Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

Pyxis

PasturesNew wrote: »

That's the thing with how you say stuff - if you've never heard a word said, you've no idea how it is spoken, so you make it up based on what you think the most obvious/likely is....

Those newspaper "articles" (space fillers/click bait) annoy me when they say things like "10 Brands you are probably pronouncing wrongly". I look at them and think "I have never heard anybody SAY those words, so if I speak them, of course I might be wrong!"

.

When I was a child, I came across a road called Montague Road.
I had never heard the name Montague. The only other words I'd heard ending in -gue just ended on a g, like plague, so of course I pronounced Montague as Montag.

When I discovered how it was pronounced, I was very surprised!

Also, 'fiery' I pronounced 'fear-y', and 'furry' I pronounced like 'scurry' or 'flurry'!
Even now, furry as in scurry sounds, to me, furrier than furry as in fur! IYSWIM!

GDB2222

Long before the days of satnavs, my father stopped his car and asked someone for directions to where he wanted to go. He followed the directions meticulously, and found himself back at exactly the same spot. Which, on closer inspection, turned out to be where he wanted to go!

GDB2222

PasturesNew wrote: »

Somebody was telling me once that they were asked for directions in London to: Chee-Ap-So-Dee

He'd never heard of it.... but eventually worked out the (foreign tourist) man wanted Cheapside.

So many local places are also pronounced oddly compared to spelling. I used to drive through Wymondham in Norfolk. That's Win-dom.

I was in the Tourist Office the other month, pawing the free leaflets. Woman behind the desk asked if I needed help and I said "No thanks, I'm local" and she asked where... so I had to tell her "Sorry, can't tell you that as I've heard it pronounced two ways now and I'm not sure I'd say the right one to you"

She laughed.... so I told her the two pronunciations. The one I believed it to be and the other one .... which I thought was "posh people trying to big up a bit of a bad name" and she agreed with me that how you pronounce where I am is the "unattractive way" of saying it. I'd heard the mispronunciation on the (fairly local) radio, so then started to doubt how I was saying it - turns out the presenter must've been a person who wanted to say things "pleasantly", the sort who gentrifies names ... because that's what they do you know!

DW and I will probably go shopping tomorrow in Win-Dom. But, it depends on the traffic, and we might go via Swaffham, instead.

chris_m

PasturesNew wrote: »

Somebody was telling me once that they were asked for directions in London to: Chee-Ap-So-Dee

He'd never heard of it.... but eventually worked out the (foreign tourist) man wanted Cheapside.

So many local places are also pronounced oddly compared to spelling. I used to drive through Wymondham in Norfolk. That's Win-dom.

LOL, best foreigner's attempt I've heard of was Looga Booga, aka Loughborough.

Of course, it doesn't exactly help when we have places spelt almost the same but pronounced differently. eg, down on the South coast there is;
Cosham - with a soft "sh", and
Bosham, with a hard "sh".

ivyleaf

Pyxis wrote: »

When I was a child, I came across a road called Montague Road.
I had never heard the name Montague. The only other words I'd heard ending in -gue just ended on a g, like plague, so of course I pronounced Montague as Montag.

When I discovered how it was pronounced, I was very surprised!

Also, 'fiery' I pronounced 'fear-y', and 'furry' I pronounced like 'scurry' or 'flurry'!
Even now, furry as in scurry sounds, to me, furrier than furry as in fur! IYSWIM!

I used to think "misled" was pronounced "Mizzled" and years later when I was watching the TV series of "How Green Was My Valley" the boy in the story made the same mistake when he went to the grammar school.

There's a town here called Erith, pronounced "Eerith", but if it's ever mentioned on TV they almost always pronounce it "Errith". But I think there's another place of the same name, which is pronounced "Errith". Can't remember where the other one is, though.

chris_m I'm trying to work out what a soft sh sounds like. I used to live not far from Cosham and my brother worked there, and everyone I knew pronounced it "Cosh'm" with the Cosh rhyming with "wash". That was about 40 years ago though, so perhaps it's changed in the interim Or perhaps my family just said it wrong!

chris_m

Of course, this reminds me of old joke about a chap after directions in Wales;

This rather posh young type was lost and in the next village he saw an old man sitting by the war memorial so he called over to him,
"Hey Dai, can you tell me the way to Talybont?"
The old chap got up, wandered over and asked,
"Hold on young man, how did you know my name was Dai?"
"Oh, I guessed, I'm good at guessing."
"Well, guess the way to Talybont, then!"

michaels

chris_m wrote: »

LOL, best foreigner's attempt I've heard of was Looga Booga, aka Loughborough.

Of course, it doesn't exactly help when we have places spelt almost the same but pronounced differently. eg, down on the South coast there is;
Cosham - with a soft "sh", and
Bosham, with a hard "sh".

I thought it was bos'm?

I remember read out loud in assemblies pre-jewdissed and stoik

chris_m

ivyleaf wrote: »

I used to think "misled" was pronounced "Mizzled" and years later when I was watching the TV series of "How Green Was My Valley" the boy in the story made the same mistake when he went to the grammar school.

They did that one in an episode of Steptoe and Son too, the one where Harold had his actor friends round for a rehearsal and Albert talked his way into being included.
He also started going on about "poloponies", until they realised he was misreading "polo ponies"

chris_m

michaels wrote: »

I thought it was bos'm?

Ta, that does sound just like it.

chris_m

ivyleaf wrote: »

chris_m I'm trying to work out what a soft sh sounds like. I used to live not far from Cosham and my brother worked there, and everyone I knew pronounced it "Cosh'm" with the Cosh rhyming with "wash".

Aye, that's it.