I think you'd understand the pronunciation better if you thought, "DEwee Prees": "De" with a short e, as in 'pet'. Prees is the beginning of anglicization of ap Rhys - 'son of Rhys'. Price, Brice, Bryce, Breese, et al are all further incarnations of this. As well as the loss completely of 'ap', which gave us all the Rhys or Rees, or even Reeses names. (Happens elsewhere too. i.e. ap Ywain become Owen, Owens, Bowen, Bowens, etc.)

Housewives all over Wales - and I imagine throughout the British Isles - had their little tricks to out-do their neighbours in housekeeping (something to which I can NOT relate) and I've read academic essays about the vanities involved in cleaning the front doorstep of terrace houses. I know that in many parts of Wales where slate doorsteps are the norm, women polished the surfaces in very specific pattern which eventually wore themselves permanently into the surface - a way of expressing yourself creatively in a very dreary world. Seems to me that they had various secrets for making them shine, and paraffin rings a bell ...

The Menai Straits are indeed very popular for sailing but I'll bet Dave can also tell you how perilous they can be. Fast tides.

sian