Nine quid for two?
« previous post | next post »
The Daily Mail explains that this viral video features "Marnie and Mylah, from Burnley, [who] hit out at the ice cream van for high prices":
A transcription, courtesy of Jadrian Wooten at The Monday Morning Economist:
Mom: Girls, what’s just happened?
Girl: So, there’s an ice cream van there. It’s silly, just 2 ice creams with 2 chewing gums in it, is bloody £9 for two of them.
Mom: 9 quid, for two?
Girl: Yea, 9 quid. That? He’s gonna get no where. The ones that come to my street have it £1 a piece or £2. That? He’s going to get no where with that.
Mom: No, he ain’t is he?
Girl: No! No, he aint!
Mom: That’s well bad, isn’t it?
Girl: Yea, he should know. And he only does bloody card. I stood there with me cash. Bloody hell!
Mom: That’s well bad, innit?
Girl: Bloody well bad. Yea, and I bet he can hear me.
Jadrian's exegesis:
While it might seem like Marnie’s reaction was all about the high price, there’s a lot more going on here. This situation gives us a perfect glimpse into the fundamental concept of "anchoring" in behavioral economics. It’s a principle that helps explain why we react the way we do to prices and other financial decisions. […]
Anchoring is a psychological bias where we rely too much on the first piece of information we’re given—the “anchor”—when making decisions. Once this anchor is set in our minds, we adjust other judgments around it, and there’s a tendency to interpret new information relative to the anchor in our minds.
For Marnie and Mylah, their anchor came from past experiences with ice cream vans on their street at home. Marnie tells us that “the ones that come to my street have it £1 a piece or £2.” This price range set their expectations and became the anchor by which they judged the new price.
So, when they saw a price of £9, it didn’t just seem high; it was shockingly out of line with their anchored expectations. This led to their strong reaction of shock and disbelief. Their blunt comment, "He’s gonna get nowhere with that," highlights how expectations shape our perception of what is fair and reasonable.
That link came to me in email from Bob Shackleton, who noted that he "wouldn't have been able to place [the accent] any better than somewhere in Lancashire or Yorkshire. As it turns out, our young economists are from Burnley in Lancashire, 20 miles north of Manchester and a mere 8 miles from the thriving metropolis of Shackleton in Yorkshire….."
In other linguistic news, the version of the viral clip on Sunland.tv has an odd word substitution — "ascent" for (I think?) "accent":
That channel is based in Ghana, so maybe the writer pronounces "accent" as
/ˈæ.sɛnʔ/, which would motivate the 's'.
AntC said,
May 23, 2024 @ 6:41 pm
@Bob Shackleton "wouldn't have been able to place [the accent] any better than somewhere in Lancashire or Yorkshire. As it turns out, our young economists are from Burnley in Lancashire, …
The Burnley accent is quite distinctive — neither Lancashire nor Yorkshire. I worked for several years on a contract in Burnley. I'd call the accent 'Pennines border'
But then Shackleton/Hebden Bridge/Halifax is not really the Yorkshire of Monty Python 'You were lucky' caricature; and Burnley is barely Lancashire. We're in the triangle between Holmfirth (Last of the Summer Wine)/Oxenhope (Brontë sisters)/Rochdale (Cyril Smith MP).
Yorkshire being God's Own County, and the largest, has a wide variety of accents.
bukwyrm said,
May 24, 2024 @ 3:37 am
First time for me to hear 'well bad' but it seems to be an established construction : https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315268323-6/well-bad-karin-aijmer — on another note i have no idea what is going on with the cited economist: the previously observed price of £1 or £2 for one serving of ice cream translates to a range of £2-£4 for two servings. £9 is way out of that range, so invoking some special psycho-economics (?) term for the reaction to a price jump to 250% of the previous known level is just weird.
Mark Liberman said,
May 24, 2024 @ 4:36 am
@bukwyrm: "invoking some special psycho-economics (?) term for the reaction to a price jump to 250% of the previous known level is just weird."
The idea that our economic expectations are "anchored" by experience is simple and obvious to common sense, but it's apparently not obvious to micro-economics. For an interesting recent example where very high prices get "anchored", check out "‘Bromakase’ Is the New Steakhouse", NYT 5/21/2024…
Lazar said,
May 24, 2024 @ 5:04 am
The transcriber missed the opportunity to properly render the Northern dialectal form in't.
rpsms said,
May 24, 2024 @ 10:36 am
The accent isn't the funny bit in my opinion. Her age vs her body language, phrasing and words choices is the real punchline.
This is like Looney Tunes' "Babyface" Finster or Baby Herman from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"
AntC said,
May 24, 2024 @ 3:55 pm
Is "anchoring" what's going on with all those special offers/adverts from Youtube 'artistes'? "Sign up now with my special code for a 30% discount on your subscription/initial two months free"? Without once mentioning what the 'full-price' charge would be?
So if I sat down soberly to work out what the service is worth to me, it might come to well less than 30% off some extortionate charge. The 30% discount has "anchored" that I must be getting a bargain. Sign me up!
cliff arroyo said,
May 25, 2024 @ 7:48 am
My favorite part is the 'bet he can hear me' at the end… sounds like she's ready to rumble.
Kate Bunting said,
May 25, 2024 @ 2:46 pm
I find it interesting that the mother makes no attempt to criticise her for swearing!