Mis -pronounced names

[motco]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Apologies if it's already been done but "Fish"

'f' from gh as in rough. 'i' from the 'o' in women, 'sh' from the the 'ti' in emotion. GBS I believe.

[feef]

Another Scottish one. I grew up not far from Strathaven. (Stray-ven)

And bought the papers from John Menzies (Mingiss)

[Vipers]

Have we had Everest yet? its should be pronounced EVV-uh-rest, not Ev-uh-rest.

This is how Sir George Everest (1799-1866), the Welsh born Surveyor General of India, after whom it is named, pronounced his surname.

[Vipers]

kowalski655 said:

For years I pronounced Portakabin as Por-Tacker-bin, rather than porter-cabin
For some reason it never clicked what the words were in my head, despite them being portable cabins

I always thought Burnt Island, which is shown as Burntisland, was pronounced Burntis Land.

[droopsnoot]

Moonhawk said:

Moet et Chandon seems to get mispronounced a lot - mainly by people trying to sound posh/cultured.

It's pronounced Mo-et, not Mo-ey

Van den Plas is often mis-pronounced as "van den plah", when the 's' should be sounded. Not as often as it used to be, of course. For the same reason, I think.

[RichB]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

djt100 said:

Beaconsfield

I work near there and there is no common agreement even by the folk that live there. Some say Beek, and some say Beck. I've always been a Beck.

I've always been a Beeconsfield but Bekonscot.

[aR53GP]

Bruschetta. Pronounced 'bruh-sketta' and not 'bruh-shetta'.

[droopsnoot]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

djt100 said:

Beaconsfield

I work near there and there is no common agreement even by the folk that live there. Some say Beek, and some say Beck. I've always been a Beck.

Same for Shrewsbury as someone mentioned earlier - it seems to depend on which end of the place you come from.

[motco]

RichB said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

djt100 said:

Beaconsfield

I work near there and there is no common agreement even by the folk that live there. Some say Beek, and some say Beck. I've always been a Beck.

I've always been a Beeconsfield but Bekonscot.

I lived there for thirty five years and the different pronunciations are 'class' related and also to how long your family has been there. Too complex to say that C1 C2 and D say Beek, and A,B say Bek. Some Bs still say beek if they recent arrivals, and some Cs say Bek if they're second generation. It derives from 'Bekensfeld' which is a clearing in the beech woods. Seems to have nothing to do with beacons...

[Vipers]

droopsnoot said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

djt100 said:

Beaconsfield

I work near there and there is no common agreement even by the folk that live there. Some say Beek, and some say Beck. I've always been a Beck.

Same for Shrewsbury as someone mentioned earlier - it seems to depend on which end of the place you come from.

Similarly the car Vauxhall, I have always called it "vox-all", my pal calls it "Vaux-all"

[RichB]

motco said:

RichB said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

djt100 said:

Beaconsfield

I work near there and there is no common agreement even by the folk that live there. Some say Beek, and some say Beck. I've always been a Beck.

I've always been a Beeconsfield but Bekonscot.

I lived there for thirty five years and the different pronunciations are 'class' related and also to how long your family has been there. Too complex to say that C1 C2 and D say Beek, and A,B say Bek. Some Bs still say beek if they recent arrivals, and some Cs say Bek if they're second generation. It derives from 'Bekensfeld' which is a clearing in the beech woods. Seems to have nothing to do with beacons...

Interesting, thank you for the explanation. I first visited about 55 years ago with my Mum and Aunt. We took the 207 from Ealing to Uxbridge and a Greenline from there to Beaconsfield. Being a London boy, when I got off the bus at the Saracen's Head and started to walk to the model village I thought the quaint little cottages were the model village!

[Huff]

motco said:

It derives from 'Bekensfeld' which is a clearing in the beech woods. Seems to have nothing to do with beacons...

Good old Saxon-infused English.

'Bacon' is a similar derivative - it's simply a corruption of beken, i.e. pigs which were fattened on Beech mast in the forests; and our word 'book' comes form the germanic 'buk' - of the same linguistic root - from beech-wood tablets used for writing

Edited by Huff on Tuesday 29th November 22:26

[Tony Angelino]

One for the Yorkshire lads:

Slaithwaite

[ClaphamGT3]

There is no 'x' in espresso!

Oh, and Wymondham

[red_slr]

E320 said:

Called Dacia Day-sher until I heard an ad pronounce it Datcha. I prefer my pronunciation.

More personally, no can pronounce my first name without a demo. Bloody foreign names...

I am far from an expert in French but I am fairly sure it should sound off with the S not the T.

[xRIEx]

red_slr said:

E320 said:

Called Dacia Day-sher until I heard an ad pronounce it Datcha. I prefer my pronunciation.

More personally, no can pronounce my first name without a demo. Bloody foreign names...

I am far from an expert in French but I am fairly sure it should sound off with the S not the T.

What French? Dacia is Romanian.

Or are you talking about something else?

[mebe]

And according to a Romanian friend it is "daychia" with the ch a little softer than we would make it sound, certainly no "t" in there.

[Skyrat]

Tam_Mullen said:

simoid said:

GroundEffect said:

Milngavie = Miln-Guy

Miln!? Mull, Shirley.

Another Scottish place name,

Finzean pro. Fing in

Enjoy

https://youtu.be/5XED4rL9vj8

Ruairidh Duguid
Dalziel
Garioch

Edited by Skyrat on Wednesday 30th November 00:28

[Turkish91]

I remember as a kid I used to say Ohio as O-hee-o... Said it in front of my Mum on the way to school and she nearly crashed the car laughing!

[yellowjack]

boyse7en said:

mrtwisty said:

Anyone care to have a try at Woolfardisworthy?

Easy...

But I am about 4 miles down the road from there

I like the fact that the pronunciation is so different to the spelling, even the road signs have the phonetic spelling underneath in small letters to help the grockles

Edited by boyse7en on Tuesday 29th November 14:23

To be frank, I reckon lots of mispronounced place names are simply down to lazy local feckers who can't be bothered to say it properly.


So many variations in the spelling of names, surnames especially, stems from cultural differences and language barriers. Pritchard, Parry, Penry - all are corruptions of Welsh names Ap Richard, Ap Harry, Ap Henry. 'Ap' is 'son of', so Richard Pritchard would be what an English census taker wrote down when a Welsh person, centuries ago, said Richard Ap Richard (Richard, son of Richard) in answer to the question "Vot iz your name?" Traditionally that's how many cultures have used names. Your given name followed by your father's given name.

Baker, Wright, Carpenter, Fisher, Cooper, are all similarly born out of the imperative to give a written surname on documents. They are simply the trade of the person who was asked to give their name. Not having a surname, when required to give one by a Norman conqueror for example, meant you got given one, and the solution was to use the person's trade.

Moet? I pronounce that wrong, but I blame Freddy Mercury for that. Similarly other things I pronounce wrong will be traced to hearing it pronounced wrong for years while growing up. As for towns like Towcester? Just fk off. If you want it pronounced Toaster, then spell it that way. Or just accept that folk who've never been will say it wrong, and quit faking offence. It's YOUR stupid fault that you are linguistically lazy and don't pronounce it properly in the first place.

Oh! For a language with rules. Like German, for instance. See a letter, say a letter, what could be simpler???