Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 May 15 - 04:56 AM

one house wher i used to live is wunnus.
billy anthonys bottom is billy antonis bodum, if anyone wishes to discuss billy anthonys bottom or argue the toss on the correct prononunciation of this amusing name, carry on billy anthonys bottom/
theydon bois, locals call it theydon boys.
posh people call it theydon bwa

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 May 15 - 05:09 AM

I remember trying to direct an Italian driver (towing) with two squabbling kids in the back, how to get to Carl-is-lee, I sent him on another circuit of Lancaster inner ring road. He had come off the M6 too soon, his map must have been out of date. And I was amused by his pronunciation and did not think fast enough. Sorry mateo.
Carlisle (car-liel).

I have heard Uttoxeter referred to as Uchester - being a Staffordshire man meself, but not from that end of the county.
Lilleshal - lillyshawl
Stroud (as in proud) in Gloucesterhsire (Glostersheer) and Stroud (Strood) in Kent (as in bent)
Shelsley Beauchamp (shellslee beechum)
Powick (po-ick)
Tewkesbury - (chooks-burree - emphasised as "chuck" if you are from Evesham (eevs-sham not evee-sham))
Tweeksburg as one American had it, but then it gives me permission to use that pronunciation regularly.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: Ged Fox
Date: 17 May 15 - 05:24 AM

There was an old fellow from Cosham
Who took out his false teeth to wash'em etc.

But those who find that limerick vulgar would tend to call the place Coss'm, as they went off to their yachts at Bozz'm.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: GUEST,Derrick
Date: 17 May 15 - 06:24 AM

Teignmouth in Devon is commonly pronounced as Tinmuth,the river Teign is the Teen.
Yealmpton also in Devon is Yamtun,the river Yealm is usually pronounced as Yelm rarely as Yam.
Tideford in Cornwall used to be pronounced as Tiddyfurd as it was a fording place on the river Tiddy,in recent times the incomers have taken to calling it Tide Ford and the change has taken root.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 May 15 - 11:56 AM

My parents were married at Poughill Steve.
They thought of naming our Hertfordshire house that, but decided no-one would ever know how to say it.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 17 May 15 - 03:08 PM

Avon (as in River Avon and Avon Gorge) is pronounced Av'n.

Avonn is just for Avon ladies and their wares.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: Penny S.
Date: 17 May 15 - 05:35 PM

OldNicKilby - I bow to your orthography of Shipbourne - mine was only an attempt at something with the r not very much apparent at all.

Steve Gardam, I was told about Eboracum by a member of the English Place Names Society who had studied under John Dodgson, the doyen of such matters. I couldn't remember the exact details, but it, I now think, involved the dropping of the ending, not as far as the present bishopric, but as far as Eborac. This was interpreted and mangled by the Anglian settlers as Eoforwic, or boar-place, which would have given an initial Y sound, with the central r and the final c sound, which was subsequently re-interpreted and mangled by the Vikings who formed Jorvik, which, as you say, slides into modern York. The intermediate forms exist in writing. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York

Can't get into the clickymaker and have forgotten how to do it manually.

And I can't feel much difference in the mouth between idge and itch, just in the voicing, and what I hear around Greenwich is less voiced. It may even be the difference between what men say and women say.

Will, my mind passed over Bozzum, and decided to leave it to someone else.

Mr Red, Strood, Kent, is spelled Strood, so no problem.

And I've remembered the place in Sussex signed as Terrible Down, with a tale of the cutting down of brave Saxons by the Normans in 1066, but which is said Turbledown, and etymologically can be shown to originate from a four letter word beginning with t and rhyming with word.

Penny

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: GUEST
Date: 18 May 15 - 12:38 AM

Strange the River Av'n and the Gorge got a mention, though not the port of Av'nmouf... :-)

Just across the river is the town of Port'zed, as the locals used to call it prior to the popularity of a certain pop band who seem to have influenced the townfolk's pronunciation to something closer to the way it is spelled.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 18 May 15 - 04:24 AM

Guest, I didn't include Avonmouth because I have not (yet) heard it pronounced as AvONmouth. You may not have been so lucky.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: Mr Red
Date: 18 May 15 - 04:30 AM

Penny S
consider favouritizing (sic) one of these web pages, devized specifically for fancy text on Mudcat, and for 'Catters generally.

Mr Red's HTML fancy text generator &
Mr Red's HTML fancy symbol generator (hash codes)

Stroud - I should have qualified it - on the phone I am always having to qualify it as Gloucestershire not Kent - what is that saying about peoples' expectations in the Sarf East, innit? And Streetmap offers 4 towns around the UK - I never look at the others.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 18 May 15 - 10:46 AM

Lomeshaye in Burnley is known locally as ... Lummersher.

We've just returned from Flora Day in Helston, Cornwall. We stayed in Porthallow, the halfway point on the South West Coastal Path. Locally, it's called Pralla.

And outside Whitby we had a cottage in Aislaby, pronounced Aiselby. It's not far from Ruswarp, pronounced Russup.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 May 15 - 10:57 AM

In the US there is also:

VerSAILS (Illinois, Indiana)
San JOSIE (Illinois)
AYEthins (Illinois)
Nu YAWK (New York)
Ballimore (Maryland)
WARshington (DC)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: thnidu
Date: 18 May 15 - 12:17 PM

Someone way upthread wrote «It's not "MISS-ur-ee" but "MISS-ur-ah."» But it's neither of those. It's "miz-OOR-uh" /mɨˈzʊrə/ locally, and often "miz-OOR-ee" /mɨˈzʊri/ elsewhere.

Rapparee, you just barely beat me to it, but I somewhat disagree. AFAIK, Baltimore, Maryland is locally "BALLmer" /ˈbɔlmɚ/ — just two syllables) — in, I think, "MERRilind" /ˈmɛrəlɨnd/. And New York, where I grew up, is "noo YAWK" /nuˈjɔk/ if you're R-less*, but I'm R-ful* (that's what my sister always tells me) and "noo YORK" /nuˈjɔɹk/ is also OK.

* arrhotic, rhotic

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: GUEST,George Frampton
Date: 18 May 15 - 03:50 PM

Disagree with one of the above correspondents.
Leigh near Tonbridge is definitely pronounce 'Lye'
Mereworth is merryworth

Alan Major once claimed that anything ending in -den is stressed, but after 28 years of life in Marden, anyone calling it Mar-DEN would get an odd look. Definitely MAR-don.
The _DEN rule seems only to apply to HorsmonDEN, Spelmon-DEN and CowDEN, but not FRITTEN-den.
Mundy Bois near Pluckley, I assume to be Mundy BOYS.

Theydon Bois??

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: Anne Lister
Date: 18 May 15 - 05:10 PM

Mr Red, it is indubitably the case that your Welsh-familiar or speaking friends should have pronounced Caerphilly and Caerleon the way you suggest. It is also indubitably the case that, for the most part, if you pronounce the towns that way to most local inhabitants they will think you are a tourist or, at best, a Welsh speaker or learner.
I grew up on a street called Bryngwyn Road (easy enough as long as you don't panic at the lack of English vowels), near a street called Rhydepenau ..locally always Reeduhpinner, correctly somewhat different. These days, living as we do in Monmouthshire (not normally pronounced Munmuth although I suppose some people might) we try to make educated guesses as to whether it's the Cluther or the Cleyether gorge (it's written Clytha and strictly speaking should be Clutha) and I've learnt by working there that Mamhilad (should be Mamhillad) is in fact Mameyelad. But again, if I'm talking to Welsh speakers or fellow learners, I know to follow the rule book.
My late father-in-law had no truck with any suggestion of Welsh pronunciation, however, despite being married to someone with Welsh speaking family, and insisted it was Landudno in North Wales and, I believe, even Lanelly (instead of LLaneLLi, where LL makes the sound it's very hard to transliterate).
However, to digress from place names, my niece went to Welsh medium school (and is in the process of doing her A levels). Her early writing efforts all bore the traces of being taught in Welsh. "Jac and the binstoc. Jac met a jaeant and it was not fe... bwm bwm went the paerats' guns."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: LadyJean
Date: 18 May 15 - 06:13 PM

Mr. Red, I hope your grandfather never had dealings with mine. My paternal grandfather was a district attorney and then a judge.

Things were a little lively in the mills in those days. The one and only time I was ever taken to task for not cursing, I was talking about Henry Clay Frick, Andrew Carnegie's business partner.

Carnegie,in this part of the world, is pronounced carn egg ee. There is a nice little town named after him a little north of here.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: Penny S.
Date: 18 May 15 - 07:12 PM

Mr Red, now you mention it, I did go through a confused phase re Stroud/Strood when my sister moved to Eastcombe and my parents followed as far as Cirencester. It was as if my brain could only hold one pronounciation at a time, and was primarily working only on consonants. The usual error was to call Strood, which I seldom referred to, though it was quite close, by the Gloucestershire pronounciation. Odd.

Anyone got the pronounciation of Hurstmonceaux? I usually say Hurstmonsue (though the H is not much aspirated, and attempting to be dropped, and the o is more of a schwa). My mother was put out by someone who insisted the correct local version was 'urstmunzez, which she had never heard anyone say.

Penny

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: Musket
Date: 19 May 15 - 04:03 AM

A village down by where I come from is called Houghton.

How ton? No.
hor ton? No.

Huffun.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 19 May 15 - 08:59 AM

There are three different Claughtons in the North West;

Claughton, near Lancaster, pronounced /ˈklæftən/, Clafton
Claughton, north of Preston, pronounced /ˈklaɪtən/, Clyeton and
Claughton, on the Wirral, pronounced /ˈklɔːtən/, Clawton.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 May 15 - 09:35 AM

Most people outside Australia seems to pronounce its capital as "CAN-bur-a".

In Sydney they say "can-BER-a" (middle vowel as in "them"), and I think I've heard that from someone who was actually from there.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: GUEST
Date: 19 May 15 - 09:46 AM

There's a whole page on en.Wikipedia on the Sussex dialect and how it has influenced English spoken in New England.
Alceston - Ahson (though I've heard Anson)
Selmeston - Semson etc
Ardingly - ends with an eye (as does chimney) -
then there's Dittisham - Ditsum
Names in Norman French can be quite an eye-opener or should I say an ear-opener to French-speakers, but do they reflect the original Norman pronunciation? (Jersey, for example, in Norman French is Jerri)
Beaulieu - Bewley
Beauchamp - Beecham.
I've also heard that during World War Two, American troops (perhaps from the South?) stationed in parts of East Anglia found that their drawl fitted in very well with the local accent.
Edinburgh is definitely Embrra.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Local place names - local pronunciation
From: LadyJean
Date: 19 May 15 - 11:24 PM

Oh, Natchez Street on Mt. Washington is pronounced Nat Cheese street. Natchez is, normally, pronounced nat chez.