comments

For people interested in this kind of stuff, Guy Deutscher's book "The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention" is a fun read!

As is the "The History of English" podcast [0], for the more aurally inclined.

On a related note, the Great Vowel Shift [1] of the 14-16th century really fucked English over. Apparently it was a close call back then, English almost kept its "regular", conservative pronunciation ("meet", "boot" like in German), instead of the current idiosyncratic chaos.

Bizarre pronunciation of British proper names like Cholmondeley (pronounced: Chumley!), Worcester or Norwich are another one of my favourites.

[0] http://historyofenglishpodcast.com/page/10/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift

"Worcester" and "Norwich" are sort of regular, in the sense that the "ces" in "-cester" suffixes often gets elided into an "s" (e.g. "Gloucester", pronounced "Gloster") and the "w" in "-wick" and "-wich" suffixes is typically dropped completely (e.g. "Greenwich", "Warwick", "Berwick", pronounced "Grennidge", "Worick", "Berick" respectively).

My mother has always insisted that "Cirencester" is correctly pronounced "Sisister", which Wikipedia sort of supports (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirencester#Pronunciation).

Don't forget Southwark! (Sutherk)

That's interesting because North Berwick, South Berwick, and Berwick in southern Maine are pronounced Ber-wick.

Similarly, Norwich, Connecticut is pronounced Nor-which locally.

Those wacky Nutmeggers (who badly need a standard demonym by the way) also pronounce their local Thames River as thaymz and yes that's with the th as in thick. But they do pronounce Greenwich (CT) as the English do.

I have read (no source at hand though) that that one used to be "Nor-itch" but during the 20th century the pronunciation was gradually forgotten and replaced with a spelling pronunciation. If I remember correctly the same was true of Warwick ("War-ick") Rhode Island.

Same thing happened with Berkeley in the US: originally "Barclay", and still pronounced "Barclay" in the UK.

It's common for us place names to have drifted from their origin.

The Egyptian Cairo is pronounced ky-row but the American is pronounced kay-row.

There's a running joke about the American pronunciation of Loughborough.

Gloucester makes sense if you consider that it's pronounced "Glouce-ster" rather than "Glou-cester". You wouldn't pronounce Glouce as "Glou-se", but to rhyme with "grouse".

I always thought it was pronounced 'glosster' ...

It is, I think GP means it makes sense if you view the syllable break there, and then shorten it and say it quickly because you're lazy and that's what happens.

Yep, exactly, thanks. Mainly my point was "it makes sense if you consdier that the syllable break is after Glouce rather than after Glou".

I was somewhere between baffled and delighted when I discovered that Bicester is pronounced "Bister".

Also Berkeley and Berkshire are pronounced with a "bar" sound in UK English, but "burr" in the US, I believe.

True; and yet the British pejorative "berk" ("fool", "idiot") rhymes with "work" but is supposedly a contraction of "Berkeley Hunt" (rhyming slang for a word much ruder than the fairly mild "berk").

And of course good old Worcestershire sauce, which can be a mouthful if English isn't your first language.

Where I'm from there are probably 3+ common and different ways to pronounce it.

No, it's tough no matter what your first language is, unless you've learned how the locals pronounce it. "Wuster-sher". Easy peasy.

We have a few remnants of the British colonialists here in Kenya. And one such, who has since passed on but was on the news regularly was called Cholmondeley. With the exception of one newscaster, who taught us how to read the name correctly, the rest always mispronounced the name. We also have a well name office block called Warwick Center and I am yet to hear someone dropping the second 'w'. Well, I didn't know that, too, until I met a someone from 'Worick' University.

My favourite is a small town called Towcester - pronounced like "toaster".

Seconding the "History of English" podcast. It's a fascinating subject.

The formal demonym for Massachusetts, according to Wikipedia, is "Bay Stater". (You can practically picture some hapless writer trying to apply a standard suffix and giving up.) I don't think I've ever heard it used in real life. I think our real demonym is "Masshole".

The demonym for Florida must then be Floridiot.

I am from Cologne (Köln), Germany and we use the same word "kölsch" for the people, the dialect, and the beer. It also works as a demonym. I am, speak, and like to drink "kölsch".

It is even more granular for some of the cities, I am in Liverpool (also mentioned in the article) and scouser is more of a superset, containing:

* Plazzy – (from plastic, meaning fake.)

* Wools – (from wooly-backs, having accents sounding as if they might live near sheep, traditionally traders would commute to the city from other cities with wool on their backs.)

* Johnheads (the "ketwigs" (those that spend their money on Ketamine rather than haircuts) that congregate near St. John's Market)

Interestingly, the subsets are more likely to cause offence if used since they're terms mainly used to describe others, and less likely to be adopted (though scouser was adopted.)

I live in Liverpool but grew up on the Wirral and frequently am told I'm a big Wool, and I understood it to be nearly anyone in merseyside but not in Liverpool and plazzy to be anyone not in merseyside but affiliates as a scouser.

To me (from Wales, living in Liverpool) a scouser is anyone with a scouse accent, a plazzy is anyone with a scouse accent that lives outside the L postcode but within Merseyside.

I would like to formalise this :)

Ah now wool would not describe a Scouser. I'm from the Wirral and so I'm a wool to a liverpudlian.

There's a comment lower down that says Wool is about anyone from Lancashire as they used to carry the wool down...

Perhaps originally but not exclusively now. I've been called a wool a lot, and it's not because people thought I was from Lancashire.

As someone not from england who follows dance music, i'm glad I now know wtf Scouse House means.

Before sending her the article, I quizzed my mum on some of the examples. It was going well until Dubai.

"Dubious!"

I like hers better.

Do Buy - Do Buyers

"No, she went of her own accord!"

(oops, wrong punchline)

At a certain point a term is so unfamiliar that you have to accept it's fallen out of usage. I'm from the UK and had never heard of Leodensian, Wulfrunian or Novocastrian.

Can anyone from those places comment on whether the terms are used seriously in normal conversation - and not just to sound clever or erudite?

I've heard Novocastrian but it'd be reasonable to say I've never heard outside of a pub quiz or from a Stephen Fry-type trying to seem clever.

The other two are new to me!

Never heard of any of them either - from the Midlands and used to travel around UK a lot for work and never heard anyone use them in any conversation.

I studied Latin in Newcastle and definitely heard "Novocastrian", but I'm certainly an outlier. I can't imagine any Geordie you're going to meet in St James' Park is likely to use the term.

Mancunian, Glaswegian, Geordie, Liverpudlian and Scouser, and Bajan are all commonly used. I have never heard the ones for Leeds or Wolverhampton and I assume they're silly back-formations like Novocastrian. Malagasy seems to be a proper term both for a language and a people, according to Wikipedia, though it's not one I'm especially familiar with. I have no idea about "Haligonian" or the Pittsburgh ones.

That's pretty condescending. Plenty of geordies are familiar with the term novocastrian.

edit to add: Not a term in common usage though, granted.

I studied all school subjects in Newcastle, and know a great many people from the area who didn't even get to non-signalling-language level of schooling, yet staggeringly, are aware of the specific name for people from Newcastle; you're not an outlier. It's not widely used, but it's very well known.

I lived in Halifax for 15+ years and Haligonian is almost universally used.

Here people in Tasmania are colloquially called Taswegians in honour of Glasgow.Tasmanian is proper but I would like to see Van Demons catch on in deference to the dutch name.

I definitely agree with you on this. I'm from Leeds and my first thought was that there isn't really a term for someone from Leeds, other than someone from Leeds!

Leodensian might be a term that existed at some point, or is by lack of an alternative, the default word, but it isn't actually used to the point where any person from Leeds would expect another person from Leeds to understand the term (let alone someone from elsewhere)

Now I think about it, I can't think of many names for citizens of the main yorkshire cities (York, Sheffield??). Perhaps "yorkshireman" or "yorkshirewoman" has been enough...

What adjective would you use to describe someone or something from Leeds? Is there one? An equivalent to something like "Bostonian architecture". Demonyms have always fascinated me for some reason, particularly the irregular ones.

If a person from New York is a New Yorker, then shouldn't someone from the original York be a Yorker?

I think as York begat Yorkshire which begat Yorkshireman, New Yorkers should be referred to as New Yorkshiremen.

I lived in Wolverhampton for ten years and Wulfrunian is fairly commonly used in the city.

I also lived in Leeds for a few years and I'm pretty sure the denonym in use was Loiner.

Wikipedia agrees that Loiner is a demonym for Leeds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loiner

Hmm. I also lived in Leeds for some years, but I've never heard either term used.

I would have said most people from Leeds refer to themselves as a "Tyke", but I see that listed on Wikipedia as someone from Yorkshire in general.

I'm from the other Newcastle - the city in Australia, named after the original. You certainly hear the term Novocastrian very often down here, although I would not expect anyone outside of the area itself to know what it refers to.

From Newcastle; yes, it is used occasionally but kinda formally. Very well known, just not needed. That might be to do with area (+ football), which in some ways binds stronger (north/south of Tyne) than actual city (which is small, vs huge area if outlying towns are included)

Wulfrunian is very common in Wolverhampton, though more common would be "from Wolves".

I went to the (private) Leeds Grammar School, and our alumni have always been Old Leo(densian)s - there's also a rugby club in Leeds of the same name, which was originally associated with the school/alumni, and it's mentioned in that delightful Kaiser Chiefs ditty about a night out in Leeds, I Predict A Riot...

In other words, slightly obscure, but certainly not unknown. The others, I've never heard of :)

I don't know if it's true, but I was told that Leeds Grammar School invented the term "Leodensian" to make themselves sound posher, and it has no real historical basis.

Novocastrian is used, Geordie may have been 'reappropriated' but I still think it's loaded with connotation - you can see that from the fact it also describes the (thick) accent, which isn't the case for all demonyms.

If I overheard Leodensian or Wulfrunian, I'd think the speakers were comparing school ties. Or talking about local (rugby) football teams.

New Zealand is another interesting one. Our demonym is "Kiwi" from the bird. I guess technically it's "New Zealander", but I don't think I've ever heard someone use that.

I had to explain this to someone recently, and I was surprised that no other country seems to have a voluntary demonym that is completely unrelated to the name of the place? In English anyway.

Yank isn't related to the name of the US.

Yeah I missed that one, although I've never heard it used voluntarily? Yankee maybe, but still not common.

People used to understand this, around the english speaking world, especially after WW2 .... however thanks to some bozo marketing arsehole who renamed what we called "Chinese Gooseberries" to "kiwifruit", which in turn became known as "kiwis" we've lost our national identity (at least in the rest of the world - declaring yourself a "kiwi" in the US is more than likely just going to get you stupid looks)

'New Zealander' isn't really demonym, since it's a noun rather than an adjective. 'New Zealand' is both the name of the country and the demonym: 'The Russian prime minister' -> 'The New Zealand prime minister' (but you can't say 'The Russia prime minister')

The New Yorker mayor also doesn't sound right, although that's the correct demonym according to Wikipedia.

Would it be possible that perhaps the demonym is the name of the people, a noun, while the adjective is another thing, that can happen to coincide with either the place name or the demonym or something else, on a case by case basis?

German has also irregular demonyms. People in Zürich aren't called Züricher, but Zürcher. Same for Basler in Basel. Near Innsbruck in Austria, there is a small village, Igls. I discovered the last holiday there that people are called Igler there. And so on.

Are the irregular demonyms limited to places where Southern Germanic dialects/languages are spoken, or is it just coincidence that your examples are all in Switzerland/Austria?

Recall also that residents of München are not Münchener but Münchner.

Weird, but true. In Frankfurt (part of Hessen, not in the south) I've seen Münchener Straße and Zuricher straße.

Yes.

Hannover - Hannoveraner

Bremen - Bremer (regular might be Bremener like Essen - Essener)

Jena: People who live there are "Jenaer", people who are born there are "Jenenser".

This actually sounds like it might be related to the "Lutherian e" (after Martin Luther, the German reformer and namesake of the Lutheran church)[0]:

Up until the late 1700s, the trailing "-e" in words like "Füße", "mache" and so on were intentionally dropped in most of (Catholic) Southern Germany because it was associated with Luther's translation of the Bible and therefore considered heretical.

The effects of this are still present in German (e.g. the German word for "door" nowadays is "Tür" but "Türe" is still an archaic or rare variant you might encounter, likewise you might colloquially see phrases like "ich seh'" instead of "ich sehe"). If the places with demonyms that drop the "-e-" in places ending in "-en" are mostly in South Germany, that might explain why they differ.

Note, however, that the official pronunciation of "München" according to the German wikipedia actually drops the "-e-"[1] (rendering it in IPA as [ˈmʏnçn̩]), so "Münchner" is actually not as irregular as "Zürcher" (where the local pronunciation of "Zürich" actually drops the "-ch", not the "-i-"[2]).

[0]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutherisches_e (German)

[1]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchen (German)

[2]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z%C3%BCrich (German)

I have Brummie ancestors - a native of Birmingham (UK), from its dialect, which in turn comes from a slang name for the city, Brummagem (originally Bromwichham, a village subsumed by Birmingham, with its name taken from the Saxon words for Broom (the shrub) and for salt).

Unlike Manchester, Birmingham has little hope of a Latin demonym from the Romans: there was no 'there' there then.

From other relatives, I know that Wilkes-Barre, PA's dialect is called Heyna /Hayna ("ain't it so", used like the Canadian "eh" as a question tag), but I do not know that it is much used as a demonym.

Interesting! I've had Chinese people ask me why they're called "Chinese" in English, with a strong suspicion that it's some kind of racist diminutive. I was able to come up with the analogous "Portuguese" to show that it's not just them, but being able to at least say it's French in origin should help further.

Some more ammo for you: Viennese, Milanese, Maltese, Faroese.

'-ese' is also used heavily in Italian.

Vietnamese, Japanese, Javanese, Senegalese

Ah right! Part of it was that they suspected it was only used for Asian countries (Vietnamese, Japanese, etc), which is why I went straight for Portuguese. This is useful, thanks.

Being from Indiana, I'm really surprised that 'Hoosier' didn't make this list as it's even more mysterious than the others(and most explanations are apocryphal). But fun read none the less.

Hoosier is a good one, it would fit right into the "demonyms have some logic, sometimes, except for the ones that don't" conclusion.

Kiwi (as an unofficial demonym for New Zealand) is another surprising omission.

author of the article here! i specifically left out hoosier because, well, it's TOO interesting. keep an eye out for a future article about it.

Looking forward to it!

With Buckeyes (Ohio) being a similarly strange demonym, but a bit less mysterious, as a Kentuckian my favorite simple explanation from Kentucky civics courses for the fact that both the Hoosier and Buckeye demonyms are so strange is that they both started as Kentucky insults that both northern neighbors were crazy enough to adopt as their own. :)

I worked with a couple of guys based in Monaco and since it is a city state I guess it applies, I asked and they said they are called "Monagese" but I see it is spelled Monégasque.

In the article I see the ese is French ending maybe Monagese is the English version of Monégasque, or I misheard.

In Canada there are two cities Saint John, New Brunswick and St. John's Newfoundland I'm not sure what each prefers with each being so closely named. I do know that you never write out St. as Saint for St. John's that's a paddlin'.

Same for people from the Dutch city of Utrecht, never call them Utrechtenaar. As there were a few huge "sodomy scandals" in Utrecht the regular form of Utrechtenaar became a synonym for homosexual. That's why they prefer to be called Utrechters.

Sorry, no English source: http://m.dichtbij.nl/utrecht-en-leidsche-rijn/artikel/387814...

This is very interesting. As a Mancunian, the term is so common I guess I've never questioned it much. It's just taken for granted.

If it makes it easier, it's often shortened to just "manc". We tend to just use that instead of "Mancunian". I recently commented my little girl seems to have a thick Manc accent - it's quite comical. Burger becomes "burg-oh", finger is "fingo" where The "oh" is like the o in "goth".

As a fellow Mancunian the thing that annoys me most is the replacing of the 't' sound with a 'c' sound in some words, e.g. hospital

My Nana does this but I haven't inherited it. Hospical, keckle. I can see the irritation but makes me think of Nana so it's more nostalgic.

The only reason I knew the correct demonym for Manchester is hearing the term manc thrown around when watching EPL games and wondering why it wasn't manch.

Let's not forget the USA - there is no unambiguous denonym for its inhabitants - despite the protestations of the people who live in the US, people who live all over the Americas call themselves "American", just like people all over Europe call themselves "European", and people in Africa are "African", and in Asia "Asian"

Really? I've never referred to myself as American. North American perhaps, but never American.

I've run into people who take great offence at not being considered "American" (I remember a bunch of Colombian guys at WWDC a decade or so ago getting particularly annoyed)

The thing is that most people from the US are probably completely unaware that other Americans feel this way

Conversely, though, I've known Canadians who get offended at being called "American".

USian works for me, although it's hard sometimes to break the "American" habit.

I'd nominate "yankee" but that word is complicated. To most people outside the USA (see below) it means "person from the USA"; to someone from the southern USA it means "person from the North"; to Northerners it means "New Englander"; and to New Englanders it refers to Boston Brahmin types with roots going back to England itself. So its meaning is roughly "the sort of prototypical American the speaker is not".

Additionally in Japan "yankee" is roughly synonymous with "gangsta". It refers to a subculture of school-aged delinquents who wear greaser style pompadours and are prone to get into fisticuffs. The Kunio-kun games (River City Ransom) and the main character of YuYu Hakusho provide examples.

estadounidense

Statesider?

I took an informal survey of my international friends, and the general impression I got is that "American" mean "from the US" everywhere except Latin America.

German here. "Amerikaner" unambiguously refers to US Americans. I have no idea how I would refer to someone from either of the Americas because I've never had the need to group North America with Latin America -- oh, and also "Nordamerika" typically just means "US and Canada" just like "Europa" typically excludes Russia. Sorry.

The curious thing is that America is just a fraction of North America.

>just like people all over Europe call themselves "European"

Except for us Brits

Canadians most definitely never refer to themselves as "American".

Related: The demonym for Oxford is Oxonian, and the demonym for Cambridge is Cantabrigian (often shortened to "Cantab" or simply "Tab"). Bot demonyms are based on the Latin names: Oxonia and Cantabrigia respectively.

I've only ever heard Tab from students at Oxford referring to rivals (mostly sporting) from Cambridge. Not sure its common in other contexts though.

They're all used primarily to refer to members of the universities, but at least occasionally they're used to refer to residents of the towns as well.

It's definitely used in other contexts. The main two that come to mind are the alumni email service (...@cantab.net) and the Cambridge MA (shortened to MA (Cantab.)).

I do occasionally hear it mispronounced as "Cantabridgarian".

There's a bar in Cambridge, MA called The Cantabridgian.

Also in the 80s there was a small computer company based in Cambridge, England called Jupiter Cantab. They made the Jupiter Ace computer, a semi-clone of the ZX81 with Forth in ROM instead of BASIC.

I am familiar with the Cantab Lounge, but not the Cantabridgian.

Cantab sure... I was talking about "Tab" specfically though.

"Tab" got adopted by the new-ish tabloid student newspaper The Tab (nice double meaning) which since opened several franchises in other universities.

People in Phoenix are referred to as Phoenicians. Which has always struck me as a misnomer.

Kind of, but the two regions (Phoenix and Phoenicia) do pretty much share a name.

Me Favorite is Geordie for people from Newcastle even it's a fairly recent demonym.

As an adopted Mancunian (by way of nearby North Wales) I had never really questioned why we used this demonym at all, I suppose in the same way I might not question why a sheep is called a sheep.

Some other interesting ones from the nearby area: anyone from North Wales is called (by those from South Wales primarily) a "gog" typically with a negative connotation. It comes simply from the Welsh for north: Goggledd (gogg-lev).

And one that the Scousers love to use is "Woollyback", for those from the nearby county Lancashire, as the locals would walk into Liverpool with wool on their backs to sell.

In Welsh classes in school we used to watch Gogs [0] but it was never once explained to us that it comes from Goggledd, nor do I remember learning that word.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8VvGbHNBww

Edit: Having just watched a couple of minutes of the clip, it appears that it's independent of language (like Mr. Bean) so I'm not sure why we used to watch it in Welsh classes, but it probably goes someway to explaining why I don't know many reasonable basic words in Welsh.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the demonyn for those from Sydney, Australia. It is Sydneysider - I have heard Sydneyite maybe once or twice. Of course the state we reside in is New South Wales - that mouthful leads to New South Welshman. Finally, we of course are Australians, but as every one of us gets our name convolved we end up as Aussies!

And Melburnian [0] for Melbourne.

[0] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Melburnian

A hypothesis concerning -ite: whereas -er belongs to anyone using a Germanic derivative, and -an belongs to anyone influenced by papistry (as a practicing R.C., I jest; basically any western European and their historic colonies), the greek derived -ite belongs only to the greek studying elites, and the resentment thereof imbues the suffix.

> and -an belongs to anyone influenced by papistry ([..] basically any western European and their historic colonies)

Spain? Portugal? Netherlands (pre-reformation)? France?

I see some gaping holes in that theory of yours.

Actually, the weirdest of those seems to be Netherlands with "Dutch", which is horribly confusing to anyone not fully aware of the distinction between the Netherlands and Germany (Deutschland -- which to English speakers sounds dangerously close to "Dutchland").

I grew up knowing myself to be a 'Manc' before I found out it was short for 'Mancunian'. When I eventually left Manchester and moved to London I was just known as a 'Northern Monkey' to the locals. Now I live in New Zealand I'm just a 'POHM'. I'll be a Red Manc till the day I die.

Maybe they meant "Mancie", like "Frenchie".

Northern Monkey is a term for anyone from 'the north'. Some say this comes from the 'Monkey Hangers' of Hartlepool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_hanger The opposite would see you known as a 'Southern Fairy'

Could also have mentioned Mackem: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/11826/why-are-pe...

Cannot believe 'Galwegian' predates 'Glaswegian', I always thought the former was a relatively recent adaptation of the latter! Galway's a great city for culture, it doesn't need to be borrowing anything from anywhere...

My world is shaken.

Hmm, mentions Pittsburgh and 'yinz', but not Pittsburghese. Definitely worth looking into if you're interested in strange regional dialects(?).

I recently learned lede (leode) was Old English for People. Which was interesting for me since Leute is still in use in German.

Atlanta used to be "Atlantan" but now the preferred nomenclature is "ATLien". Thanks, Outkast!

One that often comes up at trivia nights in Australia is the demonym for Geelong, which is Pivotonian.

Disappointingly, no mention of "monkey hanger" for our brethren from Hartlepool.

TL;DR: The demonym for people from or properties of Manchester is “Mancunian,” which dates back to the Latin word for the area, “Mancunium.”

Tldr: because a previous name of the area was Mancunium. There are some more irregular demonyms discussed in the article, with slightly more detailed etymology.

Thanks for this, I wish every news here had a TL;DR post. In fact me myself I do it whenever I have a chance (most articles are 5% information and the rest 95% is just padding)

Totally wrong.

People in Manchester are called Bonnaroovians.

I'm from Manchester but I don't think I've ever heard Mancunian in usage, although I'm fairly certain at least in NH that demonyms are really not culturally significant outside of the national ones. NH isn't easily demonymed, which probably contributes.

Maybe the rules are just different in the US.

You're not from the Manchester to which the article refers. Here, we are definitely Mancunian.

Yes, the demonym for Manchester, NH is not the same as the Manchester in England. It's 'Manchesterite' in NH.

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