Here are a few:
- Why is antelope pronounced 'AN-tuh-lope' but Penelope is pronounced 'puh-NEL-oh-pee'?
- Why is telephone pronounced 'TEL-uh-fone' but Persephone is pronounced 'per-SEF-uh-nee'?
- Why do people in the U.K. say 'DEB-ree' but people in the U.S. say 'duh-BREE'?
- Why do people in the U.K. say 'luh-BOR-uh-tree' but people in the U.S. say 'LAB-ruh-tory'?
- Why do people in the U.K. see Worcestershire and say 'WUSS-ter-sher' but people in the U.S. tend to say 'WERE-CHESS-ter-SHYRE'?
- Why do people in the U.K. see Gloucester and say 'GLAWS-ter' but people in the U.S. tend to say "GLOW-CHESS-ter'?
- Why do people in the U.K. see Cholmondeley and say 'CHUM-lee' and people in the U.S. see Natchitoches and say 'NACK-uh-dish'?
I'm after different ways of pronouncing the same word, not why zuchinis are called courgettes or why blackberries are called brambles or why trunks and hoods are boots and bonnets.
Rack or wrack your brain (or both) and join in the fun.
I thought of Oliver Twist, please sir may I have some more.
ReplyDeleteI think in the south, we pronounce things differently(or maybe it is my accent?)
How about Appalachia? Do you say Appalatcha or Appalaycha?
Hope you and Mrs. RWP are doing well. I read that virus cases had increased since schools had opened. My son started back to college with most classes online but two classes in person.
Have a good week
Kathy, I have always said 'Appalaychaa' but the university in Boone, North Carolina, is usually called 'Appalatchan' State.
DeleteMrs. RWP and I are well and virus-free to date. Thanks for expressing your concern.
We do not call blackberries brambles, we call them blackberries. The bramble is the prickly bush/shrub that the blackberries grow on. No country person would call a blackberry anything but a blackberry.
ReplyDelete(We in England say GLOS-ter not GLAWS-ter).
Rachel, I refer you to this paragraph from none other than Yorkshire Pudding's blogpost of today, 17 August:
Delete"Around four thirty I began preparing our Sunday dinner. A nice wedge of silverside beef with homegrown runner beans, potatoes, courgettes and carrots with small Yorkshire puddings and onion gravy. There was also bramble crumble and custard - using brambles I had picked from the bottom of our garden on Saturday." (emphasis mine)
I think he has lived his entire life in Sheffield and Hull, so not a 'country person'....
I was rural Yorkshire, and we went brambling; collecting brambles from bramble bushes, making bramble jam and bramble pies. I also knew that you shouldn't pick brambles after Michaelmas day, because the devil spits on them that day. I didn't hear the term 'blackberry' until I was well into adult years, and for a long time assumed they were a different thing altogether. Brambles are indeed brambles.
DeleteElizabeth, I think Rachel is from Norwich.
DeleteThere used to be a world traveler who had a weekly program on Detroit television about his adventures. He called the Himalayan Mountains as Him-ahl-yas rather than Him-a-lay-as.
ReplyDeleteGood one, Emma! Another pronunciation that used to be much less common in the U.S. but is heard more frequently nowadays is Ca-RIB-be-an instead of CARE-uh-BE-an.
DeleteSilent k I am familiar with. The silent l in solder for people in your country always confuses me. We pronounce it sol-der, rather than sodder.
ReplyDeletePronunciation is a minefield. Learning that ghoti can be pronounced fish (gh as in tough, o as in women, ti as in station, sums it up for me.
Sue, I remember reading that it was George Bernard Shaw who first suggested that ghoti could be pronounced 'fish'.
ReplyDeleteI've got one.
ReplyDeleteWe Australians say al/you/min/yum and Americans say a/loom/ee/num for the word aluminium.
Don't get me started on that George Bush boy and his pronunciation of the word nuclear.
And this says a lot about my inappropriate laughter. You stipulated no talk about brambles and bingo - and up it popped.
Have I transgressed any of today's rules?
Alphie
Good one, Alphie!. W’s pronunciation (‘new-Q-ler’) doesn’t count because it is just plain wrong, wrong, wrong. You Australians and Canadians and U.K.’ers pronounce aluminum that way because you spell it differently as well, putting in an extra ‘i’ to get the ‘yum’ sound at the end. If you check dictionary.com there are definitions for noun and verb versions of aluminum, but under aluminium it says only ‘noun, adjective British. Variant of aluminum’. I rest my case. Okay, so it isn’t the OED.
DeleteRules, they say, are made to be broken (except for the Ten Big Ones). If you broke any in the course of making your comment, I am not aware of it. Go and sin no more.
Toe-MAY-toes, toe-MAH-toes... Might as well call the whole thing off. BTW, English pronunciation is usually RIGHT, and American is usually WRONG. That's the simple answer to your question. Unfortunate, but true.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the blog, Peter! In my mother's home town of Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, there used to be a large department store called Strawbridge & Clothier. Are you related to those particular Clothiers?
DeleteI will forgive your British arrogance (whether typical or not is another matter) by ignoring it completely. Please notice that I didn't say you were wrong, I said your arrogance is showing.
You Yanks say "erb" but we English say "herb". You say bay-zil for the herb basil but we say bah-zil. You say yoh-gurt but we say yog-urt. You say Trump but we say megalomaniac.
ReplyDeleteYorkshire Pudding, I knew I could count on you for a few more goodies. Peter Clothier in the previous comment told me that British pronunciation is usually RIGHT and American pronunciation is usually WRONG. Whatever happened to 'hands across the sea' and all that? If you agree with Peter, please start repaying us for all the help we gave you in World War II.
Delete"Help"? You mean bribing our women with nylon stockings, "Lucky Strike" and chewing gum and then taking them off to godforsaken farms in Iowa and Nebraska? Besides, the bill should go to France and Germany and Luxembourg.
DeleteYorkshire Pudding, if I may slightly modify something Shakespeare put into the mouth of King Lear, how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless ally.
Delete