Tag Archives: English place names

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.

What people really want to know about Britain, part who’s counting?

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Let us enter, once again, the depths of the internet, whose current wash strange questions to the shore here at Notes.

But you need to know a few things about the process before we go on: First, no feelings were hurt (or so I tell myself) in the process of turning me loose on these questions. They come from people–or I assume they’re people–who flit through here, driven by whatever whim propelled them at 2 a.m. to ask Lord Google for information on subjects they may not have actually cared about, and then flit right on out, leaving behind their questions but not their consciousness. Second, the questions appear in all their original oddity, except that I’ve italicized them. Third, I used to answer them seriously. It didn’t take long to get boring. 

*

Irrelevant Photo: The view from Castle Point, where there is no castle. The flowers are heather and gorse.

double space after full stop uk

For the sake of American readers, I need to explain this before I answer it: The question isn’t about social distancing at two stop signs. In Britain, a full stop is that tiny dot you put at the end of a sentence: a period. Back in the old days, when we used typewriters and that seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do, we were taught to double space after a period. That pool of wide-open paper made it easier to spot the end of one sentence and the beginning of the next.

In my school, by the way, only girls learned to use typewriters. They were considered too technical for boys. 

Then word processors came along and spoiled the fun by introducing proportional spacing.The divisions between sentences now jumped out without the help of an extra space. So the second space went the way of the typewriter and the quill pen, although 30% of the people in a survey (which may or may not be representative of I have no idea what population) still think it’s correct to double space.

If you want to know more about this (and who wouldn’t?), here’s a link. 

I can’t explain why Lord Google thought this was the place to send people for information about that, but now that I’ve written about it, he’ll send more.

Now let’s double back and explain my second sentence for the sake of non-American readers: In most (possibly all) states in the U.S., failing to come to a full stop at a stop sign will earn you a traffic ticket. But only if you get caught, which mostly you don’t. 

difference between anerican beeband british beer

You drink one in America and the other in Britain unless you want to pay extra for an import. One’s spelled with an R and the other with an extra B and no space at all before the and. 

berwick and russia at war

This is the longest non-war in history, and it has the biggest following. 

how do you pronounce river teign

Teen.

Teignmouth, though, the place at the mouth of the River Teign? Logic says you’d pronounce it the same way. 

Logic is wrong. This is England. Those are place names. Abandon hope. It’s Tinmuth.

And the government of the area, which is called the Teignbridge Authority? We’re back to teen.

widemouth

Most people call me bigmouth, but widemouth is far from the worst thing anyone’s called me. The place name, though, is pronounced Widmuth.

english holiday with sprouts

Back in the old days, this was known as Christmas, but the world changes and we have to change with it. It’s now known as English Holiday with Sprouts. 

These are brussels sprouts we’re talking about, for those of you who aren’t clued in to the oddities of British culture. I don’t answer questions about either bean sprouts or that hairy fuzz that grows out of alfalfa seeds. 

The sprouts holiday–

Let’s capitalize that: The Sprouts Holiday falls on Christmas, and folks gather around to eat brussels sprouts (and possibly other things, but the presence of sprouts obsesses a category of people who buzz around this blog like flies). 

Sorry, I got sidetracked. The people gather, eat sprouts, and wear silly paper hats. They place two desserts on the table and set fire to one of them.

That is–however strange it sounds–true.

The question should probably be about a British Holiday, though, not an English one, but I’ve never spent the Sprouts Holiday in Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland, so I don’t really know how integral sprouts are there. I’d be happy to hear reports from the other nations on this crucial topic. 

Don’t you love that people turn to me to learn these things? Who better to explain the intricacies of the British Christmas tradition than an American Jewish atheist? This, my friends, is the true meaning of multiculturalism. 

Whatever that was you just threw at me, you missed. 

But let’s go back to the question and make sure we cover all possibilities. It might have been about taking your sprouts on holiday with you, which in American would be taking your brussels sprouts on vacation. Because, hey, it may be a holiday (or vacation) for you, but if you leave your sprouts at home, what kind of time are they having? The world would be a better place if we all took our vegetables into account when we made our plans. 

You’re welcome, and a 50-page position paper on the subject will arrive in your inbox tomorrow. Please get back to me with any changes by Monday. 

how did carriages pass on narrow english country lanes in olden days

This is, surprisingly, a good question. I don’t know what it’s doing here either. English country lanes are narrow. So are British country lanes in general, but let’s not get into that. Horse-drawn carriages didn’t have a reverse gear.

The partial answer is that country lanes aren’t an even width. They have wider spots, where you can pull over, swat horseflies, check your phone messages, and wait for that oncoming carriage to pass.

The rest of the answer? What happens when you’ve got a blind bend in the road and no wide spot? Your guess is as good as mine. What I can tell you is that I live in an area with lots of narrow lanes and blind curves and I’ve seen the shipwrecked remains of abandoned carriages or the bones of the horses that pulled them, so they must have figured out a way to go on.

debtors prison england

Where we’ll be if we don’t break down and admit that we need to tax those who can best afford taxes.

why call great britain

Because it’s running this fantastic ad campaign: Do you want your tea hot, your weather cool, your history complicated, and your spelling unpredictable? Call Great Britain! We deliver. 

parky used nineteenth

This is our mystery question. There’s always one. [Warning: I’m about the offer the world a bit of misinformation. In my defense, I was repeating what I’d been told by someone who seemed to know what he was talking about. The more fool me. See the comments for a correction or three.] Parky comes from a bit of Cockney rhyming slang: It’s parky in the mold means it’s cold. Mold is the rhyming bit, so it gets dropped because otherwise the phrase might make sense to people who didn’t already know what it meant. 

Nineteenth, though? Used? All suggestions, however bizarre, are welcome. 

What people really want to know about Britain, May 2020 edition

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Let’s take a break from doom and disaster. There’s enough to go around, so it’ll be there for us later. Instead, let’s dig through the search engine questions that Lord Google sends me and see what people want to know about Britain. I promise, you won’t learn a thing.

Food-related questions

british baking powder biscuits

There is no such thing as a British baking powder biscuit. Except at my house and they’re the American kind. And I can’t invite you over anyway because we’re still in lockdown–or we were when I wrote this and I trust we still will be when it goes live. Besides, there aren’t enough to go round. Sorry.

There is such a thing as a British scone, but a scone is not a baking powder biscuit any more than my cousin is me. Much to my cousin’s relief, I’m sure. They (and we) do have a family resemblance, which is why you’ll find British people who are horrified at the idea of eating biscuits and gravy. They’ve either mistaken baking powder biscuits (not sweet) for scones (a bit sweet but with a similar look–family resemblance and all that) or for what the British call biscuits, which are what Americans call cookies.

Is that confusing enough that I can stop there? Let’s talk about something else.

can cats eat sticky toffee pudding

Yes, technically speaking. They have mouths, which allow them to eat all kinds of things. But they can only do sticky toffee pudding if their humans (a) bring some home for them or (b) make some themselves. Cats–and I know this will upset some of you—can’t cook and wouldn’t bother if they could. A nice raw mouse is good for the digestion. Both going down and coming up.

You’re welcome.

raisin monday

This isn’t really about food, it’s about tradition, but raisins are food so let’s slip it in here.

Raisin Monday is one of those bizarre, centuries-old British traditions that—

I was going to say that no one can explain but this one’s unusual in that the origin is known. It’s just that even once you know it, it doesn’t make much sense so you still come away feeling like you don’t know. It involves raisins, shaving cream (that’s a modern addition), and silly costumes. Also alcohol, which may or may not be a modern addition. I can’t urge you strongly enough to go read the full explanation.

brussel sprouts and christianity

Is it just me or are the questions here getting stranger?

Brussels sprouts are a vegetable. As such, they have no religion. Neither, for the record, do apples, figs, or green beans. Neither does my cat, Fast Eddie, although he’s not a vegetable. Even the most evangelical proselytizer will, I think, accept that this is how things ought to be.

With that out of the way, we can address what may have been the question behind the question: Do brussels sprouts have any significance in Christianity? I’m probably not the best person to answer this–I’m not only Jewish, I’m an atheist, as I have to (have to, mind you) mention here every so often–but I can take a reasonable outsider’s guess. To the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, brussels sprouts are not mentioned in the Bible. Ask Lord Google about brussels sprouts and the Bible and you won’t end up with one of the psalms, you’ll end up looking at recipe and gardening books that claim to have the definitive word on whichever. They have titles like The Broccoli Bible.

Broccoli, just for the record, is not the same as brussels sprouts. And it has no religion either.

If there is a brussels sprouts psalm, I trust that someone will let me know about it. Or possibly write it. Ignorance like that can’t be allowed to continue, even if it’s mine and I treasure it.

This whole idea that brussels sprouts have some religious meaning comes, I’m reasonably sure, from the tradition of making two cuts in the base of the stems before you cook them. In theory, that makes the stem cook at the same speed as the leafy part. And since the two cuts form a cross (or an X, depending on which way you hold it), you end up with a kind of instant religious imagery, or you do in the minds of people who live surrounded by the imagery of that religion. I’m sure that somewhere along the line, someone told a younger someone, “That let’s the devil cook out of them,” and that got passed down through the generations.

I learned to make two cuts in the stem in the Jewish atheist kitchen that I grew up in and around. (That’s not a carelessly worded sentence. Of course my kitchen was both Jewish and irreligious. If you’ve never discussed religion and philosophy with your kitchen, you really should.)

Where was I?

The cuts weren’t a religious act. That was just the way I was taught to cook sprouts.

As an older, lazier, and more skeptical cook, I discovered that you don’t have to do anything more than rinse the things and dump them in the steamer. They come out just fine.

Who let me get started on this? Honestly, you have no one to blame but yourselves.

They also ripen in the winter, so in Britain people tend to serve them at Christmas, reinforcing the idea that there’s some meaning in it all. Much of life, my friends, is meaningless. The meaning is all in what you bring to it. And if that strikes you as profound, consider the source and throw the thought out your mental window.

Which gives us a neat transition to our next category:

The search for knowledge about life’s important subjects

is it called great britain anymore

No. Bucking the trends, it (that’s the country) has decided that Great Britain is too non-binary a name and from here on it will be called either Mary-Sue or Bear. It will (a) choose and (b) send in the paperwork for the change as soon as it decides which gender it is. In the meantime, it would like to be addressed as the country formerly known as Great Britain.

spiffing – do people say this

In the fourteen years that I’ve lived in Britain, I’ve heard it used in one conversation. To be fair, though, once it was dropped into that conversation, we must have repeated it three or four times each to reinforce how absurd the whole thing was. It was a spiffing conversation.

what is the financial system based on giving instad of taxes in churches like the church of England

I think what someone’s looking for here is the word tithe, which isn’t a financial system. Financial systems are things like feudalism, capitalism, socialism. Tithing is what Merriam-Webster calls a voluntary system of giving a tenth of your income to a religious establishment, but there was a time when it was about as voluntary as gravity, taxes, or believing what everyone around you did. This was back when you didn’t talk about “a religious establishment, “ or even “a church,” you talked about “the church,” the one and only, which you belonged to and paid your money to because the church had the power to demand that and you had the power to say yes to it. Imagining a life lived outside of the church was, for most people, like imagining a life lived outside of human society.

Tithing preceded that Church of England. The C. of E. just continued a tradition established by the Catholic Church, and that made me curious enough that I visited an Orthodox Church website to see if the Orthodox Church has tithes. It says tithing is “ is the Old Testament injunction to set aside 10% of all one possesses for the work of the Lord.” So yes, the Orthodox Church does that as well, and I’m going to guess that the tradition predates the split between eastern and western Christianity.

In Islam, the parallel tradition called zakat and it’s considered a tax, but it’s 2.5%, not 10%. In Judaism, tithing first appears in the Torah not as a commandment but as a practice of the patriarchs–or so the website I looked at told me. It’s not that I know this stuff. This being the Jewish tradition, the explanation involved sages with varying opinions on major and minor points and explanations of how the world’s changed since the patriarchs wandered through it and why that does or doesn’t back up the varying opinions. In other words, it’s long and full or arguments. For about half a paragraph, I was filled with nostalgia, then I gave up because it’s not a topic I care about and I’d found what I needed. You’re welcome to follow the link and split hairs to your heart’s content.

first word in the name of a document king john signed

That would be Magna. As in Carta. Although he surely signed other documents as well, in a roundabout sort of way, since signing as we know it wasn’t the way people validated documents then. If you were important enough to sign a document, you had a seal to do it. And if you were important enough to be king, you had people to wield the seal for you. Because why should a king exert himself?

Ihow do i pronounce west derby

I was ready to say, airily, that you pronounce it the same way you pronounce East Derby, only you switch East for West. Then I remembered where I am, and more to the point where Derby (East, West, chocolate, and plain) is. This is an English place name we’re talking about, and English place names are treacherous beasts. You don’t want to turn your back on one, ever. The only safe way to find out how one is pronounced is to creep up on the place in question and, once you’re near enough to see the “You are now entering” sign (or its equivalent; I think “You are entering” is an American thing), point at it and ask the closest person, “How do you say that word.”

And once they tell you, hope they’re actually from there, because if they’re outsiders they might be too embarrassed to tell you they don’t know and they’ll get it wrong.