Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 September 5

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September 5

Coals to Newcastle

Prompted by the inquiry above, I dimly recall hearing, perhaps on QI, that Millennials or younger people in general in the UK, were completely baffled by the phrase "Coals to Newcastle", due to the virtual extinction of the British coal industry. Is this based on any research? Alansplodge (talk) 12:08, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

The segment was in QI XL, series R episode 12. I would guess that it was based on this 2010 paper by Julia Miller of the University of Adelaide (see pages 10–11). Ajmint (talk) 12:47, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Well, no, quite possibly not. Non-Australians probably don't realise it, but Newcastle, New South Wales was also a coal mining city, and that paper by Julia Miller appears to be talking about Australian English, not British English. HiLo48 (talk) 01:09, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

The paper says that both British and Australian speakers were surveyed, and compares the two groups. Ajmint (talk) 01:32, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Newcastle still is a coal town. "Famous for its coal, Newcastle is the largest coal exporting harbour in the world, exporting 159.9 million tonnes of coal in 2017." -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:22, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Thank you kindly Ajmint, just what I was looking for. Alansplodge (talk) 19:26, 5 September 2020 (UTC)