BS: Pronounciation

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: GUEST,Peter from Essex
Date: 06 May 04 - 07:30 PM

There was a long debate on the M-station on uk.transport.london the only conclusion seemed to be NEVER Mary-lee-bone

Marly-bone and Mary-l'bun seem acceptable alternatives.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: ranger1
Date: 06 May 04 - 11:00 PM

As an American who can pronounce Notre Dame correctly (some of us do live in French speaking areas, thank you very much), I challenge you to:
Damariscotta
Chocorua
Piscataquis

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 07 May 04 - 06:15 AM

Then, Dear Ranger1, you need to teach your TV sports commentators and news readers to do the same! :0)

Johnny :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: woodsie
Date: 07 May 04 - 12:16 PM

Van Gough

"van gow" "van goff" "van gok" Ha!

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: HuwG
Date: 07 May 04 - 01:10 PM

Best comment on the pronunciation of "Norfolk":

In the mid-1930's, Mae West heard that the Duke of Norfolk was staying in the same hotel as she was. She sent him up a present of a bottle of scotch and box of cigars, with a note to say that the Duke was welcome to pay her a visit some time.

She received in reply a note which said, "Madam, I neither drink nor smoke. Norfolk."

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Bill D
Date: 07 May 04 - 03:21 PM

on TV the last few days, I have been hearing hosts of Big Brass who STILL have not learned to pronounce "Iraq" correctly....don't they even care? (They are 'almost' as bad as some Brit journalists on CNN, who seem to be constitutionally incapable of saying foreign names anywhere near the way the natives would.)

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: s&r
Date: 07 May 04 - 05:26 PM

Place names are often pronounced differently by non-natives. What English speaker says 'Paree'(Paris) except jocularly?

What's correct for Iraq? What happened to Peking?

How many people say Nescafeh and Nestlehs?

Why do newspapers persist in printing 'up' as said in the North of England as 'oop'?

Vive les differences

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Bill D
Date: 07 May 04 - 06:17 PM

Simón Bolivar as "Sy-mon Bolliver"?

Nick-uh-RAG-you-uh for Nicaragua?

we can at least try....

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: GUEST,woodsie
Date: 07 May 04 - 06:32 PM

Thatamerican warmonger bloke "COE-lin Powell"

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Bill D
Date: 07 May 04 - 06:51 PM

ah...Mr Powell!...well..*shrug*...he seems to have chosen, so I pronounce it like he does. I don't even think about the 'other' use...but it seems to drive the Brits barmy to hear it said that way...*grin*

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: s&r
Date: 07 May 04 - 06:56 PM

years ago, didn't the BBC have a manual of BBC preferred pronunciations of places and names; that would at least give consistency of reporting.

NEWcastle is a northern city in UK unless you live there; then it's NewCASTLE.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 08 May 04 - 07:44 AM

S&R, people in the North of England don't say 'oop' (test it - say 'loop', then say 'loop' without the 'l', that's not how we pronounce 'up'). We say 'up'. People in the South of England say 'ap'.

Johnny :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: s&r
Date: 08 May 04 - 01:03 PM

Just my point Johnny - we both know that the U in up is short; we both know how it sounds. Regularly in newspapers it is spelled oop. I wish they wouldn't.

Other pet hates: quarter pronounced corter (like cestionnaire) Belorus - pronounced without the soft Russian e (b-yel-o-roos).

We are northern; our daughter in Oxford called our grandson Grant...(Gr-are-nt)

stu

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Tracey Dragonsfriend
Date: 08 May 04 - 01:54 PM

Try this one - I'm native English, and it gives me trouble!


                ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF
                ======================

                Dearest creature in creation,
                Study English pronunciation.
                I will teach you in my verse
                Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
                I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
                Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
                Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
                So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

                Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
                Dies and diet, lord and word,
                Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
                (Mind the latter, how it's written.)
                Now I surely will not plague you
                With such words as plaque and ague.
                But be careful how you speak:
                Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
                Cloven, oven, how and low,
                Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

                Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
                Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
                Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
                Exiles, similes, and reviles;
                Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
                Solar, mica, war and far;
                One, anemone, Balmoral,
                Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
                Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
                Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

                Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
                Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
                Blood and flood are not like food,
                Nor is mould like should and would.
                Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
                Toward, to forward, to reward.
                And your pronunciation's OK
                When you correctly say croquet,
                Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
                Friend and fiend, alive and live.

                Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
                And enamour rhyme with hammer.
                River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
                Doll and roll and some and home.
                Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
                Neither does devour with clangour.
                Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
                Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
                Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
                And then singer, ginger, linger,
                Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
                Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

                Query does not rhyme with very,
                Nor does fury sound like bury.
                Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
                Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
                Though the differences seem little,
                We say actual but victual.
                Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
                Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
                Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
                Dull, bull, and George ate late.
                Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
                Science, conscience, scientific.

                Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
                Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
                We say hallowed, but allowed,
                People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
                Mark the differences, moreover,
                Between mover, cover, clover;
                Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
                Chalice, but police and lice;
                Camel, constable, unstable,
                Principle, disciple, label.

                Petal, panel, and canal,
                Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
                Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
                Senator, spectator, mayor.
                Tour, but our and succour, four.
                Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
                Sea, idea, Korea, area,
                Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
                Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
                Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

                Compare alien with Italian,
                Dandelion and battalion.
                Sally with ally, yea, ye,
                Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
                Say aver, but ever, fever,
                Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
                Heron, granary, canary.
                Crevice and device and aerie.

                Face, but preface, not efface.
                Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
                Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
                Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
                Ear, but earn and wear and tear
                Do not rhyme with here but ere.
                Seven is right, but so is even,
                Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
                Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
                Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
         
                Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
                Is a paling stout and spikey?
                Won't it make you lose your wits,
                Writing groats and saying grits?
                It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
                Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
                Islington and Isle of Wight,
                Housewife, verdict and indict.

                Finally, which rhymes with enough --
                Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
                Hiccough has the sound of cup.
                My advice is to give up!


                                              -- Author Unknown

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Bill D
Date: 08 May 04 - 06:29 PM

oh, mercy, Tracy...that is one of the best I have seen.

I also like the short one..
"The wind was rough
And cold and blough.
She kept her hands
Inside her mough."

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 May 04 - 11:04 PM

And for those of us native to Warshington, the strange pronuciation of the city to our north- Ballmur...

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 09 May 04 - 01:57 PM

Stu - a thousand apologies old lad! I'm a SOB who's losing the ability to read postings properly! (LOL)
Johnny :0)