6 things you should know about Bristol

The Bristol accent

The Bristolian accent should not, on any account, be confused with the caricature Mummerset yokel accent affected by RADA-trained actors attempting to sound like they come from deepest Bedminster. At first, perhaps, you might be forgiven for not being able to distinguish between proper-job Bristolian and broad-stroke West Country, but once you’ve been here a while you’ll realise that the city has its own distinctive dialect – which features  the wholly unique phenomenon of lambdacisation or the adding of ‘l’ onto the end of words. Harry Stoke and Vinny Green’s ‘A Dictionary of Bristle’ is an authoritative and often hilarious guide to the intricacies of the Bristolian tongue. Of which …

It’s a dap, not a plimsoll

Soft leisure footwear for use in gymnasiams, dance studios and the like are not plimsolls. They are daps. A plimsoll is Samuel Plimsoll, who invented the Plimsoll Line, saved the lives of thousands of sailors and is commemorated with a statue on the docks.

Bristol isn’t London

Given the sheer number of people who’ve moved here from the capital in the last few years alone, it’s quite easy to get confused about this. Bristol, though, is very much its own city, with its own way of going about things – which can be both enlightening and frustrating. The usual cliché is that Bristol is laid-back and while, compared with that London, that’s certainly the case, it’s also true that it’s energetic, vibrant and full of people working tirelessly to make it an even better place. It’s something of a peculiar combination so we’re telling you about it now just so you know.

Bristol is Jupiter

According to scientific research conducted with a plastic straw and a broken stopwatch, it’s been shown that gravity in Bristol is stronger than anywhere else on Earth. This is one possible explanation for the fact that so many people who come here to study and fully intend to move elsewhere once they’ve graduated end up staying here for good. It’s possibly worth knowing this now – before you’re tempted to run down the street at three in the morning singing Coldplay songs at the top of your voice and irritating you future long-term neighbours.

Massive confusion

You’re almost certainly too young to remember the early 1990s, but back then the media, music industry and fledgling internet got terribly excited about something that music journalists dubbed the Bristol Sound or trip-hop. By this, of course, they meant the work of Massive Attack, Tricky, Portishead and, a little later, Roni Size’s Reprazent. It’s possibly worth knowing that, while we’re obviously extremely proud of this musical heritage, nobody who actually lives here ever referred to it as the Bristol Sound or trip-hop and that not every musician and band to have worked in Bristol since then plies moody, brooding slabs of downtempo paranoia.

Wild animals

If you believe the sporadic silly season stories in the local and national press, Bristol is quite often invaded by wild animals. A crocodile’s the latest – but over the years there have also been alleged sightings of unidentifiable beasts, kangaroos and the notorious feral chicken of Southville. Bristol, in short, is a fecund spawning ground for urban myths – so remember to take any story that someone tells you down the pub with a pinch of salt. The foxes are real, mind

 Image: Harshil Shah