Trivia: Place names that you're not sure how to pronounce

[John Griffiths]

But what is correct? Should Geordies be required to speak of 'LAANdn' as the national c as loyal?

 

[PeterC]

Pronounced Cosh-um, Chesh-‘m and Tolw’th, respectively.



Definitely pronounced Boz-um, although many get it wrong.

Cosham and Bosham do get mixed up quite a lot, too.

With Chesham the flood of incommers with post war development, particularly after electrification has changed the pronunciation.
The dialect pronunciation is definitely Chess-um or Chezz-um (I think the difference was class related) but you will struggle to hear anybody with on old school Bucks accent any more. I have heard the old pronunciation used in more countryfied parts of the county but even that was over 20 years ago.

 

[Altrincham]

Not quite correct, Altrincham is pronounced "ol-tring-um". Many place names beginning Al in West Mercia are pronounced "ol..."

Quite right. “Ol-tring-um” is the correct pronunciation.

“Alt” as in “Altar”, Alter”, “Altered”.

 

[Dr_Paul]

I once upset someone from Norfolk by pronouncing "Costessey" on the edge of Norwich as "Cozzy", to be told "it's not something you go swimming in, it's "Cossy". You would have thought they would have given me more credit for not calling it "Cos-tess-sea" but no, a hard z sound caused a right royal rumpus.

Years back up in Lowestoft, a bloke said to me: 'Goenta Narge?' It took me a little while to work out that he was asking me whether I was going to Norwich.

 

[Welshman]

I had a friend who kept asking if I were going to"Swarfe 'em"!
Sounded quite painful.

 

[30907]

Quite right. “Ol-tring-um” is the correct pronunciation.

“Alt” as in “Altar”, Alter”, “Altered”.

Related: Allerton on Merseyside is AFAIK pronounced as in "Al," the Bradford one is "Ol" - then there's Chapel Allerton in Leeds which I'm not sure about! And neither have stations so I'm OT.

 

[Peter C]

Apologies if this has already been asked, but can anyone on here pronounce
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
?

Would be quite the thing if you could!

-Peter

EDIT: Turns out this has been asked before, so I'll keep quiet.

 

[krus_aragon]

EDIT: Turns out this has been asked before, so I'll keep quiet.

Don't be quiet, record your pronunciation of the name and let us all hear it!

 

[Tomos y Tanc]

Don't be quiet, record your pronunciation of the name and let us all hear it!

It's very easy to pronounce - but I say that as a native Welsh speaker.

Welsh is more or less totally phoenetic. Unlike English, we don't have things like 'cough' and 'thought' where the letters 'ough' have entirely different sounds.

The reason Welsh looks odd to non Welsh speakers is that our 29 letter alphabet uses double letter symbols for a single letter, so Ll, Ch, Ff etc are actually single letters. Similarly, to an English eye, Welsh has very few vowels but we actually have seven compared to the five that exist in English. In English the vowels are A, E, I, O, U. In Welsh they're A, E, I, O, U, W, Y.

S4C's alphabet song explains it nicely!

None of which means one language is 'better' or 'more logical' than the other. They're just different in the way they use the Latin alphabet.

 

[fairysdad]

It's very easy to pronounce - but I say that as a native Welsh speaker.

Welsh is more or less totally phoenetic. Unlike English, we don't have things like 'cough' and 'thought' where the letters 'ough' have entirely different sounds.

The reason Welsh looks odd to non Welsh speakers is that our 29 letter alphabet uses double letter symbols for a single letter, so Ll, Ch, Ff etc are actually single letters. Similarly, to an English eye, Welsh has very few vowels but we actually have seven compared to the five that exist in English. In English the vowels are A, E, I, O, U. In Welsh they're A, E, I, O, U, W, Y.

S4C's alphabet song explains it nicely!

None of which means one language is 'better' or 'more logical' than the other. They're just different in the way they use the Latin alphabet.

Interesting that the kid in that video is doing the sign language for each of the letters, and it's the same alphabet as 'normal' BSL with just extras for the additional letters (as far as I could tell - it's been a long time since I did any BSL!), which is more interesting given that the vowels are signed by pointing to the digits on your hand.

Also - noticed that there was no K, Q, V, X, or Z; are these letters not in the Welsh alphabet?

(Also also... that tune is quite catchy, even if I didn't understand the words!)

 

[krus_aragon]

It's very easy to pronounce - but I say that as a native Welsh speaker.

I have to admit I was indulging in a spot of Schadenfreude (sp?) there. I'm also familiar with it's pronunciation, having been raised (bilingually) a few miles away. I was interested in how Peter C might attempt it!

Interesting that the kid in that video is doing the sign language for each of the letters, and it's the same alphabet as 'normal' BSL with just extras for the additional letters (as far as I could tell - it's been a long time since I did any BSL!), which is more interesting given that the vowels are signed by pointing to the digits on your hand.

My knowledge of BSL is limited, but the way Makaton is "spoken" in English and Welsh is pretty much identical (as I know from much watching of Something Special and Dwylo'r Enfys with my youngsters). Makaton itself borrows significantly from BSL, too. I suppose it makes sense to change as little as you need to.

Also - noticed that there was no K, Q, V, X, or Z; are these letters not in the Welsh alphabet?

Nope. K used to be common, but fell out of use with the arrival of the printing press, because English printers didn't have enough 'K's and substituted them with 'C's instead. The sound of 'Q' is represented by 'cw', 'V' by the letter 'f' (the 'F' sound is the letter 'ff'), 'X' by 'cs', and 'Z' by 's'.

J is a recent adoption into the alphabet. In olden times it would be substituted with an I (much like Latin), but recent loan word such as Jam and Jiraff mean it's now part of the Welsh alphabet taught to kids (whereas it wasn't two or three decades ago).

 

[G Broughton]

Village in South Lincolnshire, station closed 1961

Cowbit pronounced Cubbit

 

[Tomos y Tanc]

Also - noticed that there was no K, Q, V, X, or Z; are these letters not in the Welsh alphabet?

No, we don't use them. J was also absent until a few years ago but was recently included due to the number of English loan words that feature it. The Welsh equivelant of K is C, V is F while the English F sound is Ff.

The absence of K is a funny one since it's a very common letter in Cornish and Breton, the two other Brythonic languages. It's said that when the Bible was translated into Welsh back in Tudor times, the printer lacks sufficient K blocks so used C instead! I've no idea how true that is but it's a nice story

 

[PeterC]

The Welsh discussion reminded me, these days its on a preserved line but how would you pronounce Blaenavon?

In-laws who lived in the valley always said "Blenavon" but on BBC Wales I have heard Bl-eye-navon which, being used to the local accent, always sounds a bit affected to me.

 

[paddington]

Quite right. “Ol-tring-um” is the correct pronunciation.

“Alt” as in “Altar”, Alter”, “Altered”.

Obviously it depends on your local dialect but all and ol are relatively similar. What I really want to know is why the "nch" is pronounced as "ng".

 

[krus_aragon]

The Welsh discussion reminded me, these days its on a preserved line but how would you pronounce Blaenavon?

In-laws who lived in the valley always said "Blenavon" but on BBC Wales I have heard Bl-eye-navon which, being used to the local accent, always sounds a bit affected to me.

'ae' is a dipthong in Welsh, i.e. it's a two vowel sounds blended together. In the local dialect, it would indeed sound like the English 'eye', though with my Northern dialect I'd pronounce it more like 'aaye'. (See here for more details on dipthongs.)

If I were to take a guess, I'd suggest the "Blenavon" pronunciation came about because in English the 'ae' dipthong has died out, to be replaced with 'e' in most instances.

 

[sprunt]

It's probably for the best that Belvoir Castle doesn't have a station.

 

[Peter C]

Don't be quiet, record your pronunciation of the name and let us all hear it!

I don't know if my pronunciation is 100% accurate (or even 60%..) though!

-Peter

 

[krus_aragon]

I don't know if my pronunciation is 100% accurate (or even 60%..) though!

-Peter

That's where the entertainment value would have been.

 

[Peter C]

That's where the entertainment value would have been.

Oh yes - silly me!

-Peter

 

[bigfoote]

It's probably for the best that Belvoir Castle doesn't have a station.

Bell-Veer?

Some have already been covered, for a Portsmouth local, Cosham (cosh-ham) and Bosham (bozz-em) are the normal ones, rarely Rowlands Castle pronounced as the argument Row-lands, although on a trip the other day I did overhear a couple call Swanwick; Swaan-wick (long a, emphasised W in wick).

 

[Peter C]

Bell-Veer?

Some have already been covered, for a Portsmouth local, Cosham (cosh-ham) and Bosham (bozz-em) are the normal ones, rarely Rowlands Castle pronounced as the argument Row-lands, although on a trip the other day I did overhear a couple call Swanwick; Swaan-wick (long a, emphasised W in wick).

Not knowing anything about Belvoir Castle, I would have said "Bell-vwah".
A Portsmouth-related (in train terms at least) is Havant - the number of people who say "Hav-ANT" as in the ant bug. It's Havant as in "haven't". I've only been there once, mind.
Swanwick? "Swan-ick" - is that right?

-Peter

 

[Peter C]

Again, sorry if these have been mentioned, but:
Gloucester
Worcester
Holborn
Hanborough

Gloss-ter, Wuss-ter, Holl-born*, and HANborough! Not HANDborough!

Just some small ones which people get wrong. Holborn comes from Anglo-Saxon and the others I'm not sure about.

-Peter

*Pronounced more like "Holl (as in hollow) - bun"

 

[Iggy12a]

It's probably for the best that Belvoir Castle doesn't have a station.

"Beaver" is the correct pronunciation

 

[Parallel]

It's quite surprising the amount of people who don't know how to pronounce Worcester. I semi-regularly hear people mispronounce it. There again it's not obvious unless you know and I don't live especially close to the city.

My teacher at school spelt Gloucester as 'Gloster' when I was younger. I had to bite my tongue. Thankfully they weren't a Geography teacher.

I've heard a manual announcer refer to Frodsham as 'Frodjum' before. Not sure if that's correct or a local thing.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

An American friend of mine had finally got her head around Leicester, Gloucester, Worcester and so on... even Towcester (Toaster)... but then Cirencester threw a spanner in the works! "Kirrenster" was her best guess understandably. When I told her it was "Siren-sester" (which I bl**dy hope is right, after all that!) she thought I was taking the Michael!

 

[Merthyr Imp]

An American friend of mine had finally got her head around Leicester, Gloucester, Worcester and so on... even Towcester (Toaster)... but then Cirencester threw a spanner in the works! "Kirrenster" was her best guess understandably. When I told her it was "Siren-sester" (which I bl**dy hope is right, after all that!) she thought I was taking the Michael!

Did she have a try at Leominster?

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Did she have a try at Leominster?

She didn't... though if she had, I'd have only been 60% certain that my guess of "Lemster" would be close to correct!

 

[TheScud]

Habrough. Never knew how this was meant to be pronounced. As a guard with Central we had some through workings from Salop to Grimsby. Don't think anyone at my end had heard of the place either. No one corrected me on my undoubtedly dodgy pronunciation during the opening announcements.

 

[Western Lord]

It's quite surprising the amount of people who don't know how to pronounce Worcester. I semi-regularly hear people mispronounce it. There again it's not obvious unless you know and I don't live especially close to the city.

My teacher at school spelt Gloucester as 'Gloster' when I was younger. I had to bite my tongue. Thankfully they weren't a Geography teacher.

I've heard a manual announcer refer to Frodsham as 'Frodjum' before. Not sure if that's correct or a local thing.

There was the Gloster Aircraft Company, based at Hucclecote. Possibly spelt like that in deference to some people's inability to pronounce Gloucester properly. In America the Loughead brothers changed the name of their aircraft company to Lockheed for the same reason.