ATLAS OBSCURA: Why People From Manchester Are Mancunians, Not Manchesterians

  • Lauren Fonteyn

Press/Media: Expert comment

Description

Here’s a very fun game to play: Take a list of cities with unusual demonyms—that’s the category of words describing either a person from a certain place, or a property of that place, like New Yorker or Italian—and ask people to guess what the demonym is. Here are some favorites I came up with, with the help of historical linguist Lauren Fonteyn, a lecturer at the University of Manchester. It’s tilted a bit in favor of the U.K. for two reasons. First is that Fonteyn lives and works there, and second is that the U.K. has some excellently weird ones. The answer key is at the bottom.

Period6 Jul 2017

Media coverage

1

Media coverage

  • TitleWhy People From Manchester Are Mancunians, Not Manchesterians
    Media name/outletAtlas Obscura
    Media typeWeb
    Country/TerritoryUnited States
    Date6/07/17
    DescriptionHere’s a very fun game to play: Take a list of cities with unusual demonyms—that’s the category of words describing either a person from a certain place, or a property of that place, like New Yorker or Italian—and ask people to guess what the demonym is. Here are some favorites I came up with, with the help of historical linguist Lauren Fonteyn, a lecturer at the University of Manchester. It’s tilted a bit in favor of the U.K. for two reasons. First is that Fonteyn lives and works there, and second is that the U.K. has some excellently weird ones. The answer key is at the bottom.
    URLwww.atlasobscura.com/articles/demonyms-linguistics-nicknames
    PersonsLauren Fonteyn

Keywords

  • linguistics
  • demonyms