I’ve always pronounced the word “Southern” to rhyme with howthurn. I know most people say it like “suthurn” instead. I didn’t realize that the way I pronounce it is considered weird until recently!
I’ve always pronounced the word “Southern” to rhyme with howthurn. I know most people say it like “suthurn” instead. I didn’t realize that the way I pronounce it is considered weird until recently!
As an American, it didn’t click for me until I visited London for the first time why names like Leicester and Gloucester were pronounced the way they are by Brits. My dumb American brain sees the names as Lei-cester and Glou-cester rather than Leice-ster and Glouce-ster.
Was on holiday in Scotland with my father. And bless this girl at the tourist information who realised that when we stupid Germans said “glennis law” that we meant Glenisla (glen ila).
Unfortunately our linguistic history is a huge tangle and there are few safe assumptions. Depending on where you are in Scotland, the places names might derive from Gaelic, Pictish, Welsh, Norse, or English, and then they probably got Anglicised at some point but it could have happened at basically time within the last five centuries. A substantial number of the non-Gaelic ones are doubly messed up because they got Gaelicised first and then the Gaelicisation got Anglicised. Glenisla is a good example - glen derives from Gaelic, and nobody is sure where isla comes from.
Still, Glenisla is a lovely area! Lots of good hikes there. I hope you had a good time.
It was awesome. Best vacation ever. We went to Glenisla for their comparatively small highland games. They had dancing competitions, bag pipe competitions and of course various sport competitions. Apparently one of the competitors was the reigning shot putting or hammer throwing or so world champion. Every time he threw something the judges went back extra far and still he managed to go beyond the field. He was huge. My father and I dubbed him Monster.
Wow, I’m certain I would’ve done the same. Think I’d make myself a cheat sheet for Scotland and Wales when I get around to visit. Knowing that Cymru is pronounced “com-ree” gave me anxiety about butchering names there if ever I’ll need to ask for directions.
We’ll usually understand if you get it wrong. There’s a lot of extremely counterintuitive ones. If you’re American, the most likely trap is Edinburgh - it’s not EE-den-berg, it’s EDD-in-buh-ruh or EDD-im-bruh.
I’ll also just have to ask that the same grace is returned when I inevitably fuck up basically any place name based on anything Native American, because I don’t know how any of those languages work
I went to school and now live outside Pittsburgh and it’s such a mishmash of Native American place names (Monongahela, Allegheny, Youghagheny; which is Ma-nahn-guh-hey-la, Al-uh-gain-ee, and yaack-uh-gain-ee), French (Duquesne, Versailles; Doo-cain, Ver-sales), and English. Combine that with the Pittsburghese dialect and then mash that with not pronouncing foreign words anything like how they natively would be (but only sometimes) and it’ll make your head spin.
oh wow, you blew my mind