Talk:Edinburgh
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Article Photo
Just noticed the photo has been changed for about the 50210951th time in the last year... ho hum... :) Taras 00:12, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- hopefully each is a 1.99159e-8 th better than its predecessor. Note, btw, that I propose to delete one image on Edinburgh Castle for legal reasons - see Talk:Edinburgh Castle for discussion. I think also the same may be necessary on Holyrood Palace, although I haven't uploaded a legal image yet. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 01:13, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Geography
Removed from the subject page: Edinburgh's building layout is a little unusual compared to a lot of cities, this is most likely due to the fact that it has grown slowly for centuries. The difference is that in standard human geography the structure of cities is based on concentrict circles, with a central financial/retail district, an outer industrial district and a middle residential district with out of town shopping malls located outwith the city limits (at least to start with). Edinburgh, however, is much better described as a large number of villages and towns that have slowly merged and left a pattern of greens, high streets and residential areas sprawlled throughout the city, with the little industry that Edinburgh has being mostly located in Leith (and more recently South Queensferry). Some areas were originally developed solely as residential area, such as Craigmillar with it's tower blocks and terraced housing, however without the large out of town shopping parks and the lack of large roads or mass transit (other than buses) these areas have degenerated into slums and are now being redeveloped along the lines of the rest of the city.
This is surreally wrong (except for Craigmillar being a slum). Apart from the oddity of having a couple of mountains within its limits, Ediburgh is very usual of its type. Almost an archetype.
Where does the idea come from that, as is suggested here, the zoned layout of post-world-war-II US towns is "standard human geography"?
Look at london... it has a central financial and retail district surrounded by housing (and in London's case miles and miles of surburbia ouside of _that_ to support the large business district in the center, though in London's case most of the Industrial areas are blobs in the suburbia or (historically) along the river Thames. How about Paris? Central business and retail district (granted a lot of tourist industry too) surrouned by residential with industrial area beyond that (those more in the center are slowly shifting outwards... Newcastle? central business and retail surrounded by residential (some old industrial stil extant, but slowly moving outwards) with more industry at the mouth of the Tyne that is slowly being replaced by tourist attractions as industry moves out of town... Ages of London, Newcastle and Paris... prolly getting on for as old as Edinburgh. Tokyo is an example that bucks the trend with light industry and residential being relatively mixed but it still has a distinctly retail, business and financial center... St. Andrews; mixed center of retail and residential with industry further out (though the majority of housing is outwith the center but nearer than the industry stuff... and your counter examples would be??
- <:@) - I'm happy to accept proof to the opposite and it may simply be that bigger cities tend to conform more to the "post-world-war-II US" setup and this is less true of smaller towns, but then again Edinburgh is a city (though small with only about 450,000 inhabitants) so surely it should conform in the same was as London, Paris, Newcastle...
I must say though that your description is, though complimentary to mine (since it only really describes the center of town), much better written, I'm much better at the delivery of content and the minor corrections than editting :) - *<:@)
Actually, I believe that London is sometimes noted in urban design textbooks as a prototypical example of a city which has grown up out of a bunch of merging villages! Doops 23:47, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
Exactly. Older British cities certainly do NOT conform to the "concentric" model. London does now have a central "business/residential" district - but it did not start out that way! Read Peter Ackroyd's book "London: A Biography".
In Edinburgh's case the "Old Town" started as a residential area, before more or less emptying in the 19th/early 20th C, and now after "gentrification" is now becoming a desirable residential area once again. The "New Town" was originally residential but later became the home of banks and other businesses. Outside this area was industrial; further out still are the modern council and private estates.
Subjectivity of Pronunciation
I suspect the pronunciation is just going to keep getting changed, because everyone has different accents. Should it perhaps just be removed? I mean, I have a Scottish accent, but it's fairly angicised (long story), so I pronounce it edin-buh-rah, as do a lot of people here. Some Americans would pronounce it edin-burh, and Renata suggests edden-breh. It's wholly subjective... opinions? -- Taras
- The pronunciation guide gives a phonetic guide, and phonemes are deeper language features than accent. A welshman or an austrialian would still use the correct phonemes, although those phonemes sound quite different in their respective accents. The two alternatives you and Renata suggest are roughly equivalent, but the pronunciation guide is important to note that "Edin BurG" is wrong (i.e. the wrong fundamental phonemes), as is "Edin Bo Ro", both of which are common to North Americans (where those are the accepted phonemes for ...burgh placenames). -- Finlay McWalter 13:48, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, as a Scot and having lived all over Scotland, the two most common variants I've heard are ED-in-burra (as currently in the article) and ED-in-bruh (compressing burra into one syllable; also my pronunciation). --Air 22:35, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- I suggest /bVrV/ for those final two syllables (equiv of "burra")... or /brV/, maybe... My accent isn't particularly strong, tbh. --Finlay 18:49, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
A friend of mine studying linguistics tells me the complete opposite is true, i.e. that phonetic representations are written completely differently according to regional accent. According the phoneme page phonemes vary across languages.
A Resident of Edinburgh...
What is a resident of Edinburgh referred to as? Ie, Berliner, New Yorker...
Somewhat relevant to the article, but I'm asking mostly because I cannot find what it is.
- I don't think there is such a word... Evercat 02:01, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- The only variant in common use (by Scottish newspapers) is Edinburgher. Please see Talk:Areas of Edinburgh for discussion. --Air 09:20, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- There's a book called "Edinbuggers vs. Weegies" (where weegies is of course Glaswegians). If you turn it over it says "Weegies vs.
Edinbuggers", so it's kind of on both sides of the age-old feud. --Finlay 18:54, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC):A oerson
A person from Edinburgh is an Edonian. 22nd April 2005
- "Edonian"? I've never heard of it. I've always used "Edinburgher" as Air said above (although I always thought it was spelt "Edinburger"). --Colin Angus Mackay 22:17, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Never heard "Edonian" in my twenty years here, either. The Edoni were an obscure Greek (?) tribe in Thrace, though... Shimgray 22:44, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Nicknames et cetera
I'm changing this section to the more conventional "Other names". Additionally, I can find no evidence for "Embro", and only one archaic reference (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/annemariegoossens/scoauldreike.htm) for "Edina". I'm moving "Embra" to the end to reflect its relative importance. --Air 14:49, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Image request (not strictly related)
I've made a image request of a plaque in this city, hopefully a resident of Edinburgh or someone passing through will be able to fulfill it:
- A close up and wide shot of the plaque at London Street 15 in Edinburgh (east coast of Scotland) which should read: Íslenski þjóðsöngurinn, Ó, guð vors lands, lagið og hluti ljóðsins, var saminn í þessu húsi árið 1874 af Sveinbirni Sveinbjörnssyni og Matthíasi Jochumssyni.. For use at Lofsöngur and Lofsöngur.
--User:Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason/Sig 03:26, 2005 Feb 10 (UTC)
Other names
Removed the line "In French, Edinburgh is known as Edimbourg". This is true, but I see no reason why it should be included unless we are also willing to include the Spanish "Edimburgo" and heaven knows how many others.
Blogs as external links
I'm lothe to remove external links unless they are highly inappropriate, however I'm unsure of this one. An external link was added today that points to a blogger site that, as far as I can tell, is being used to reproduce news about Edinburgh. Should it stay or should it go? My instinct says that it is inappropriate in the context of an online encyclopedia. --Colin Angus Mackay
- Looks ad-driven, to me... I'll give the rest of the links a prune as well. Some of them are only marginally useful (the "hotels" one) and effectively count as endorsing a commercial site... Shimgray 13:00, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
- Thanks. Good to know that my instinct was correct. --Colin Angus Mackay 22:03, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
Tourist influx
Could someone provide details on the tourist numbers to Edinburgh. Is the value that the population of Edinburgh increases by 1.5 to 2 million during the festival correct? Is there really upto 2.5 million people in Edinburgh all at once? --Colin Angus Mackay 14:34, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
- The number I always heard over the last ten years or so was "doubling in size" - ie, to a million people. It is possible that both figures are accurate, but one is misreported; if the city peaks at a half-million visitors, then the total influx of visitors across the entire period might very well be three or four times that. No sources, though. Shimgray 20:39, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
- A google search (http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Edinburgh+festival+population&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8) reveals a large number of websites reciting the 'fact' that the population doubles in size during the festival. It's four years since I lived in Edinburgh but from my memories of that time the population doubling during the festival seems like a realistic estimate. The BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/3613980.stm) states that 1,251,997 tickets were sold during the 2004 Fringe Festival—granted there are other festivals going on at the same time, but even if no locals bought tickets to fringe events and every tourist only bought one ticket that is still a long way short of 2 million visitors. JeremyA 22:35, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
- Okay - I'll update the article to correct the information. --Colin Angus Mackay 13:16, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
Edinburgh becoming a capital
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica (see [1] (http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article?tocId=9363420&query=Edinburgh&ct=)) Edinburgh became the capital in 1437. Of the sources that I found stating 1492 they were obvious derivations from Wikipedia (i.e. sentences were copied verbatim). Can anyone confirm the actual date? --Colin Angus Mackay 21:49, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)