Aldeh
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Hannah Al-Othman, "‘Mad fer it’: Greater Manchester Aldi to keep Aldeh name in tribute to Oasis", The Guardian 7/24/2025:
An Aldi store in Greater Manchester rebranded Aldeh in honour of Oasis is to keep the new name, the supermarket chain has said.
The new sign was erected at the Prestwich store before the Oasis homecoming gigs earlier this month. The band played five sold-out shows at Heaton Park, which is near the store.
It was meant to be a temporary name change, but the sign has been a massive hit with tourists and local people, with Oasis fans queueing outside for selfies.
The sign has even been listed on Google Maps as a cultural landmark, with a string of glowing five-star reviews calling it “the Stonehenge of a generation” and “the greatest rebrand of all time”.
Some Youtube commentary:
https://youtube.com/shorts/TCr1NbXMz0k?si=TG5PTpe10IeJxtFG
I can't think of any similar real-world store renaming instances, but it ought to work well when possible. Consider the success of Hyundai's Smaht Pahk commercial:
[h/t Doreen]
Victor Mair said,
July 28, 2025 @ 11:38 am
That's Mancunian for thee, mate, yeah.
===========
From Latin Mancunium (appearing in a 4th-century manuscript of the Antonine Itinerary), an alternative name for or corruption of Mamucium (“name of the Roman fort at what is now Manchester”) + -an, probably modelled after Late Latin Mancuniensis (“related or pertaining to Mancunium”).
(Wiktionary)
Chris Button said,
July 28, 2025 @ 4:43 pm
Nice!
It's interesting how in Mancunian, the happy vowel didn't undergo the lengthening/tensing from [ɪ] /i/ to [iː] and instead lowered while staying lax. I Iike the use of [ɛ] as a lax [e], so that's what I would favor here as the lowered counterpart of lax [ɪ].
Victor Mair said,
July 28, 2025 @ 7:30 pm
Not to be confused with Lidl.
https://www.lidl.com/
Daphne Preston-Kendal said,
July 29, 2025 @ 4:48 am
In reply to Chris Button:
This is a common feature of northern accents, although I’m not sure where the isogloss is. Mancunian is historically a Lancastrian dialect, but it’s quite possible this feature originated in Yorkshire.
Arthur Baker said,
July 29, 2025 @ 5:09 am
"This is a common feature of northern accents". Depends on what you categorise as "north" in the context of England. In my native Geordieland (Newcastle upon Tyne and surrounding region), the final "i" would definitely be [i]. And the suggestion that Lancashire and Yorkshire are in northern England might even elicit some dissent, if not derision.
Jarek Weckwerth said,
July 29, 2025 @ 5:56 am
@Arthur Baker: The Merseyside doesn't have [ɪ] for happY either.
But, interestingly, traditional Southern accents in the US may do.
John Baker said,
July 29, 2025 @ 7:09 am
I’m reminded of the Florence Y’All Water Tower, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Y%27all_Water_Tower. It was originally painted Florence Mall to advertise the forthcoming mall of that name, but the Kentucky Bureau of Highways required a name change because it advertised something that did not yet exist. “Florence Y’All” was selected as a minimally expensive alteration. The name could have been changed back after the mall opened, but the new logo was so popular that it was never reverted.
ktschwarz said,
July 29, 2025 @ 11:47 am
Arthur Baker: The OED recently added Northern English pronunciations and audio for regional words, and they found that Northern and Northeast England couldn't be lumped together. From their announcement:
https://www.oed.com/discover/pronunciations-from-northern-england/
(The entries for those two words are currently open to the public, no subscription needed.) And indeed, their pronunciation model for the Northeast shows the happY vowel as /i/. They do realize that "Northern English" is still lumping a lot of different accents together, with Merseyside mentioned as one that's "particularly distinctive", but they have to stop somewhere.
AntC said,
July 30, 2025 @ 7:49 am
@ktschwarz, within the NE, Tyneside (Geordie) is 'particularly distinctive' compared to Teeside compared to N.Yorkshire (excluding Middlesborough, as it should be) compared to E. Yorkshire (notable for the stressed schwa), which is nothing atall to do with N. Lincolnshire (lumping them together because Humber bridge is nuts) … I could go on around the Yorkshire Ridings.
But the OED should surely know all this, including West of the Pennines being rhotic, up and down the country. Vikings/Danegeld 'innit?
Adrian Bailey said,
July 30, 2025 @ 1:20 pm
Thanks for the OED article. It makes me laugh when they write that "the literature indicates that there are significant differences" – don't they use their ears?
I find it hard to accept the "apeth" spelling for "ha'p'orth". This word is in my dialect and it definitely has a silent h. Also, I'm more used to the spelling "haway" than "howay".
David Marjanović said,
July 30, 2025 @ 2:51 pm
There's a Kwik-E-Mart (from The Simpsons) in Pittsburgh, and I think a few others scattered across the US.
Peter Taylor said,
July 30, 2025 @ 3:29 pm
Arthur Baker wrote:
wgj said,
July 31, 2025 @ 1:53 am
For me, the greatest rebranding is still Volkswagen/Voltswagen:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/29/business/volkswagen-voltswagen
Keith said,
July 31, 2025 @ 9:27 am
@Adrian Bailey
I was born just before decimalisation, so grew up listening to older people use pounds, shillings, pence, and divisions of the penny in day to day speech.
If we forgive the "eye-dialect" spelling, "apeth" is related to "apence" for "half-penny", and to the word that I suppose would be written in IPA as something like /ˈeɪpəns/.
Spelling it out as "ha'p'orth" doesn't shock me at all; I grew up being what you might call diglossic, like all my classmates, in that we would see text written in standard English but when we read the text out loud the sounds would be wildly different.
I've given example of this before: the word "wouldn't" printed on the page would be pronounced /wʊnt/, "shouldn't" would be pronounced /ʃʊnt/ and I think that you can guess how we pronounce "couldn't".
Kate Bunting said,
July 31, 2025 @ 1:28 pm
When I heard the expression "You daft 'ap'orth" as a child, I thought it must be something to do with apathy!