BS: Pronounciation

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 02 Feb 04 - 05:30 AM

Barnoldswick, Lancashire? pronounced Barlick by the locals, very strange. A beauty from Edinburgh Corstorphine pronounced, Kerstoffan.
eric

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Fiolar
Date: 02 Feb 04 - 06:19 AM

All the postings remind me of the story about the overseas student who was learning English at one of the colleges in GB. On his way home one evening he saw a headline on one of the newstands. It stated in bold letters - "Pope Pronounced Worse."
Confused or what?

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 02 Feb 04 - 06:52 AM

There is a Jeremy Taylor song about De Gaulle coming to England, he got told to piss off that many times he took it for the traditional English greeting.
eric

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: AKS
Date: 02 Feb 04 - 07:01 AM

"Pope Pronounced Worse."
Now that wouldn't surprise me at all, knowing some basics on the 'rules' of English spelling ...

You guys ever heard of 'one-sound-one-letter' -principle in spelling??

AKS ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: muppett
Date: 02 Feb 04 - 10:16 AM

Nay s&r it's not Bratford it's Brafud

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Big Mick
Date: 02 Feb 04 - 12:04 PM

Cairo, Ohio

pronounced by the locals as Kairoe, Uh-High-ya

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Feb 04 - 12:33 PM

Big Mick, did you go and move Cairo, Illinois? (Kayroe, Il-i-noi)
Illinois is home state for Aye-thens and San Josey, too. And Kwinsee.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Feb 04 - 01:26 PM

Unless you can get all English speaking people to speak it the same way (whihc couldn't be done even within one small island), there's no point in pretending you can have a one-sound-one letter system.

Unless of course everyone starts spelling the words differently, to fit with the way they speak, and that would get even more confusing.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: GUEST,ozmacca
Date: 02 Feb 04 - 06:07 PM

Always liked the story about Bernard Shaw's suggestion that the word "fish" could be spelt (spelled?) GHOTI...

GH as in "tough" or "cough"
O as in "women"
TI as in "nation"

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: s&r
Date: 02 Feb 04 - 07:40 PM

well muppet, I'm not alone in my (my wife's) pronunciation - there are many on google, including one intriguingly from CCL (a computer firm) but also this strange post (one of several) from Lord Huntroyde (who he?) on this Boris Johnson fan page stand back in horror

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 02 Feb 04 - 07:49 PM

I just remembered that the town of Elgin, Illinois is pronounced EL-Jin, whereas the original town of Elgin in Morayshire is of course pronounced Elgin (wwith a hard "G")

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Feb 04 - 09:13 PM

And of course Iraq is correctly pronounced with a long "a", to rhyme with park.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Daithi
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 08:58 AM

Muppet/s&r I think your apparent disagreement might stem from the difficulkty of writing the glottal stop. My ex-wife and her Family are Yorkshire and in the west riding at least it is usually pronounced bra'fud - where the ' is a glottal stop.A bit like brat but wiothout the t.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: muppett
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 09:57 AM

Daithi - Excuse my ignornance about the use of the 'glottal stop, but that might solve the mystery of S&R Plus others pronouncing Brafud as Bratford, However I've just done a poll with a group of Fagley, Thornbury & Bradford Moor residents (areas of North Brafud)who are all born & bred in the area (and the youngest being 60)from a community group I work with and they all agree there's no T in Brafud.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 10:38 AM

Mousehole in Cornwall=mouzle..go figure.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 03:02 PM

Calais in the Us is callous. Odd eh ?

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Burke
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 06:25 PM

And of course Iraq is correctly pronounced with a long "a", to rhyme with park.

Funny, I thought a long "a" would rhyme with rake. The real question is what you do with the "I"
eye-rak
ear-ak

Data, status, I've heard with both long & short "a"

Interesting: 3 or 4 syllables?

Melville Dewey, in addition to devising a classification system for libraries, was an advocate of orthographic reform. The Dewey Schedules published during his lifetime made use of the revised spelling. They are odd to read.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: GUEST,Peter from Essex
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 07:36 PM

Marylebone is always a good one to get Londoners going.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 05:30 AM

There was a bloody awful country and western son a few years ago which had the line, ' it's centrifugal motion ' pronounced- centrifagal. I still cringe.
eric

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Daithi
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 06:45 AM

Muppett - yes, ..but do they pronounce it Braff-ud? Surely they say bra'-fud?(i.e.with a glottal stop between the "a" and the "f")

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 08:41 AM

I think the way Iraq would be pronounced in Iraq would be with the first syllable more or less rhyming with tee, but shorter. I suspect that Iraqis would be likely to assume that the "eye-rack" version was intended as a deliberate insult. (I note that NPR has a pronunciation guide on this and similar, which correctly gives Iraq as pronounced "ih-RAHK".)

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: s&r
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 03:52 PM

Daithi (don't know how to get the accent)

Dáithí - yes I do with cut and paste - I think you may be right with the glottal stop: my wife is from Yorkshire and puts a glottal stop in the middle of thirty, forty etc (thir/?/ty, for/?/ty etc.). Strangely she doesn't hear it any differently whether or not it has a glottal stop.

It is she who insists it's Bratford: I'm from Notts, and have only academic interest.

Since your earlier post I ended up with a goole-trawl on glottal stop. Fascinating...

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: open mike
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 04:57 PM

Utah Phillips always pronounced the word foothills as if the "th" was a dipthong (it that a piece of clothing?!) as if footh rhymed with truth.
There is a town in Nebraska called Norfolk which is pronounced Nor Fork.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: s&r
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 06:19 PM

I think it was Dave Walters who (resenting Wesham being pronounced with a sh sound, when it should be wess ham) that insisted on calling Bispham Biss fam instead of Bisp ham

That's really boring : >

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: jimmyt
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 06:29 PM

And Bill Bryson, the author of Notes From a Small Island ,of his impressions as an American travelling to England, said he went to visit Newquay if for no other reason than he wanted to be in a place that is pronounced "Nookie" (.................well, hell, now that I think about it, who wouldn't?)

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 07:47 PM

Then of course there's Derby and Berkshire, pronounced Darby and Barkshire in England.

Cirencester used to be Sissiter, but that seems to have pretty well died out, and it gets pronounced the way it's spelt.

The same with "Sawbridgeworth" down my way, which used to be "Sapsworth".

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: PoppaGator
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 09:05 PM

Back to New Orleans (where I've lived for 35 years -- not all my life, but more than half):

I *never* heard anyone pronounce it "N'awlins" before that erroneous phonetic spelling became popular about 15 years ago.

Here's how I believe that error developed:

Back in the early 1970's, the headline over an article by local writer John Newlin in the (now-defunct) Vieux Carre Courier used the spelling "No Awlins," which *is* a pretty good phonetic representation of the way most working-class locals say the city's name. It's three syllables (maybe two-an-a-half), NOT the two syllables convey by the neo-spelling "N'awlins."

I believe that some less linguistically sophisticated advertising copywriters bastardized "No Awlins" (which made sense, in the light of actual usage) and started the wide dissemination of "N'Awlins" (which never did represent anyone's actual speech pattern). Now, we have "local" TV personalities reading "Naw-lins" off cue cards and further popularizsing this mispronunciation.

Other ways to approximate an authentic phonetic spelling of the same or similar pronunciation might include "N'walins" "Noo-awlins," etc. The more genteel uptown community says it more like this: "Noo-wally-uns" (making "leans" into two syl;lables rather than one).

To confuse matters furhter: With or without contractions and other allowances for dialect, the accent should always be on the first syllable of "OR-leans" when used with the word "New," as the name of the city. However, when used *without* "New," as in Orleans Parish and Orleans Avenue, etc., the accent is properly on the second syllable ("Or-LEENZ"). Of course, there are many many songs incorrectly pronouncing the city name as "New Or-LEENZ," just because it scans and rhymes more easily.

We have many more pronunciation-related flukes around the city:
Burgundy Street is bur-GUN-dee, not BUR-gundy.
Chartres Street is "charters," not the proper French "shart[re]"
The nine streets named for the Greek muses all have quirky voicings:
Calliope is "cally-ope" not ca-lye-o-pee;
Melpomene is "MEL-puh-MEEN" (or even "mel-ka-meen") not mel-POM-any.
Then there's Burthe Street uptown, pronounced "Byooth."
Across the river in Algiers, Socrates St. is pronounced "so-crates" -- really!

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 09:16 PM

Holyhead to Dun Laoighaire is always a corker.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: muppett
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 04:55 AM

Wow, S&R, you're right, I've done the same, looked up about The gottal stop, fascinating. Cheers Daithi

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Daithi
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 08:29 AM

Tha's wha' i's all abou' , inni'? Aren' compu'ers grea'? :^)

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 01:23 PM

"Snorbens" for "St Albans" is one I have always quite liked.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: GUEST,noddy
Date: 06 Feb 04 - 05:26 AM

as Spike Milligan said "He walked with a pronounced limp, pronounced limp."

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: GUEST,noddy
Date: 06 Feb 04 - 05:30 AM

of course there is always

the doctor pronounced him dead.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: muppett
Date: 06 Feb 04 - 05:46 AM

Appletric is what Dales folk call the Wharfedale village of Appletreewick

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 06 Feb 04 - 07:39 AM

We always called it Appletrewick, when fishing there.
eric

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: muppett
Date: 06 Feb 04 - 10:00 AM

AR But eric are you local?, it's what local people call their local village.

Talking of which, here's a slight variation of the theme, I've heard the locals of Robin Hoods bay refer to the village as Bay town and the neighbouring village of Filingthorpe as Thorpe. Any other examples of this?

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Feb 04 - 02:17 PM

There is a thread on the latest CD by a group called "The Boarding Party" ('local' to my area ).A local lady, originally from a small town in coastal Mass. happily refers to "The Bawding Potty"..and I have a hard time keeping my face straight.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: s&r
Date: 11 Feb 04 - 08:39 PM

Why do people pronounce cervical and dissect with long 'i's?

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 12 Feb 04 - 07:56 AM

jOhn from ull- pronounced TWAT.
eric

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Bobjack
Date: 12 Feb 04 - 11:31 AM

Appletreewick! Is John Pitchers still running the pub up there? Anyone know how he is? I heard he was run over by a car a bit back.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 12 Feb 04 - 02:56 PM

It could be worse. My (more or less) hometown of Norfolk, VA which should be Nor-folk somehow has become Nor-fuk or as some outsider call it No-fuk add to that the state being bastardized to vagina instead of Vir-gin-ya.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 13 Feb 04 - 12:08 PM

>>"Snorbens" for "St Albans" is one I have always quite liked.

Don't forget Fort Neaf in sarf London, otherwise Thornton Heath. And no less an authority than the BBC changed the pronunciation of Daintry to Daventry.

Then there's always Loughborough.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Snuffy
Date: 13 Feb 04 - 01:24 PM

I've heard an American pronounce it Loogburoo

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: HuwG
Date: 13 Feb 04 - 02:42 PM

... and of an Australian who pronounced it, "Loogabarooga".

Near to me, Tintwhistle (on the A628), locally pronounced "Tinsel". A friend who asked directions to my house and was told to cross "Tinsel Bridge", nearly went mad looking for the bridge covered in Christmas decorations.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Feb 04 - 05:38 PM

I'm still feeling oddly compelled (though not necessarily in a pleasurable way...) by the idea of the Cher, Sinead O'Connor and June Tabor performance...and possible follow-up CD!

D.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: woodsie
Date: 13 Feb 04 - 10:55 PM

What about the stupid names:

Marjoribanks - Marshbanks

Featherstonehaugh - Fanshaw

Oh and why do people pronounce Bert Jansch "yansh"? In an interview in the London Evening Standard a couple of years ago he said that his name was pronounced "Jansh"!

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: woodsie
Date: 06 May 04 - 02:30 PM

What acout Bastard (as in the french jockey)pronounced B'sturd ha ha!

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: woodsie
Date: 06 May 04 - 02:35 PM

Wines are a good one too!

Vermouth should be pronounced "Var moot"
Moet Chandon "MOW ETT" not "Mow ay"
Riesling "Reesling"

I think a few Scotch whiskys have strange guttaral sounds as well.

Glenfidikhrgggggrh!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: GUEST,Shlio
Date: 06 May 04 - 04:56 PM

After many arguments over games of Monopoly, Marylebone station is always called "the M-station". Does anyone know if it should be Mary-le-bone or Marlybone?

The worst place name by far is "Llanfairpwyllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch"

The people who work in the station there learn how to say it. Apparently the proninciation is
"Llan-vire-pooll-guin-gill-go-ger-u-queern-drob-ooll-llandus-iliogogo-goch".

Not helpful when you aren't welsh.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronounciation
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 06 May 04 - 05:44 PM

I'm always amused by the pronunciation Americans give to Notre Dame - 'Noter Dayme'. Insular lot or what?

The residents of Southwell I'm informed call it Southwell, not Suthell.

And there's a village in Notts called New Houghton, which the locals call 'Uff'n' (the 'New' being totally ignored!

:0)