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a-LOOO-min-um
[ From the cellar, epithets, a loud banging. ]
According to the folks at Merriam-Webster
When I wish to write English like a dyslexic foreign savage, sirrah, I shall consult Mr Webster.
@WTP:
“So…if I put wooster sauce or “I believe what you Americans commonly refer to as ‘brown sauce'”
Geez, I thought ‘brown sauce’ was a generic HP, or A1 for the colonials.
Geez, I thought ‘brown sauce’ was a generic HP, or A1 for the colonials.
Heh. He was so sincere and quite confident that I would thus understand what he meant that he convinced me that I must of course have known. This was back in ’02. I still doubt most Americans, unless fans of British TV specifically, of which there are of course many but not most Americans, today understand “wooster”. Though we do make a pastime of mangling ‘Worchestershire’.
BTW, aren’t HP some kind of demands you have to pay forever?
BTW, aren’t HP some kind of demands you have to pay forever?
It stands for “Houses of Parliament”. So yes.
When I wish to write English like a dyslexic foreign savage
It’s not about how English is written; it’s about how it’s pronounced.
Do you pronounce “Worcester” and “Booster” with the same vowel sounds?
When I wish to write English like a dyslexic foreign savage, sirrah, I shall consult Mr Webster.
Que sera, sirrah.
Sirrah, Duchess of Pork….
oh, never mind.
…our Yank cousin wanted to go to Loughborough (pr. Luffbruh).
However, for some strange reason you lot over there think a Jaguar is a Jag-u-ar.
The capital city of South Dakota is Pierre. Pronounced “peer”.
Do you pronounce “Worcester” and “Booster” with the same vowel sounds?
No indeed. Though that is how I pronounce the fictional county of Borcestershire’s favourite sauce.
Next will be lessons on how a lady should sit while sipping tea.
The capital city of South Dakota is Pierre. Pronounced “peer”.
In Chicago, “Goethe Street” is pronounced “Go-thee” and “Mozart Street” is pronounced “Moe’s art”.
how a lady should sit while sipping tea.
No – horses sweat!
Oh sorry, wrong meme.
Apparently, “the fictional county of Borcestershire” deserves a fictional pronunciation.
deserves a fictional pronunciation
I’m sure its esteemed fictional neighbours Cholmondeleyonwike and Featherstonehaughsedge would agree.
Cholmondeley and Featherstonehaugh can be found in Wiktionary but not here. Are the people at Cambridge University Press ashamed of their heritage? 🙂
“Do you pronounce “Worcester” and “Booster” with the same vowel sounds?“
Well, I do. But then, I’m North-British. And it occurs to me that Wodehouse (heh) must had good reason to come up with the name “Wooster”. I mean, even if they’re not absolutely identical for you, they’re close enough for a gag, surely?
“I’m sure its esteemed fictional neighbours Cholmondeleyonwike and Featherstonehaughsedge would agree.”
Real place. Non-locals have been driven to drink trying to spell it. And its neighbour, Bearsden, isn’t what you’d think either. (Or rather, it’s exactly what you should think, but nobody ever does. Maybe they should put an apostrophe in.)
FWIW, in New Orleans Terpsichore (a street name) is pronounced turp-si-core and Melpomene (another street name) is pronounced mell-poe-mean. And let’s not get started on Tchoupitoulas.
I didn’t even know that New Zealand had an official wizard.
In Atlanta, the street is called Ponce de Lee-on. I think they still pronounce the guy’s name correctly in school. Helps differentiate too. Otherwise of course there could be confusion. Or so I was once told, with a wink and a nod. IYKWIM. Hope this helps.
But then, I’m North-British.
We also have regional differences in pronunciation here in the USofA.
Words like “broom” and “roof” spring to mind.
And now for something completely different, for a low, low 1.65 million Imperial Dollars you too can have a two story closet in an old power station.
Parking not included.
However, for some strange reason you lot over there think a Jaguar is a Jag-u-ar.
Americans aren’t much better. I always thought it was pronounced jag-war, but I have encountered people who say jag-wire with a straight face.
English is a mashup of a latin base (including latin itself during the long period after rome fell) and a germanic base. These two base languages have different structure and rules. Add in old english towns and places with Viking or Celtish or who know what roots and it is amazing we can communicate at all. On top of that, English is known for stealing words from all over the world, particularly directly from France.
“On top of that, English is known for stealing words from all over the world, particularly directly from France.”
Well, they shouldn’t leave them lying around.
Got lost in Texas looking for the town of Komarz.
Turns out it’s spelled Commerce.
But most of these pronunciation issues are a function of lazy, marblemouthing somewhat influenced by the local ethnicities. Even in ethnically homogeneous communities, one side of a county can over time and with sufficient isolation (think inland, illiteracy pre-1800’s) develop through its own unique slurring of words, a slightly different accent. We’re it not for the printing press, broadening literacy, then radio, etc.it’s a wonder we can understand anything outside our own little boroughs…ahem.
On top of that, English is known for stealing words
It’s not stealing if it’s fewer than 950 words at a time.
English Words Matter
Saulte-Ste.-Marie is pronounced “Soo”
The “Lim” in Lima, Ohio is pronounced like the lime in limeade.
You should hear a “cow” in Moscow, Idaho, but not in Russian Moscow
It’s co-operate, not coo-operate
EXquisite, not exQUISite
And get the hell off my lawn
On top of that, English is known for stealing words from all over the world
“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
–James Nicoll, at rec.arts.sf-lovers
Americans aren’t much better. I always thought it was pronounced jag-war…
Jag-war is close to the original Portuguese pronunciation. So there, you limeys. [ adopts visage of insufferable smugness ]
I suspect many words were donated by France, starting about, oh, 1066.
EXquisite, not exQUISite
According to the folks at Merriam-Webster (heh), it’s both.
H Beam Piper in Fuzzy Sapiens: “And you know what English is? The result of the efforts of Norman men-at-arms to make dates with Saxon barmaids in the Ninth Century Pre-Atomic, and no more legitimate than any of the other results.”
I suspect many words were donated by France, starting about, oh, 1066.
Definitely a case of Not Enough Saxon Violence.
Jag-war is close to the original Portuguese pronunciation.
Brazilian Portuguese as opposed to Portuguese Portuguese, as long as we are getting collectively pedantic…
I’ll just state that the way Marylebone station is pronounced was an unpleasant surprise to my wife and I when we visited England in ~2004.
And I note that so far, no one has mentioned Gaelic spelling…
And I note that so far, no one has mentioned Gaelic spelling…
And we’re going to keep it that way. And don’t even think of mentioning Welsh. I still get flashbacks from the last time.
Got lost in Texas”
La Grange is about an hour ten that a way. Place is closed, tho…
I was behind an American at a ticket booth in a northern English train station. The bloke in the booth eventually figured out that our Yank cousin wanted to go to Loughborough (pr. Luffbruh).
I was once stopped on Oxford High Street by a very polite middle-aged American tourist and his wife, who wanted to know where to catch a bus to a place he called “High Why-Kombi”. He’d asked several people and had no response, so I asked him to clarify and he pulled out a leaflet for Hughendon (Yew-hen-den) Manor, the former country house of Benjamin Disraeli, now a National Trust property. I had to tell him that the reason everyone was baffled and unable to help was because High Wycombe, his destination, is pronounced “High Wick-em”. But once I knew what he and his wife wanted I was able to point them to the correct bus stop. I still occasionally wonder whether they enjoyed their visit.
There’s also a Versailles, Ohio. Pronounced locally as Vurr-sails.
I was once stopped on Oxford High Street by a very polite middle-aged American tourist and his wife, who wanted to know where to catch a bus to a place he called “High Why-Kombi”.
I do still wonder why so few American travel guides give pronunciation guides.
Marseilles, Illinois: pronounced “mar sails”, may God forgive us.
But then, God’s forgiveness was more desperately needed in Brooklyn, New York, where “bird” was pronounced “boyd”, purple was pronounced “poiple”, and so on: “Thoity poiple doity boids a-poiched on a coib, eating doity woims. Boy were dey pah-toibed.” But that was back in the 1940’s. Considering the current crime rate and cultural decay, it appears that God did not forgive.
So, does this warning from the government mean it is illegal in the UK for a member of the public to say that a suspect is obviously guilty?
“…the Attorney General wishes to draw attention to the risks in publishing material, including on-line, that asserts or assumes, expressly or implicitly, the guilt of any of those arrested…”
pst314: they tell about a headline in the paper, when baseball player Waite Hoyt was injured, “Hoyt Hurt,” which Brooklynites read as “Hurt Hoyt.”
Also speaking of strange New York ways of pronouncing things, a major street in lower Manhattan is pronounced HOW-ston.
My name is Yon Yonsin, I come from Visconsin, I verk in da lumbahyards der.
Pahk the cah in tha gahrahj, go to the bah and get some beeyah. Bahtendah says he doesn’t have any beeyah so go to the supahmahket and get a six pahk….If I did that right.
This did it right…
https://youtu.be/WBvkmWDjsYc
and this…but can’t find the best one…
https://youtu.be/FGKsJh1nYcw
Chicago Language Tape: “In 1972 Yuri Rasovsky’s Chicago Language Tape aired on 98.7WFMT in Chicago.” I don’t think it could be aired today.
We hear today in local news that a ‘famous’ English woman featuring on a BBC show about [racial] diversity, Alex Scott, is descended from a slave owner in Jamaica in the 1820s. Apparently he owned 20 slaves. The trouble for Mistress Alex is that her long dead grand father was a black man himself. Who’d have thought it? What penance will she endure at the tolerant hands of the Woke brigade?
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2021/10/bbc-diversity-darling-discovers-her-family-owned-slaves.html