Manchester

[cosmolinguist]

I don't understand how I've lived for more than a dozen years in a city with such an ego about itself (especially concerning the Industrial Revolution), that brags and makes all kinds of claims for its exceptional status,and yet I didn't know until today that Australia calls its bedding, towels and suchlike "manchester" because they used to get it from Manchester.

This seems like just the kind of anecdote the local museums, tours, and other purveyors of history would love: an indication of Manchester's global influence and whatnot. And I love museums and local history so I'd think I'd have known that by now...but it wasn't even anybody in Manchester who's told me now; it's a friend who used to live in Australia.

Comments

[lilysea]

(Hee.)

...so what do non-Australians call bedding, if not manchester?

(Sheets, doonas, blankets, quilts etc fit under a collective noun of what?)

[ludy]

just Bedding!

[davidgillon]

Definitely bedding, and 'doona' will get a collective 'what?' in the UK.

[cosmolinguist]

It's an anglicized spelling of a Scandicanvian brand of duvet apparently, that just became the generic term for the thing in Australia. I like it. :)

[matgb]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corduroy

Check "other names".

Australia, the one place all other English speakers can agree is weird.