astronomy

Richard Coates

Richard Coates is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Richard Coates rather than just read about it. In short: Richard Coates (born 16 April 1949, in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, and educated at Wintringham School) is an English linguist. He was professor of Linguistics (alternatively professor of Onomastics) at the University of the West of England, Bristol, now emeritus.

Key takeaways

Richard Coates belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Richard Coates to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Richard Coates from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Richard Coates (born 16 April 1949, in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, and educated at Wintringham School) is an English linguist. He was professor of Linguistics (alternatively professor of Onomastics) at the University of the West of England, Bristol, now emeritus.

Career From 1977 to 2006 he taught at the University of Sussex, where he was professor of linguistics (1991–2006) and Dean of the School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences (1998–2003). From 1980 to 1989 he was assistant secretary and then secretary of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain. He was honorary director of the Survey of English Place-Names from 2003 to 2019, having previously (1997–2002) been president of the English Place-Name Society which conducts the Survey, resuming this role from 2019 to 2024. From 2002 to 2008, he was secretary of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences, a body devoted to the promotion of the study of names, and elected as one of its two vice-presidents from 2011 to 2017. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1992 and of the Royal Society of Arts in 2001.

Research His main academic interests are proper names (both from the historical and the theoretical perspective), historical linguistics in general, the philology of the Germanic, Romance and Celtic languages, regional variation in language, and local history. He is editor of the Survey of English Place-Names for Hampshire and was principal investigator of the AHRC-funded project Family Names of the United Kingdom (FaNUK), running from 2010 to 2016, of which Patrick Hanks was lead researcher. He has written books on the names of the Channel Islands, the local place-names of St Kilda, Hampshire and Sussex, the dialect of Sussex, and, with Andrew Breeze, on Celtic place-names in England, as well as over 500 academic articles, notes, and collections on related topics. His main contribution to linguistic theory is The Pragmatic Theory of Properhood, set out in a number of articles since 2000. He is the author of Word Structure, a student's introduction to linguistic morphology (Routledge).

Selected books 1987 (co-ed. with John Lyons, Margaret Deuchar and Gerald Gazdar) New horizons in linguistics 2. Harmondsworth: Pelican. (ISBN 978-0-14-022612-6). 1989 The place-names of Hampshire. London: Batsford. (ISBN 0-7134-5625-6). 1990 The place-names of St Kilda: nomina hirtensia. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press. (ISBN 9780199677764 Celtic Studies 1). (ISBN 0-88946-077-9). 1991 The ancient and modern names of the Channel Islands: a linguistic history. Stamford: Paul Watkins. (ISBN 1-871615-15-1). 1999 Word structure. London and New York: Routledge (Routledge Language Workbooks). (ISBN 0 415 20631 6). 2000 (with Andrew Breeze) Celtic voices, English places: studies of the Celtic impact on place-names in England. Stamford: Shaun Tyas. (ISBN 1-900289-41-5). 2010 The traditional dialect of Sussex: a history, description, selected texts, bibliography and discography. Lewes: Pomegranate Press. (ISBN 978-1-907242-09-0.) 2016 (co-ed. with Patrick Hanks and Peter McClure) The Oxford dictionary of family names in the United Kingdom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (ISBN 9780199677764; also ebook and online versions.) 2017 Your city's place-names: Brighton and Hove. Nottingham: English Place-Name Society. (ISBN 9780904889970). 2017 Your city's place-names: Bristol. Nottingham: English Place-Name Society (ISBN 9780904889963). 2020 (co-ed. with Luisa Caiazzo and Maoz Azaryahu) Naming, identity and tourism. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing (ISBN 1527542866, ISBN 9781527542860). 2023 (ed.) Shirehampton Church-Yard Book. Bristol: Bristol Record Society publication 76 (ISBN 978-0-901538-46-8).

References

External links [1], University of the West of England: Richard Coates, where a list of his main recent publications can be found.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Richard Coates

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Richard Coates claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Richard Coates before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Richard Coates ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Richard Coates

In research: Richard Coates appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Richard Coates in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Richard Coates is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1949 births, 20th-century British linguists, 21st-century British linguists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Richard Coates outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Richard Coates in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Richard Coates means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Richard Coates out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Richard Coates in simple terms?

Why does Richard Coates matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Richard Coates?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Richard Coates.