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116-522: Bath ( RP : / b ɑː θ / ; local pronunciation: [ba(ː)θ] ) is a city in Somerset , England, known for and named after its Roman-built baths . At the 2021 Census, the population was 94,092. Bath is in the valley of the River Avon , 97 miles (156 km) west of London and 11 miles (18 km) southeast of Bristol . The city became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, and

232-513: A World Heritage Site , recognising its international cultural significance. Between 1991 and 2000, Bath was the scene of a series of rapes committed by an unidentified man dubbed the " Batman rapist ". The attacker remains at large and is the subject of Britain's longest-running serial rape investigation. He is said to have a tights fetish , have a scar below his bottom lip and resides in the Bath area or knows it very well. He has also been linked to

348-641: A postalveolar approximant , which would normally be expressed with the sign [ɹ] in the International Phonetic Alphabet , but the sign /r/ is nonetheless traditionally used for RP in most of the literature on the topic. Voiceless plosives ( /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , /tʃ/ ) are aspirated at the beginning of a syllable, unless a completely unstressed vowel follows. (For example, the /p/ is aspirated in "impasse", with primary stress on "-passe", but not "compass", where "-pass" has no stress.) Aspiration does not occur when /s/ precedes in

464-429: A syllabic nasal ( bitten [ˈbɪʔn̩] ). The glottal stop may be realised as creaky voice ; thus, an alternative phonetic transcription of attempt [əˈtʰemʔt] could be [əˈtʰemm̰t] . As in other varieties of English, voiced plosives ( /b/ , /d/ , /ɡ/ , /dʒ/ ) are partly or even fully devoiced at utterance boundaries or adjacent to voiceless consonants . The voicing distinction between voiced and voiceless sounds

580-448: A basis for description in textbooks and classroom materials. RP has been the traditional choice for teachers and learners of British English . However, the choice of pronunciation model is difficult, and the adoption of RP is in many ways problematic. Nasals and liquids ( /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , /r/ , /l/ ) may be syllabic in unstressed syllables . The consonant /r/ in RP is generally

696-557: A blog entry on 16 March 2012 that when growing up in the north of England he used /ɑː/ in "bath" and "glass", and considers this the only acceptable phoneme in RP. Others have argued that /æ/ is too categorical in the north of England to be excluded. Clive Upton believes that /æ/ in these words must be considered within RP and has called the opposing view "south-centric". Upton's Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English gives both variants for BATH words. A. F. Gupta's survey of mostly middle-class students found that /æ/

812-415: A large degree sought to better accommodate the motor car, including the idea of a traffic tunnel underneath the centre of Bath. Though criticised by conservationists, some parts of the plan were implemented. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was recognised that conservation of historic buildings was inadequate, leading to more care and reuse of buildings and open spaces. In 1987, the city was selected by UNESCO as

928-420: A monosyllabic triphthong. In more casual speech the middle vowel may be considerably reduced, by a process known as smoothing , and in an extreme form of this process the triphthong may even be reduced to a single long vowel. In such a case the difference between /aʊə/ , /aɪə/ , and /ɑː/ in tower , tire , and tar may be neutralised with all three units realised as [ɑː] or [äː] . This type of smoothing

1044-417: A new system (which he calls Standard Southern British English, or SSB) as a replacement. Lindsey's system is as follows—differences between it and standard transcription are depicted with the usual transcription in brackets. Like all accents, RP has changed with time. For example, sound recordings and films from the first half of the 20th century demonstrate that it was usual for speakers of RP to pronounce

1160-455: A p and m a rry , /ɒ/ in l o t and o range , /ə/ in a go and sof a . Examples of long vowels : /iː/ in fl ee ce , /uː/ in g oo se , /ɛː/ in b ear , /ɜː/ in n ur se and f ur ry , /ɔː/ in n or th , f or ce and th ou ght , /ɑː/ in f a ther and st ar t . The long mid front vowel /ɛː/ is elsewhere transcribed with the traditional symbols ⟨ ɛə, eə ⟩. The predominant realisation in contemporary RP

1276-459: A practice in the city in 1668. He was interested in the curative properties of the waters, and he wrote A discourse of Bathe, and the hot waters there. Also, Some Enquiries into the Nature of the water in 1676. It brought the health-giving properties of the hot mineral waters to the attention of the country, and the aristocracy arrived to partake in them. Several areas of the city were developed in

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1392-482: A prestige norm there and (to varying degrees) in other parts of the British Isles and beyond. Faced with the difficulty of defining a single standard of RP, some researchers have tried to distinguish between sub-varieties: Traditionally, Received Pronunciation has been associated with high social class. It was the "everyday speech in the families of Southern English persons whose men-folk [had] been educated at

1508-564: A regular journal as rector of Camerton, from 1803 until 1834. A "tormented and querulous" man in the words of Virginia Woolf, but "at the same time conscientious and able", he came to his living at Camerton to be faced with drunkenness and immorality; with indiscipline and irreligion; with Methodism and Roman Catholicism; with the Reform Bill and the Catholic Emancipation Act, with a mob clamouring for freedom, with

1624-628: A royal borough ( burh ) of Alfred the Great , and was reformed into a municipal borough in 1835. It has formed part of the county of Somerset since 878, when ceded to Wessex , having previously been in Mercia (the River Avon had acted as the border between the two kingdoms since 628). However, Bath was made a county borough in 1889, independent of the newly created administrative county and Somerset County Council . Bath became part of Avon when

1740-403: A second UNESCO World Heritage Site, a group of spa towns across Europe known as the " Great Spas of Europe ". This makes it one of the only places to be formally recognised twice as a World Heritage site. Since 1996, the city has had a single tier of local government — Bath and North East Somerset Council . Bath had long been an ancient borough , having that status since 878 when it became

1856-402: A single channel. Periodic flooding, which shortened the life of many buildings in the lowest part of the city, was normal until major flood control works were completed in the 1970s. Kensington Meadows is an area of mixed woodland and open meadow next to the river which has been designated as a local nature reserve . Water bubbling up from the ground as geothermal springs originates as rain on

1972-512: A special class of dictionary giving a wide range of possible pronunciations: British pronunciation dictionaries are all based on RP, though not necessarily using that name. Daniel Jones transcribed RP pronunciations of words and names in the English Pronouncing Dictionary . Cambridge University Press continues to publish this title, as of 1997 edited by Peter Roach . Two other pronunciation dictionaries are in common use:

2088-414: A stable foundation, and surrounded the spring with an irregular stone chamber lined with lead. In the 2nd century, the spring was enclosed within a wooden barrel-vaulted structure that housed the caldarium (hot bath), tepidarium (warm bath), and frigidarium (cold bath). The town was later given defensive walls , probably in the 3rd century. After the failure of Roman authority in the first decade of

2204-525: A symbol of the southeast's political power in Britain. Based on a 1997 survey, Jane Stuart-Smith wrote, "RP has little status in Glasgow, and is regarded with hostility in some quarters". A 2007 survey found that residents of Scotland and Northern Ireland tend to dislike RP. It is shunned by some with left-wing political views, who may be proud of having accents more typical of the working classes. Since

2320-414: A weak dental plosive ; the sequence /nð/ is often realised as [n̪n̪] (a long dental nasal ). /l/ has velarised allophone ( [ɫ] ) in the syllable rhyme . /h/ becomes voiced ( [ɦ] ) between voiced sounds. Examples of short vowels : /ɪ/ in k i t , m i rror and rabb i t , /ʊ/ in f oo t and c oo k , /e/ in dr e ss and m e rry , /ʌ/ in str u t and c u rry , /æ/ in tr

2436-662: Is monophthongal . Many conventional descriptions of the RP vowel system group the non-diphthongal vowels into the categories "long" and "short". This should not be taken to mean that RP has minimal pairs in which the only difference is vowel length. "Long" and "short" are convenient cover terms for a number of phonetic features. The long-short pairings shown above include also differences in vowel quality. The vowels called "long" high vowels in RP /iː/ and /uː/ are slightly diphthongized , and are often narrowly transcribed in phonetic literature as diphthongs [ɪi] and [ʊu] . Vowels may be phonologically long or short (i.e. belong to

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2552-545: Is a variable quantity differing from individual to individual, although all its varieties are 'received', understood and mainly unnoticed". Although a form of Standard English had been established in the City of London by the end of the 15th century, it did not begin to resemble RP until the late 19th century. RP has most in common with the dialects of what has been termed the South East Midlands, in particular

2668-403: Is adopted in the latest revision of Gimson's Pronunciation of English . Beverley Collins and Inger Mees use the term "Non-Regional Pronunciation" for what is often otherwise called RP, and reserve the term "Received Pronunciation" for the "upper-class speech of the twentieth century". Received Pronunciation has sometimes been called "Oxford English", as it used to be the accent of most members of

2784-484: Is also elected. The coat of arms includes a depiction of the city wall , and two silver stripes representing the River Avon and the hot springs. The sword of St. Paul is a link to Bath Abbey. The supporters, a lion and a bear, stand on a bed of acorns , a link to Bladud , the subject of the Legend of Bath. The knight's helmet indicates a municipality and the crown is that of King Edgar (referencing his coronation at

2900-457: Is common throughout many English dialects, though the phonetic realisation of e.g. [i] rather than [ɪ] (a phenomenon called happy -tensing ) is not as universal. According to Jane Setter , the typical pronunciation of the short [u] is a weakly rounded near-close near-back rounded vowel [ ʊ̜ ] . The centring diphthongs are gradually being eliminated in RP. The vowel /ɔə/ (as in door , boar ) had largely merged with /ɔː/ by

3016-549: Is concerned only with matters of pronunciation, while other features of Standard British English , such as vocabulary , grammar , and style , are not considered. The accent has changed, or its traditional users have changed their accents, to such a degree over the last century that many of its early 20th-century traditions of transcription and analysis have become outdated or are no longer considered evidence-based by linguists . Still, these traditions continue to be commonly taught and used, for instance in language education , and

3132-574: Is defined in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as "the standard accent of English as spoken in the South of England", and alternative names such as "Standard Southern British" have been used. Despite RP's historic high social prestige in Britain, being seen as the accent of those with power, money, and influence, it may be perceived negatively by some as being associated with undeserved, or accidental, privilege and as

3248-560: Is known as the tower – tire , tower – tar and tire – tar mergers . There are differing opinions as to whether /æ/ in the BATH lexical set can be considered RP. The pronunciations with /ɑː/ are invariably accepted as RP. The English Pronouncing Dictionary does not admit /æ/ in BATH words and the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary lists them with a § marker of non-RP status. John Wells wrote in

3364-404: Is pronounced by some RP speakers in a noticeably different way when it occurs before /l/ , if that consonant is syllable-final and not followed by a vowel (the context in which /l/ is pronounced as a "dark l"). The realization of /əʊ/ in this case begins with a more back, rounded and sometimes more open vowel quality; it may be transcribed as [ɔʊ] or [ɒʊ] . It is likely that the backness of

3480-401: Is reinforced by a number of other differences, with the result that the two of consonants can clearly be distinguished even in the presence of devoicing of voiced sounds: As a result, some authors prefer to use the terms fortis and lenis in place of voiceless and voiced . However, the latter are traditional and in more frequent usage. The voiced dental fricative ( /ð/ ) is more often

3596-646: Is too low to correlate meaningfully with the usual factors", having found only two speakers (both having attended boarding schools in the south) who consistently used /ɑː/ . Jack Windsor Lewis has noted that the Oxford Dictionary's position has changed several times on whether to include short /æ/ within its prescribed pronunciation. The BBC Pronouncing Dictionary of British Names uses only /ɑː/ , but its author, Graham Pointon, has stated on his blog that he finds both variants to be acceptable in place names. Some research has concluded that many people in

Bath, Somerset - Misplaced Pages Continue

3712-557: Is typical. November to March have the highest mean wind speeds, and June to August have the lightest winds. The predominant wind direction is from the southwest. Bath is fully enclosed by green belt as a part of a wider environmental and planning policy first designated in the late 1950s, and this extends into much of the surrounding district and beyond, helping to maintain local green space, prevent further urban sprawl and unplanned expansion towards Bristol and Bradford-on-Avon , as well as protecting smaller villages in between. Suburbs of

3828-1135: Is usual to base the description on a recording of the traditional story of the North Wind and the Sun . There is an IPA illustration of British English (Received Pronunciation). The female speaker is described as having been born in 1953 and educated at Oxford University . To accompany the recording there are three transcriptions: orthographic, phonemic and allophonic. Phonemic ðə ˈnɔːθ ˈwɪnd ən ðə ˈsʌn wə dɪˈspjuːtɪŋ ˈwɪtʃ wəz ðə ˈstrɒŋɡə, wen ə ˈtrævl̩ə ˌkeɪm əˌlɒŋ ˈræpt ɪn ə ˈwɔːm ˈkləʊk. ðeɪ əˈɡriːd ðət ðə ˈwʌn hu ˈfɜːst səkˈsiːdɪd ɪn ˈmeɪkɪŋ ðə ˈtrævlə ˌteɪk hɪz ˈkləʊk ɒf ʃʊd bi kənˌsɪdəd ˈstrɒŋɡə ðən ði ˈʌðə. ˈðen ðə ˌnɔːθ wɪnd ˈbluː əz ˈhɑːd əz i ˈkʊd, bət ðə ˈmɔː hi ˈbluː ðə ˌmɔː ˈkləʊsli dɪd ðə ˈtrævlə ˈfəʊld hɪz ˌkləʊk əˈraʊnd hɪm, ænd ət ˈlɑːst ðə ˈnɔːθ wɪnd ˌɡeɪv ˈʌp ði əˈtempt. ˈðen ðə ˈsʌn ˌʃɒn aʊt ˈwɔːmli, ænd əˈmiːdiətli ðə ˈtrævlə ˈtʊk ɒf ɪz ˈkləʊk. n̩ ˌsəʊ ðə ˈnɔːθ ˈwɪn wəz əˈblaɪdʒd tʊ kənˈfes ðət ðə ˈsʌn wəz ðə ˈstrɒŋɡr̩ əv ðə ˈtuː. John Skinner (archaeologist) Skinner

3944-484: The /æ/ sound, as in land , with a vowel close to [ɛ] , so that land would sound similar to a present-day pronunciation of lend . RP is sometimes known as the Queen's English , but recordings show that even Queen Elizabeth II shifted her pronunciation over the course of her reign, ceasing to use an [ɛ] -like vowel in words like land . The change in RP may be observed in the home of " BBC English ". The BBC accent of

4060-814: The 2017 general election and retained her seat at the 2019 general election. Howlett had replaced the retiring Liberal Democrat Don Foster at the 2015 general election . Foster's election was a notable result of the 1992 general election , as Chris Patten , the previous Member (and Cabinet Minister ) played a major part, as Chairman of the Conservative Party , in re-electing the government of John Major , but failed to defend his marginal seat. The fifteen electoral wards of Bath are: Bathwick , Combe Down , Kingsmead , Lambridge, Lansdown , Moorlands, Newbridge , Odd Down , Oldfield Park, Southdown, Twerton , Walcot , Westmoreland , Weston and Widcombe & Lyncombe . These wards are co-extensive with

4176-741: The Bath Blitz , more than 400 people were killed, and more than 19,000 buildings damaged or destroyed. Houses in Royal Crescent , Circus and Paragon were burnt out along with the Assembly Rooms . A 500-kilogram (1,100 lb) high explosive bomb landed on the east side of Queen Square , resulting in houses on the south side being damaged and the Francis Hotel losing 24 metres (79 ft) of its frontage. The buildings have all been restored although there are still signs of

4292-720: The Battle of Badon ( c. 500 AD), in which Arthur , the hero of later legends, is said to have defeated the Anglo-Saxons . The town was captured by the West Saxons in 577 after the Battle of Deorham ; the Anglo-Saxon poem The Ruin may describe the appearance of the Roman site about this time. A monastery was founded at an early date – reputedly by Saint David although more probably in 675 by Osric , King of

4408-585: The Cotswold Way , Limestone Link route, Pennyquick Park, Little Solsbury Hill , and Primrose Hill. According to the 2021 census , Bath, together with North East Somerset, which includes areas around Bath as far as the Chew Valley , had a population of 193,400 (up 9.9% from 2011). Received Pronunciation Received Pronunciation ( RP ) is the British English accent regarded as

4524-575: The Elizabethan era , when the city experienced a revival as a spa . The baths were improved and the city began to attract the aristocracy. A Royal charter granted by Queen Elizabeth I in 1590 confirmed city status . James Montagu, Bishop of Bath and Wells from 1608, spent considerable sums in restoring Bath Abbey and actively supported the Baths themselves, aware that the 'towne liveth wholly by them'. In 1613, perhaps at his behest, Queen Anne visited

4640-700: The Golden Triangle of universities, namely London, Oxford and Cambridge, and the public schools that fed them, such as Eton , Harrow and Rugby . In 1922, the BBC selected RP as its broadcasting standard, citing its being widely understood globally as a reason. According to Fowler's Modern English Usage (1965), "the correct term is 'the Received Pronunciation'. The word 'received' conveys its original meaning of 'accepted' or 'approved', as in ' received wisdom'." Some linguists have used

4756-605: The Hwicce , perhaps using the walled area as its precinct. Nennius , a 9th-century historian, mentions a "Hot Lake" in the land of the Hwicce along the River Severn , and adds "It is surrounded by a wall, made of brick and stone, and men may go there to bathe at any time, and every man can have the kind of bath he likes. If he wants, it will be a cold bath; and if he wants a hot bath, it will be hot". Bede described hot baths in

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4872-512: The Longman Pronunciation Dictionary , compiled by John C. Wells (using the name "Received Pronunciation"), and Clive Upton 's Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English , (now republished as The Routledge Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English ). Pronunciation forms an essential component of language learning and teaching; a model accent is necessary for learners to aim at, and to act as

4988-480: The Mendip Hills . The rain percolates through limestone aquifers to a depth of between 9,000 to 14,000 ft (2,700 to 4,300 m) where geothermal energy raises the water's temperature to between 64 and 96 °C (approximately 147–205 °F). Under pressure, the heated water rises to the surface along fissures and faults in the limestone. Hot water at a temperature of 46 °C (115 °F) rises here at

5104-452: The North of England have a dislike of the /ɑː/ vowel in BATH words. A. F. Gupta wrote, "Many of the northerners were noticeably hostile to /ɡrɑːs/ , describing it as 'comical', 'snobbish', 'pompous' or even 'for morons'." On the subject, K. M. Petyt wrote that several respondents "positively said that they did not prefer the long-vowel form or that they really detested it or even that it

5220-524: The Old Church of St Nidan "seems superior to the generality of Welsh buildings of the kind", with its double roof and two bells, but he also said that "the interior of the building has little to attract notice". His journals were illustrated by many watercolour paintings; among them this August 1825 sketch of the newly-built Skerne Bridge on the Stockton and Darlington Railway . It is significant as

5336-527: The Stuart period, and more building took place during Georgian times in response to the increasing number of visitors who required accommodation. Architects John Wood the Elder and his son laid out the new quarters in streets and squares, the identical façades of which gave an impression of palatial scale and classical decorum. Much of the creamy gold Bath stone , a type of limestone used for construction in

5452-822: The Theatre Royal , as well as several museums including the Museum of Bath Architecture , the Victoria Art Gallery , the Museum of East Asian Art , the Herschel Museum of Astronomy , Fashion Museum , and the Holburne Museum . The city has two universities – the University of Bath and Bath Spa University – with Bath College providing further education . Sporting clubs from the city include Bath Rugby and Bath City . The hills in

5568-491: The University of Oxford . The Handbook of the International Phonetic Association uses the name "Standard Southern British". Page 4 reads: Standard Southern British (where 'Standard' should not be taken as implying a value judgment of 'correctness') is the modern equivalent of what has been called 'Received Pronunciation' ('RP'). It is an accent of the south east of England which operates as

5684-537: The Wansdyke district and therefore includes a wider area than the city (the 'North East Somerset' element) including Keynsham which is home to many of the council's offices, though the council meets at the Guildhall in Bath. Bath was returned to the ceremonial county of Somerset in 1996, though as B&NES is a unitary authority, it is not part of the area covered by Somerset County Council. Bath City Council

5800-415: The non-metropolitan county was created in 1974, resulting in its abolition as a county borough, and instead became a non-metropolitan district with borough status . With the abolition of Avon in 1996, the non-metropolitan district and borough were abolished too, and Bath has since been part of the unitary authority district of Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES). The unitary district included also

5916-427: The standard one, carrying the highest social prestige , since as late as the very early 20th century. Language scholars have long disagreed on topics such as: the exact definition of RP, how geographically neutral it is, how many speakers there are, the nature and classification of its sub-varieties, how appropriate a choice it is as a standard, how the accent has changed over time, and even its name. The study of RP

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6032-455: The unreformed House of Commons , as an ancient parliamentary borough. From 1832 until 1918 it elected two MPs and then was reduced to one. Historically the constituency covered only the city of Bath; however, it was enlarged into some outlying areas between 1997 and 2010. The constituency since 2010 once again covers exactly the city of Bath and is currently represented by Liberal Democrat Wera Hobhouse who beat Conservative Ben Howlett at

6148-411: The 13th century. Around 1200, the first mayor was appointed. By the 15th century, Bath's abbey church was dilapidated and Oliver King , Bishop of Bath and Wells, decided to rebuild it on a smaller scale in 1500. The new church was completed just a few years before Bath Priory was dissolved in 1539 by Henry VIII . The abbey church became derelict before being restored as the city's parish church in

6264-492: The 1950s is distinctly different from today's: a news report from the 1950s is recognisable as such, and a mock-1950s BBC voice is used for comic effect in programmes wishing to satirise 1950s social attitudes such as the Harry Enfield Show and its "Mr. Cholmondley-Warner" sketches. A few illustrative examples of changes in RP during the 20th century and early 21st are given below. A more comprehensive list (using

6380-403: The 5th century, the baths fell into disrepair and were eventually lost as a result of rising water levels and silting. In March 2012, a hoard of 30,000 silver Roman coins, one of the largest discovered in Britain, was unearthed in an archaeological dig. The coins, believed to date from the 3rd century, were found about 150 m (490 ft) from the Roman baths. Bath may have been the site of

6496-747: The Abbey). A mural crown , indicating a city , is alternatively used instead of the helmet and Edgar's crown. The Arms bear the motto "Aqvae Svlis", the Roman name for Bath in Latin script; although not on the Arms, the motto "Floreat Bathon" is sometimes used ("may Bath flourish" in Latin). Bath and North East Somerset Council has established the Bath City Forum, comprising B&NES councillors representing wards in Bath and up to 13 co-opted members drawn from

6612-538: The RP vowel system. He also argues against including other French vowels on the grounds that not many British speakers succeed in distinguishing the vowels in bon and banc , or in rue and roue . However, the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary draws a distinction between /ɒ̃/ (there rendered as /ɔ̃ː/ ) and the unrounded /ɑ̃ː/ of banc for a total of four nasal vowels. Not all reference sources use

6728-610: The Second World War RP has played a much smaller role in broadcast speech. RP remains the accent most often heard in the speech of announcers and newsreaders on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4, and in some TV channels, but non-RP accents are now more widely encountered. Most English dictionaries published in Britain (including the Oxford English Dictionary ) now give phonetically transcribed RP pronunciations for all words. Pronunciation dictionaries represent

6844-549: The Second World War, and increasingly since the 1960s, a wider acceptance of regional English varieties has taken hold in education and public life. Nonetheless, surveys from 1969 to 2022 consistently show that RP is perceived as the most prestigious accent of English in the United Kingdom. In 2022, 25% of British adults reported being mocked for their regional accent at work, and 46% in social situations. In

6960-483: The Second World War, and the vowel /ʊə/ (as in poor , tour ) has more recently merged with /ɔː/ as well among most speakers, although the sound /ʊə/ is still found in conservative speakers, and in less common words such as boor . See CURE – FORCE merger . More recently /ɛə/ has become a pure long vowel /ɛː/ , as explained above. /ɪə/ is increasingly pronounced as a monophthong [ɪː] , although without merging with any existing vowels. The diphthong /əʊ/

7076-479: The UK. Three of the springs feed the thermal baths. Along with the rest of South West England , Bath has a temperate climate which is generally wetter and milder than the rest of the country. The annual mean temperature is approximately 10 °C (50.0 °F). Seasonal temperature variation is less extreme than most of the United Kingdom because of the adjacent sea temperatures. The summer months of July and August are

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7192-574: The abolition of Abbey ward, the merger of Lyncombe and Widcombe wards, the creation of Moorlands ward, and the replacement of Oldfield with Oldfield Park, as well as considerable changes to boundaries affecting all wards. Bath is in the Avon Valley and is surrounded by limestone hills as it is near the southern edge of the Cotswolds , a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty , and the Mendip Hills rise around 7 miles (11 km) south of

7308-559: The appearance of parliamentary forces the gates were thrown open and the city surrendered. It became a significant post for the Western Association army under William Waller . Bath was retaken by the royalists in July 1643 following the Battle of Lansdowne and occupied for two years until 1645. Luckily, the city was spared the destruction of property and starvation of its inhabitants unlike nearby Bristol and Gloucester . During

7424-625: The barrows identified cremation burials in an oval cyst which was covered by a flat stone just below where ground level would have been in the Bronze Age. He also uncovered bronze daggers and spear head, decorative amber beads, a bronze ring and a small incense cup. Before his role as the vicar of Camerton from 1800 to 1839, he worked in a lawyer's office. His parents were Russell Skinner and Mary Page. He married Anna Holmes in 1805, by whom he had five children, three of whom (Anna, Fitz Owen and Joseph Henry) lived into adulthood. He kept

7540-585: The bishop's palace beside it. New baths were built around the three springs. Later bishops returned the episcopal seat to Wells while retaining the name Bath in the title, Bishop of Bath and Wells . St John's Hospital was founded around 1180 by Bishop Reginald Fitz Jocelin and is among the oldest almshouses in England. The 'hospital of the baths' was built beside the hot springs of the Cross Bath , for their health-giving properties and to provide shelter for

7656-510: The bombing. A postwar review of inadequate housing led to the clearance and redevelopment of areas of the city in a postwar style, often at variance with the local Georgian style. In the 1950s, the nearby villages of Combe Down , Twerton and Weston were incorporated into the city to enable the development of housing, much of it council housing . In 1965, town planner Colin Buchanan published Bath: A Planning and Transport Study , which to

7772-634: The city bordering the green belt include Batheaston , Bathford , Bathampton , the University of Bath campus, Ensleigh, Twerton , Upper Weston , Odd Down , and Combe Down . Parts of the Cotswolds AONB southern extent overlap the green belt north of the city, with other nearby landscape features and facilities within the green belt including the River Avon, Kennet and Avon Canal, Bath Racecourse , Bath Golf Club, Bathampton Down , Bathampton Meadow Nature Reserve, Bristol and Bath Railway Path,

7888-450: The city's social life from 1704 until his death in 1761, drew up a code of behaviour for public entertainments. Bath had become perhaps the most fashionable of the rapidly developing British spa towns, attracting many notable visitors such as the wealthy London bookseller Andrew Millar and his wife, who both made long visits. In 1816, it was described as "a seat of amusement and dissipation", where "scenes of extravagance in this receptacle of

8004-525: The city's social life from 1705 until his death in 1761. Many of the streets and squares were laid out by John Wood, the Elder , and in the 18th century the city became fashionable and the population grew. Jane Austen lived in Bath in the early 19th century. Further building was undertaken in the 19th century and following the Bath Blitz in World War II. Bath became part of the county of Avon in 1974, and, following Avon's abolition in 1996, has been

8120-523: The city, except that Newbridge includes also two parishes beyond the city boundary. These wards return a total of 28 councillors to Bath and North East Somerset Council ; all except two wards return two councillors (Moorlands and Oldfield Park return one each). The most recent elections were held on 4 May 2023 and all wards returned Liberal Democrats except for Lambridge and Westmoreland which returned Green Party and independent councillors respectively. Boundary changes enacted from 2 May 2019 included

8236-524: The city, was obtained from the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines owned by Ralph Allen (1694–1764). Allen, to advertise the quality of his quarried limestone, commissioned the elder John Wood to build a country house on his Prior Park estate between the city and the mines. Allen was responsible for improving and expanding the postal service in western England, for which he held the contract for more than forty years. Although not fond of politics, Allen

8352-612: The city. The hills that surround and make up the city have a maximum altitude of 781 feet (238 metres) on the Lansdown plateau. Bath has an area of 11 square miles (28 square kilometres). The floodplain of the Avon has an altitude of about 59 ft (18 m) above sea level , although the city centre is at an elevation of around 25 metres (82 ft) above sea level. The river, once an unnavigable series of braided streams broken up by swamps and ponds, has been managed by weirs into

8468-724: The communities of the city. The first meeting of the Forum was held on 13 October 2015, at the Guildhall, where the first chair and vice-chair were elected. In 2021, this was re-launched as the Bath Area Forum. Bath is one of the oldest extant parliamentary constituencies in the United Kingdom, being in continuous existence since the Model Parliament of 1295. Before the Reform Act 1832 , Bath elected two members to

8584-742: The correct pronunciation and other aspects of broadcast language. The Committee proved unsuccessful and was dissolved after the Second World War . While the BBC did advise its speakers on pronunciation, there was never a formalised official BBC pronunciation standard. A notable departure from the use of RP came with the Yorkshire-born newsreader Wilfred Pickles during the Second World War; his accent allowing listeners to more clearly distinguish BBC broadcasts from German propaganda, though Pickles had modified his accent to be closer to RP. Since

8700-424: The diphthong onset is the result of allophonic variation caused by the raising of the back of the tongue for the /l/ . If the speaker has "l-vocalization" the /l/ is realized as a back rounded vowel, which again is likely to cause backing and rounding in a preceding vowel as coarticulation effects. This phenomenon has been discussed in several blogs by John C. Wells . In the recording included in this article

8816-522: The early days of British broadcasting speakers of English origin almost universally used RP. The first director-general of the BBC , Lord Reith , encouraged the use of a 'BBC accent' because it was a "style or quality of English which would not be laughed at in any part of the country". He distinguished the BBC accent from the 'Oxford accent', to which he was "vehemently opposed". In 1926 the BBC established an Advisory Committee on Spoken English with distinguished experts, including Daniel Jones , to advise on

8932-477: The electoral wards that cover Bath ( see below ) are the trustees, and they elect one of their number as their chair and mayor. The mayor holds office for one municipal year and in modern times the mayor begins their term in office on the first Saturday in June, at a ceremony at Bath Abbey with a civic procession from and to the Guildhall. The 794th mayor, who began her office on 6 May 2021, is June Player. A deputy mayor

9048-536: The geographical introduction to the Ecclesiastical History in terms very similar to those of Nennius. King Offa of Mercia gained control of the monastery in 781 and rebuilt the church, which was dedicated to St. Peter . According to the Victorian churchman Edward Churton , during the Anglo-Saxon era Bath was known as Acemannesceastre ('Akemanchester'), or 'aching men's city', on account of

9164-463: The great public boarding-schools" and which conveyed no information about that speaker's region of origin before attending the school. An 1891 teacher's handbook stated, "It is the business of educated people to speak so that no-one may be able to tell in what county their childhood was passed". Nevertheless, in the 19th century some British prime ministers, such as William Ewart Gladstone , still spoke with some regional features. Opinions differ over

9280-606: The locality such as Bathampton Down saw human activity from the Mesolithic period. Several Bronze Age round barrows were opened by John Skinner in the 18th century. A long barrow site believed to be from the Early Bronze Age Beaker people was flattened to make way for RAF Charmy Down . Solsbury Hill overlooking the current city was an Iron Age hill fort and the adjacent Bathampton Camp may also have been one. Archaeological evidence shows that

9396-476: The long or the short group of vowel phonemes) but their length is influenced by their context: in particular, they are shortened if a voiceless ( fortis ) consonant follows in the syllable, so that, for example, the vowel in 'bat' [bæʔt] is shorter than the vowel in 'bad' [bæd] . The process is known as pre-fortis clipping . Thus phonologically short vowels in one context can be phonetically longer than phonologically long vowels in another context. For example,

9512-592: The name "BBC Pronunciation". The term 'The Queen's English' has also been used by some writers. The phonetician Jack Windsor Lewis frequently criticised the name "Received Pronunciation" in his blog: he has called it "invidious", a "ridiculously archaic, parochial and question-begging term" and noted that American scholars find the term "quite curious". He used the term "General British" (to parallel " General American ") in his 1970s publication of A Concise Pronouncing Dictionary of American and British English and in subsequent publications. The name "General British"

9628-531: The name "General British" in place of "RP") is given in Gimson's Pronunciation of English . RP RP A number of cases can be identified where changes in the pronunciation of individual words, or small groups of words, have taken place. The Journal of the International Phonetic Association regularly publishes "Illustrations of the IPA" which present an outline of the phonetics of a particular language or accent. It

9744-481: The occupation, the finances of the Bath City Council took a drubbing with council spending, rents and grants all falling. The billeting of soldiers in private houses also contributed to disorder and vandalism. Normality to the city quickly recovered after the war when the city council achieved a healthy budget surplus. Thomas Guidott , a student of chemistry and medicine at Wadham College, Oxford , set up

9860-498: The overthrow of all that was decent and established and right. He bequeathed his 146 volumes of his journals (1803–34), along with travel diaries and antiquarian and other miscellanea, to the British Museum. He stipulated that the journals should not be opened until fifty years after his death. Virginia Woolf observed, "In fifty years after his death, when the diaries were published, people would know not only that John Skinner

9976-537: The phrase "fold his cloak" contains examples of the /əʊ/ diphthong in the two different contexts. The onset of the pre- /l/ diphthong in "fold" is slightly more back and rounded than that in "cloak". RP also possesses the triphthongs /aɪə/ as in tire , /aʊə/ as in tower , /əʊə/ as in lower , /eɪə/ as in layer and /ɔɪə/ as in loyal . There are different possible realisations of these items: in slow, careful speech they may be pronounced as two syllables with three distinct vowel qualities in succession, or as

10092-684: The plosives /t/ and /d/ often have no audible release utterance-finally, and voiced consonants are partly or completely devoiced (as in [b̥æd̥] ); thus the perceptual distinction between pairs of words such as 'bad' and 'bat', or 'seed' and 'seat' rests mostly on vowel length (though the presence or absence of glottal reinforcement provides an additional cue). Unstressed vowels are both shorter and more centralised than stressed ones. In unstressed syllables occurring before vowels and in final position, contrasts between long and short high vowels are neutralised and short [i] and [u] occur (e.g. happy [ˈhæpi] , throughout [θɹuˈaʊʔt] ). The neutralisation

10208-536: The poor infirm. Administrative systems fell within the hundreds . The Bath Hundred had various names including the Hundred of Le Buri. The Bath Foreign Hundred or Forinsecum covered the area outside the city and was later combined into the Bath Forum Hundred. Wealthy merchants had no status within the hundred courts and formed guilds to gain influence. They built the first guildhall probably in

10324-568: The principal centre of Bath and North East Somerset . Bath has over 6 million yearly visitors, making it one of ten English cities visited most by overseas tourists . Attractions include the spas, canal boat tours, Royal Crescent, Bath Skyline , Parade Gardens and Royal Victoria Park which hosts carnivals and seasonal events. Shopping areas include SouthGate shopping centre , the Corridor arcade and artisan shops at Walcot , Milsom , Stall and York Streets. There are theatres, including

10440-460: The proportion of Britons who speak RP. Trudgill estimated 3% in 1974, but that rough estimate has been questioned by J. Windsor Lewis . Upton notes higher estimates of 5% (Romaine, 2000) and 10% (Wells, 1982) but refers to these as "guesstimates" not based on robust research. The claim that RP is non-regional is disputed, since it is most commonly found in London and the southeast of England. It

10556-517: The rate of 1,170,000 litres (257,364 imp gal) daily, from the Pennyquick geological fault . In 1983, a new spa-water bore-hole was sunk, providing a clean and safe supply for drinking in the Pump Room. There is no universal definition to distinguish a hot spring from a geothermal spring, although, by several definitions , the Bath springs can be considered the only hot springs in

10672-429: The regional average of 1,600 hours. In December 1998 there were 20 days without sun recorded at Yeovilton. Most of the rainfall in the south-west is caused by Atlantic depressions or by convection . In summer, a large proportion of the rainfall is caused by sun heating the ground, leading to convection and to showers and thunderstorms. Average rainfall is around 700 mm (28 in). About 8–15 days of snowfall

10788-559: The reign of Edward the Elder coins were minted in Bath based on a design from the Winchester mint but with 'BAD' on the obverse relating to the Anglo-Saxon name for the town, Baðum, Baðan or Baðon, meaning "at the baths", and this was the source of the present name. Edgar of England was crowned king of England in Bath Abbey in 973, in a ceremony that formed the basis of all future English coronations . William Rufus granted

10904-482: The reputation these springs had for healing the sick. By the 9th century, the old Roman street pattern was lost and Bath was a royal possession. King Alfred laid out the town afresh, leaving its south-eastern quadrant as the abbey precinct. In the Burghal Hidage , Bath is recorded as a burh (borough) and is described as having walls of 1,375 yards (1,257 m) and was allocated 1000 men for defence. During

11020-471: The sacred spring by archaeologists. The tablets were written in Latin , and laid curses on personal enemies. For example, if a citizen had his clothes stolen at the baths, he might write a curse against the suspects on a tablet to be read by the goddess. A temple was constructed in AD ;60–70, and a bathing complex was built up over the next 300 years. Engineers drove oak piles into the mud to provide

11136-406: The same syllable, as in "spot" or "stop". When a sonorant /l/ , /r/ , /w/ , or /j/ follows, this aspiration is indicated by partial devoicing of the sonorant . /r/ is a fricative when devoiced. Syllable final /p/ , /t/ , /tʃ/ , and /k/ may be either preceded by a glottal stop ( glottal reinforcement ) or, in the case of /t/ , fully replaced by a glottal stop, especially before

11252-508: The same system of transcription. Clive Upton devised a modified system for the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1993), changing five symbols from the traditional Gimson system, and this is now used in many other Oxford University Press dictionaries; the differences are shown in the table below. Linguist Geoff Lindsey has argued that the system of transcription for RP has become outdated and has proposed

11368-582: The site of the Roman baths' main spring may have been treated as a shrine by the Britons , and was dedicated to the goddess Sulis , whom the Romans identified with Minerva ; the name Sulis continued to be used after the Roman invasion, appearing in the town's Roman name , Aquae Sulis (literally, "the waters of Sulis"). Messages to her scratched onto metal, known as curse tablets , have been recovered from

11484-417: The term "RP" while expressing reservations about its suitability. The Cambridge-published English Pronouncing Dictionary (aimed at those learning English as a foreign language) uses the phrase " BBC Pronunciation", on the basis that the name "Received Pronunciation" is "archaic" and that BBC News presenters no longer suggest high social class and privilege to their listeners. Other writers have also used

11600-512: The term had been used much earlier by P. S. Du Ponceau in 1818 and the Oxford English Dictionary cites quotations back to about 1710. A similar term, received standard, was coined by Henry C. K. Wyld in 1927. The early phonetician Alexander John Ellis used both terms interchangeably, but with a much broader definition than Jones's, saying, "There is no such thing as a uniform educated pron. of English, and rp. and rs.

11716-577: The top. Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia spent four years in exile, from 1936 to 1940, at Fairfield House in Bath. During World War II , between the evening of 25 April and the early morning of 27 April 1942, Bath suffered three air raids in reprisal for RAF raids on the German cities of Lübeck and Rostock , part of the Luftwaffe campaign popularly known as the Baedeker Blitz . During

11832-474: The town to take the waters: the Queen's Bath was named after her. The cue for the visit may have been the completion of the restoration work to Bath Abbey, the last instalment of which had been paid for two years previously. Anne of Denmark came to Bath in 1613 and 1615. During the English Civil War , the city was garrisoned for Charles I . Seven thousand pounds was spent on fortifications, but on

11948-458: The town, abbey and mint to a royal physician, John of Tours , who became Bishop of Wells and Abbot of Bath, following the sacking of the town during the Rebellion of 1088 . It was papal policy for bishops to move to more urban seats, and John of Tours translated his own from Wells to Bath. The bishop planned and began a much larger church as his cathedral, to which was attached a priory, with

12064-658: The unsolved murder of Melanie Hall , which occurred in the city in 1996. Although the offender's DNA is known and several thousand men in Bath were DNA tested, the attacker continues to evade police. Since 2000, major developments have included the Thermae Bath Spa , the SouthGate shopping centre, the residential Western Riverside project on the Stothert & Pitt factory site, and the riverside Bath Quays office and business development. In 2021, Bath become part of

12180-559: The use of RP as a convenient umbrella term remains popular. The tradition of Received Pronunciation is usually credited to the British phonetician Daniel Jones . In the first edition of the English Pronouncing Dictionary (1917), he named the accent " Public School Pronunciation"; for the second edition in 1926 he wrote: "In what follows I call it Received Pronunciation, for want of a better term." However,

12296-457: The vowel called "long" /iː/ in 'reach' /riːtʃ/ (which ends with a voiceless consonant) may be shorter than the vowel called "short" /ɪ/ in the word 'ridge' /rɪdʒ/ (which ends with a voiced consonant). Wiik, cited in ( Cruttenden 2014 ), published durations of English vowels with a mean value of 172 ms for short vowels before voiced consonants but a mean value of 165 ms for long vowels preceding voiceless consonants. In natural speech ,

12412-459: The warmest, with mean daily maxima of approximately 21 °C (69.8 °F). In winter, mean minimum temperatures of 1 or 2 °C (33.8 or 35.6 °F) are common. In the summer, the Azores high pressure affects the south-west of England bringing fair weather; however, convective cloud sometimes forms inland, reducing the number of hours of sunshine. Annual sunshine rates are slightly less than

12528-556: The wealthy and the idle, the weak and designing" were habitual. The population of the city was 40,020 at the 1801 census, making it one of the largest cities in Britain. William Thomas Beckford bought a house in Lansdown Crescent in 1822, and subsequently two adjacent houses to form his residence. Having acquired all the land between his home and the top of Lansdown Hill , he created a garden more than 1 ⁄ 2 mile (800 m) in length and built Beckford's Tower at

12644-608: Was a civic-minded man and a member of Bath Corporation for many years. He was elected mayor for a single term in 1742. In the early 18th century, Bath acquired its first purpose-built theatre, the Old Orchard Street Theatre . It was rebuilt as the Theatre Royal , along with the Grand Pump Room attached to the Roman Baths and assembly rooms . Master of ceremonies Beau Nash , who presided over

12760-529: Was a great antiquary, but that he was a much wronged and suffering man." These journals are now preserved at the British Library . The manuscripts include accounts of a West Country tour (1797), Hadrian's Wall (1801) and the isle of Anglesey (1802). His 1802 visit to Anglesey to see the island's Celtic remains, began by rowing across the Menai Strait to land at Llanidan . His view was that

12876-470: Was abolished in 1996, along with the district of Bath, and there is no longer a parish council for the city. The City of Bath's ceremonial functions, including its formal status as a city, its twinning arrangements, the mayoralty of Bath – which can be traced back to 1230 – and control of the city's coat of arms , are maintained by the charter trustees of the City of Bath. The councillors elected by

12992-493: Was born in Claverton and educated at Oxford , before becoming vicar of Camerton, Somerset from 1800 to 1839. He excavated numerous antiquities, especially barrows , such as those at Priddy , Stoney Littleton and the site which later became RAF Charmy Down ; and he made visits for antiquarian purposes to many places. He carried out excavations at Priddy Nine Barrows and Ashen Hill Barrow Cemeteries , opening many of

13108-493: Was founded in the 7th century and became a religious centre; the building was rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries. In the 17th century, claims were made for the curative properties of water from the springs, and Bath became popular as a spa town in the Georgian era . Georgian architecture , crafted from Bath stone , includes the Royal Crescent , Circus , Pump Room , and the Assembly Rooms , where Beau Nash presided over

13224-514: Was incorrect". Mark Newbrook has assigned this phenomenon the name "conscious rejection", and has cited the BATH vowel as "the main instance of conscious rejection of RP" in his research in West Wirral . John Wells has argued that, as educated British speakers often attempt to pronounce French names in a French way, there is a case for including /ɒ̃/ (as in bon ), and /æ̃/ and /ɜ̃ː/ (as in vingt-et-un ), as marginal members of

13340-528: Was later added to the transnational World Heritage Site known as the " Great Spa Towns of Europe " in 2021. Bath is also the largest city and settlement in Somerset. The city became a spa with the Latin name Aquae Sulis ("the waters of Sulis ") c. 60 AD when the Romans built baths and a temple in the valley of the River Avon, although hot springs were known even before then. Bath Abbey

13456-490: Was used by almost everyone who was from clearly north of the isogloss for BATH words. She wrote, "There is no justification for the claims by Wells and Mugglestone that this is a sociolinguistic variable in the north, though it is a sociolinguistic variable on the areas on the border [the isogloss between north and south]". In a study of speech in West Yorkshire, K. M. Petyt wrote that "the amount of /ɑː/ usage

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