[Minor spoiler] Why Włocławek is a bad name for a planet

Vince wrote:

cthia wrote:Is it Marshbanks?

I didn't know it John. My niece is visiting. She spilled the beans.

During my stay in California, I was confronted with the name Beauchamp. Which I pronounced Bowchamp. Everyone looked at me rather humorously. It is Beechum. My wife says Forcester is Foster. Many people mispronounce Camp Lejeune as LeJune. It is LeZhern.

Which I suspect would be pronounced as Lejern on Safehold. And probably spelled Lyzhyrn.

WeirdlyWired wrote: If Worchester is pronounced Wooster, why isn't Dorchester pronounced Dooster?

Try Meaux (hint short for mayonaisse), Hebert (just one critter with a rifle), Latiolais, St. Cyr, and all the weird names in my family tree.

The confusion comes in the way it is spelled. To be fair, it is Worcester without the "h." Any name ending in chester seems to have a "natural" pronunciation. Gloucester is Gloster.

My niece found another and I threw it at my wife. She correctly translated Featherstonehaugh as Fanshaw. Goes to show, you can't screw a Brit up any more than they already are.

"Ouch! Sorry hon!!"

I think all the trips to London breathing in all that heavy fog fogged many a Brit's brain as bad as any of Grayson's heavy metals. I guess it was hard for them to spell Fanshaw under the effects of alco-fog.

"Ouch!!! You just broke your shoe heel!"

"Ouch! Okay okay, you got a matching set now!"

Hi Cthia

Yes, it's Marshbanks - well done!

I can quite understand shortening those two to Herf and Woost - as you say, a social circles thing to let those who do it look down upon those who don't. While those looked down upon regard them as 'posers'.

Cheers, John

quote="cthia"]John, have you ever heard of locals pronouncing Herefordshire and Worcestershire as Herf and Woost inside social circles? I have. But it is something peculiar. My wife explained it to me. People from Wooster are quick to shorten it to Herf and Woost. But people from Herefordshire aren't. Social sense of pecking order?

cthia wrote:Is it Marshbanks?

I didn't know it John. My niece is visiting. She spilled the beans.

During my stay in California, I was confronted with the name Beauchamp. Which I pronounced Bowchamp. Everyone looked at me rather humorously. It is Beechum. My wife says Forcester is Foster. Many people mispronounce Camp Lejeune as LeJune. It is LeZhern.

John Prigent wrote:Good for you, Cthia! Now, are you a sufficiently worldly American to know how the surname of one of my old schoolmasters, 'Marjoribanks', is pronounced?

Cheers, John

cthia wrote:

John Prigent wrote:Correct! Which is why I chose those examples - just to confuse Americans . Incidentally, 'Woostersheer' is the correct way to pronounce 'Worcestershire'. And you really don't want to get involved with English pronunciations of old surnames!

Cheers, John

Woostersher is also correct John. I admit to mangling it as well as anyone else until I visited the town of the same name in England. Back in 1998 when they split from their neighboring town of Herefordshire, I attended a friend's wedding there. It was referred to as Herford and Wooster. Much as the two cities of Winston and Salem in North Carolina merged into Winston-Salem.

I've heard the sauce shortened to Wooster before, as Annachie says. My point is that traveling is what schooled me. Hence, my niece's remark about unworldly Americans.

[/quote]

Herefordshire & Worcestershire (AKA H&W) is an abomination of a political entity created at a county council level by which government I can't remember (and can't be bothered to look up), the two counties themselves are separate as far as postal (Zip) codes are concerned and even the parliamentary constituencies are separate. The police forces of each county come under the Mercian Force, which is a throwback for want of a better analogy to the Saxon times when the area covering the west midlands counties east of the Welsh border was known as Mercia.

The overwhelming majority of residents consider themselves to belong to the individual counties and not the political unit.

(Home rule for Herefordshire)

I've always thought that the pronounciation dates back to natives while the spellings come from various invaders.



Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk