How not to pronounce English place names

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The Marquis de Sade invented English spelling. Or if he didn’t, he might as well have. I asked Lord Google if the marquis either spoke or read English, and the definitive answer is that nobody cares. 

So much for intellectual curiosity. It’s a sad old world out there.

The reason I’m telling you this is that English spelling has successfully tripped up a train line in northern England–called, boringly enough, Northern Rail.

The problems started when Northern decided to re-record its station announcements so they’d match its shiny new train carriages. Customers responded by pitching a fit–or fits, since we’re talking about multiple customers, each one pitching the aforesaid fit in the time and place of his, her, or their choosing–about the way the towns were pronounced.  

Irrelevant photo: hydrangeas

 

Brief digression 

This is a non-gender-specific-person-bites-dog story, formerly and more simply if less acurately known as a man-bites-dog story. For the most part, Britain’s train passengers are so busy throwing fits about their trains being canceled at the last minute, stranding them in places they don’t want to be, that the only things they care about pronouncing are the swear words. But there’s hope for us all if northerners care enough about their hometowns to person the barricades in defense of the correct pronunciation.

 

And now back to our story

The problem started when some poor fool–or possibly an entire department of them, or an artificial intelligence with a bolted-on speaking voice–assumed that because a series of letters follow each other, they carry information about how the resulting word should be pronounced. Ha. They were dealing with English, so spelling is only the roughest of guides to pronunciation. Abandon hope, all ye who record station announcements. 

What towns tripped them up? Well, starting with A: 

Aspatria, which they pronounced A-spa-tria but should be Ass-spat-ri.

Burneside, which they pronounced Burn-side but should be Burn-e-side.

Cark and Cartmel, which they pronounced (silly people) Cark and Cartmel but should be Cark-n-Cartmel.

Ilkeston, which they pronounced Ill-kes-ston but should be Ilks-tonne.

And Slaithwaite, which they pronounced Slaith-wait but should be Slou-wit, as any slow-wit could’ve told them.

 

What happened next?

Well, in a rare moment of good customer service (this is a British train company we’re talking about, remember, so our customer service expectations should be set at Low), Northern turned to the public for advice. They opened a consultation and adjusted their recordings. Or–

Okay, I don’t know if they’ve released the new recordings into the wild yet. For all I know, they’ve only announced what the changes will be. Whichever it is, things were going well until they came to Mossley Hill. That started out as Mozzley-ill and was about to change to Mose-ley Hill, which is what the train company swears residents told them was correct. But at least some residents swear it’s Moss-lee Hill and are furious. As one resident said, “It’s ‘Moss-Lee’ Hill. The same as my name is super short and people call me Susan. Don’t call me Suzzanne, because my name is Susan, spelled ‘S-U-S-A-N’ not ‘S-U-Z-Z-A-N-N-E’… Go back to the person who invented the map and how dare they want to change names.”

I have no idea how Northern’s going to get out of that one, but I wish good luck to everyone involved, and possibly a pair of roller skates to help with a speedy exit.

 

But let’s go back to Ilkeston

It hasn’t gone smoothly there either, and the Derbyshire Times had fun with it, checking in with the county council and finding that all political parties (except the Greens, who it didn’t reach) agreed that Northern got it wrong after the consultation.

From that promising start, things got complicated. Most of them want the announcements to go back to Ill-kes-ton, but one, who personally agrees, says his wife–also a councilor and apparently not interviewed directly–calls the place Ill-son.

Derbyshire, by the way, is pronounced Darby-sheer. And since it includes the town of Erewash, the Derbyshire Times asked the Erewash town council for the correct pronunciation of the town and was told by someone who’s either wise or gifted at political survival that the council doesn’t have an official position on that. Lord Google does, however, since he doesn’t have to run for office: he says its eh-ruh-wosh and comes from an Old English word meaning wandering, marshy river. It could easily have multiple pronunciations, but I’m reasonably sure that none of them is ear-wash.

 

Why do things like this happen?

Because. 

If you don’t consider that enough of an explanation, I can only refer you to the kids I grew up with, who thought it explained everything.

If you travel around England, you can count on wandering into some town with what looks like a simple name and getting it wrong. This will either crack up the locals or give some Susan fits. So as long as we’re at it, let’s troll through a few other mispronounced place names. 

Alnwick is An-ick

Bedworth is Bed-uth

Bicester is Bister.

Fowey is Foy.

Gateacre is Gat-akker.

Godmanchester is Gumster–but you guessed that, right?

Hunstanton is Hunston

Kirkby  is Ker-bee. 

Leominster is Lemster.

Mousehole is Mow-zel.

Worcestershire (famous for the sauce) is Woos-ter-sher unless it’s pronounced by our neighor, who insists the shire is as silent as most of the rest of the word, making it just plain old Wooster sauce and there’s no point in arguing with her.

We could go on endlessly but won’t. I will warn you, though, that just when you think you’ve found a pattern, it changes. If Bicester is Bister, then Cirencester must be Sister, right? 

Of course not. Cirencester is pronounced Cirencester–or Siren-cester, for the sake of sticking to our format. You might want to hide that final R, though, because in some versions of British, the R is only the faintest memory of a sound, making spa rhyme with star.

Welcome to the English language. It’s not a safe place for the innocent or the guilty, and being a native speaker doesn’t grant you any protection.

76 thoughts on “How not to pronounce English place names”

  1. There are two ways of pronouncing the town where I live, depending on whether or not you pronounce the h that isn’t there. Being brought up to say my hs, I put it in.

    I was once horribly confused by the non-local pronunciation of an automated train anouncer, to the extent that I thought I’d got on the wrong train. She said East Leigh, with the emphasis on the second word. It’s one word, with the emphasis on the first part and the t disappears, because that’s what tends to happen if there are three consonants in a row.

    I, and probably everyone else, agree with your neighbour about Wooster Sauce. I don’t eat it, though, as it contains anchovies.

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    • Really? It’s not just her who calls it Wooster sauce? I never stop learning things about this country. Admittedly, not always useful things. I don’t eat it either, and other than a conversation about buying the neighbor the biggest possible bottle of the stuff, since she’s housebound and can’t do her own shopping, I can’t remember when I last had a reason to talk about it.

      That’s a perfect story about getting on the train. How a non-local manages to catch the right train or get off at the right station is anyone’s guess.

      I had a little trouble with the thought of either pronouncing or not pronouncing the H that isn’t there, but yeah, it’s English, so that make perfect sense. In an insane sort of way.

      I love your comments, by the way. Thank you for them.

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      • I should have added that I wasn’t in the least surprised about any of the disagreements about how to pronounce the names of towns. Romsey is a small town less than 10 miles away. For the first 20 years of my life, I’d only heard it pronounced with the o. When Charles and Diana went there for part of their honeymoon, newsreaders pronounced it Rumsey. They’re the only people I’ve ever heard pronounce it that way.

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  3. I think nearly everyone I know calls it Worcester sauce, it’s like we know the shire is there but forget unless we actually look at the bottle… or maybe we are just lazy speakers!
    And in the unpronounceable town game, may I present Trottiscliffe which I am reliably informed is pronounced Troz-ley

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    • Y’know, we really should have a yearly contest for the most unlikely place-name pronunciation. Win once and you have to retire, but even with the elimination of past winners there’s enough material here to run the contest for lifetimes. Trottiscliffe’s a strong contender–as is April’s town where some people pronounce the H that isn’t there and others don’t.

      I just love this language. It’s so completely insane.

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      • Oh yes!! I want this to be a thing!!
        Yes, a town where even the residents disagree on pronunciation is definitely a strong contender!
        Mind you I’m from Hull (originally) which is sometimes pronounced without the H… ‘Ull especially if you have a local accent! Thankfully I don’t and never really did even though I grew up there. But I digress a bit!

        Yes! I love the language too, and the fact that there are so many English speaking countries that have such different words they should really be classified as different language and yet we can all hold a more or less sensible conversation!

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        • Well, at least to the extent that we can hold a sensible conversation without the word differences. That’s no longer something I take for granted.

          For a moment there, after I hit Send on that contest idea, I wondered if we couldn’t really pull off a contest like that. It’s just crazy enough to get good publicity. Then I started thinking about how much work it would take and thought, “I need another cup of tea.” Drop by. I’ll make you a coffee. We can talk about it, but I suspect we’d be sorry we started this–although I did have a moment of wondering if it would help me publicize my books, which are much harder to get into the public view.

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          • Oh! It would be a brilliant way to publicise your books!
            I’ll drop in and we can discuss why it is actually far too much work to administer 😆😆
            Also if I ever get to move to the west of the country I might actually do that!
            I’ll have to see if I can collect some more place names along the way! Some of the Shetland ones are interesting because the roots are Norse.
            Also I’m not sure I ever have sensible conversations, even in similar languages 😆

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            • 1. Do stop in. Our conversation will not be even remotely sensible. I look forward to it.

              2. If you take a A303, you’ll go past the Piddles–a series of towns near (I think) the Piddle river, all including the name. I won’t make any assumptions about how they’re pronounced, but my partner and I almost wrecked the car we laughed so hard.

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  5. I love it! We live near mentor which is pronounced menner. But our town names are really boring for the most part. My one gripe is that some hoity toity no nothings decided that cuyahoga should be pronounced cuyahauga. Not hoga. Just because I guess. Some brave news reporters didn’t switch because it’s only been cuyahoga forever. Others sounded like fools and were jeered. It’s back to hoga now.

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  6. Of course the boring answer is that spellings were set in stone a long time ago, while pronunciations (of both the names and the letters) have shifted in the mean time.

    Not that this is exclusive to England. Within Greater Toronto, you’ll find Etobicoke with a silent KE, and Stouffville with a silent UFF. And if you’re driving north on Spadina Avenue (pronounced Spad-ai-na), you’ll eventually cross through a junction and find yourself on Spadina Road (pronounced Spad-ee-na).

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  8. Then there are town names in Wales…!

    I like watching English television programs on US public television for these less familiar town names and their pronunciations. It’s my little game to try to guess how they get pronounced, something I regularly fail. I get “London” right at least. LOL!

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  9. Virginia has a Smythe County, pronounced Smith, and a Wytheville, pronounced With-ville, and a lot of places named after Pocahontas’s people and/or their leader. WhatEVER way you pronounce “Powhatan,” people in those places will probably correct, just for the fun of it. This has probably been going on since John Smith’s time, when the English were trying to work out whether whatever-it-is meant the tribe or its chief.

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    • Oh, yes. Once you get one language trying to use or understand or simply mangle another one, you stir in a whole ‘nother level of mayhem.

      I do love the idea of people correcting outsiders just for the fun of it. That thought, I suspect, will stay with me.

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  14. Being from Derbyshire and therefore a lot more likely to make fun of my neighbours to the east I do like reminding them that the Norse used to pronounce it ‘Snotinghamscire’ with an emphasis on the snot.

    A friend once had an encounter with some Australian tourists who were wondering which was the train to ‘loo-ga-ba-roo-ga’. He quickly cottoned on they wanted to go to Loughborough (Pronounced Luff-bor-err to anyone not native reading this)

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  15. I live in Harrogate, which gets called (all with the first syllable emphasized) Harrow-gate, Harru-gut or (being oup North), Arrugi’ (where the t becomes a glottal stop). Not too far away is the beautifully named and beautiful Appletreewick, which I was reliably informed the residents call Attrick. Too many cows to milk to waste time on pples and eews. Helmsley is usually Emsly. But what used to irritate me was the London emphasis of the BBC calling the place I was born, NEW-carssle, when any fool from there (and there are plenty) knows it’s niuh-KASSLE (we’re not bothered how new it is, we just want you to know there’s a castle). Anyway, if we’re going to keep this up, either we’ve all got to learn phonetics (and how to output it on a keyboard) or maybe switch to youtube.

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  17. Try north of the border: Kirkcaldy. Kingussie, Milngavie. Good luck!

    (I once saw a piece on TV about how residents pronounce Shrewsbury – Shroe or Shrew? It seems it might depend on which side of the river you live)

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