That’s how you know that the information about Led Zeppelin is authentic- it’s hazy.
I heard they always refuse or avoid payment of money laid as a bet if they lose.
You’re in danger of spreading some pretty nasty stereotypes yourself there. A few idiots do not make the English nation ‘sneering’ and ‘condescending’. I know of no one who doesn’t believe some Welsh people speak welsh OR who refers to the whole UK as England. That mistake is usually reserved for foreigners who don’t know any better and the blame for it infuriatingly laid at the door of English people like myself.
I’ve argued about this a few times in the past. That “people speaking English until an Englishman walks in, then change to Welsh” stereotype has never been evident to me. I’ve spent a hell of a lot of time in Welsh-speaking areas in the north and west of the principality, hung out in Clwb Ifor Bach in Cardiff, and in the company of dozens of Welsh-as-first-language speakers. In my experience they speak Welsh with each other, and English to non-Welsh speakers.
They do, however, drop an awful lot of words borrowed from English into their vocabulary, as well as words adapted from English (“parcio” for “parking” for example) and I think it’s this that perpetuates the stereotype.
If you don’t speak Welsh and you hear someone talking indistinctly across a bar or shop, and they’re saying something like “llllchwy brych mwyll computer bllblllchwyn motorway parcio yr gegin yn yr wireless internet connectivity y chips and curry sauce pobl llanfair pwych hovercraft full of eels” your brain will probably only pick out the English words, and think they’re speaking English. I have never once found it to be the case that they actually were speaking English until I showed up. In general in my experience has been that they’re scrupulously polite about changing to my language despite me being in their nation.
Point taken, but I think you are whitewashing. I’ve spent a lot of time in England (5 years at Uni there) and using ‘England’ to refer to the UK is extremely common.
Of course people think Welsh people speak welsh, but I’ve met an inordinately large number of English people who seem to think they only do it to piss off the English, or to be bloody minded: I have heard many such comments on ending a welsh-language mobile phone conversation. Of course they were mostly joking, but there did seem to be an undercurrent that everything the welsh did was in some way directed at the english, including speaking that funny language.
And no the whole nation is not sneering and condescending. I’m half English myself, and like a lot about England. I probably like the worldliness of England more than I do Wales. But there is a lot of sneering and condescension. For example, and independent Wales would do absolutely fine in the EU. Now I don’t happen to support independence, but I do think that Wales would clearly be OK as an (albeit poor) independent country. Whenever English people hear of this prospect though, the response is often one of mocking laughter (‘yeah, good luck!’, ‘what are they gonna sell, sheep?’)
You know the way Americans often act in a slightly patronising way to Britain, making fun of its small size, subservience and lack of independent military? The way they make fun of the ‘tiny little island’ and the Queen? And how annoying it is, especially because 99% of Americans know fuck all about the UK? The way the English interact with the Welsh (and the Irish, and the Scots) is strikingly similar.
pdts
In Scotland, I don’t tend to hear many negative Welsh stereotypes - maybe that’s as a result of Celtic solidarity, or maybe because we’re too concerned with taking the piss out of the English.
Occasionally the sheep-shagger thing will be mentioned if the subject of Wales comes up, but we’ve got Highlanders to accuse of that. Likewise the impenetrable language - we’ve got Gaelic - more vowels, but it still doesn’t make any sense.
Rugby, Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, male voice choirs and coal mines. And also, the fact that any non-Welsh person attempting to do a Welsh accent will invariably find themselves drifting towards India/Pakistan within a few words.
I’m not sure that English or British ignorance of Ireland is necessarily a sign of insularity. Whenever you have two interacting groups of very disparate size (the UK has 10 times the population of Ireland), the smaller group tends to know more about the bigger group than vice versa, proportionally. The simple arithmetic of it means that Irish people encounter aspects of British culture more than the other way round – if 4 million people in Ireland are “knowledgable” about the UK, that’s a big majority of the population. But if 4 million Brits know something about Ireland, it means that the vast majority of Brits are ignorant of it. “Insular Brits!”, you cry, but it’s the same number of people on either side.
It’s similar with the US vs. Canada (again, ten times the population) or the US vs. most countries, in fact.
I was staying at a B&B in Abergavenny last month and one of the staff only ever spoke to us in Welsh.
It was a parrot that only said “Bore da” (“Good morning”). It would also “meow” at us but I couldn’t tell if that Welsh/cat or English/cat.
All this has reminded me of the Welsh characters Denzil and Gwynedd in the late-80s UK sketch show Absolutely.
And how am I to address the Welsh Institute of Wood dressed like a twit? I look like somebody from LLANELLI
I are in the Hoover Denzil!
My sole personal experience with the Welsh was when a dozen or so leaped onto a subway car in Toronto with me at about one in the morning singing a Welsh rugby song (I assume – it was in Welsh and they were wearing rugby shirts and it sounded something like this except without full instrumentation and with a lot more drunkness). When they were done, we applauded them and decided we would sing instead – it had been a day of singing on subway cars anyway, and I think we answered them with a song from Rent. They applauded us and leaped off the subway car again at the next station.
Currently all I know about the Welsh is that Glendower thinks he can scare the English by pretending to be a wizard but Hotspur’s having none of it and has annoyed the guy to the point that it’s probably completely intentional that his men will be two weeks late for the battle with Henry’s men. Also, it’s criminal how the Welsh longbowmen get no recognition in Henry V for their integral part in victory.
How is the Welsh language revival going? Is it popular among the young people?
Or is Welsh destined to die out?
Regarding Wales being a part of england in the past, I somehow managed to pick up the belief that this was why the Welsh flag had no representation in the Union Jack. It was represented by the Elements of the English flag.
Anyone know if there is any truth to this?
True, because the Flag of the Kingdom of England was designed after Wales became part of the Kingdom, so it was considered represented there.
Enjoy,
Steven
Well I did have Brains when I visited Wales this past summer…
Thanks!
I’m Irish, I’ve never really heard many Welsh stereotypes spoken here, although I am aware of them. This is largely because of the British media/tv we get. Scotland seems way more connected culturally with Ireland than Wales but even then most people here don’t know much about Scotland either beyond the obvious stereotypes. One of the main connections with Scotland is that a huge amount of population interchange has taken place over centuries between the two countries.
^ Except for the rugby, of course!
pdts
I was always told that The Welsh were Irish that couldn’t swim!
They tend to leek
Another zombie. 
Damn Welsh and your reviving threads from 2003. 