Great Moments in Academic Research

From the Guardian comes news that Tesco is help helping it's older workers to understand the young 'uns by giving them a language guide. The kicker to this story, though, is this:

Researchers at Leeds University have discovered, after ploughing through 700 hours of recorded conversations across Britain, that words for simple objects vary greatly across the UK.

Or, you know, they could have driven across the country stopping at random bakeries and asked for a Bread cake, Cob, Bun, Roll, Muffin, Bap or Batch and took note of what they got in return. Then again, I suppose people have known this for a while. The Leeds research probably has a distinct "youth" twist or something.