RMweb Gold SHMD Posted June 1, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 1, 2023 Remember in the 80s, or so, those little offices that were delivered anywhere on the back of a lorry? For a decade I always called them : - "Por-taca-bins" Confused the hell out of someone until it finally "clicked"! Kev. 1 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold DaveF Posted June 1, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 1, 2023 14 minutes ago, SHMD said: Remember in the 80s, or so, those little offices that were delivered anywhere on the back of a lorry? For a decade I always called them : - "Por-taca-bins" Confused the hell out of someone until it finally "clicked"! Kev. Me too. David 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium melmerby Posted June 1, 2023 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 1, 2023 As to Clerestory It is formed from two English words Clear & Storey. One I have obviously been getting wrong - Harass. I pronounced it all as one without emphasis. These days everyone is saying Ha-Rass (emphasis on the R). But then, maybe everyone else is wrong....🙂 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Martino Posted June 1, 2023 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 1, 2023 On 31/05/2023 at 18:03, jpendle said: Apparently after 23 years living in the US I still can't pronounce my christian name correctly. What's your name? John Joe? No John. Joan? No John. J O H N John Ohhh, you mean John ^%^%#^%(&@%(*&%^@(&$%^%*&%^!!!!!!!! Regards, Joe Joan John P After nearly the same amount of time in the US I get “what’s you name?” Martin Marty? No Martin Mardin? Martin Marin? Mar Tin ! Oh, mart’n. NO MAR TIN! And to add further insult to injury, my full name is Martin Owen, so I am constantly called Owen as no one can believe I have a first name as a second name. Often called Owen Martin. …and once we’ve established that Owen is the last or family name they insist on adding an S, making it Owens. Arrrggh! 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Martino Posted June 1, 2023 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 1, 2023 What about garage? Always used to be gararge in my day, now apparently garidge……. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozexpatriate Posted June 1, 2023 Share Posted June 1, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, melmerby said: One I have obviously been getting wrong - Harass. I pronounced it all as one without emphasis. These days everyone is saying Ha-Rass (emphasis on the R). It is one of those trans-Atlantic words that goes back and forth. There isn't a right or wrong. Usage ultimately decides. One that I notice is "controversy". British English is *fairly* consistent with con--trov--er--sy. American English is con--tro--ver--sy. The latter is more consistent with "controversial" - con-tro-verse-ial. It makes more sense to me to have consistent pronunciation with different forms of the word. There are a number of British English pronunciations where different forms of the same word are pronounced differently for no apparent reason: Innovative / innovate / innovation - where does in--ov--at--ive come from? Integral / integrate / integration - where does in--teg--ral come from? Neither wrong nor right of course. Edited June 1, 2023 by Ozexpatriate 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozexpatriate Posted June 1, 2023 Share Posted June 1, 2023 11 minutes ago, Martino said: What about garage? Always gar-arge for me. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Kazmierczak Posted June 1, 2023 Share Posted June 1, 2023 Apparently, Hyundai... Well, according to their adverts. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Flying Pig Posted June 1, 2023 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 1, 2023 2 hours ago, DaveF said: Me too. David I shall always do so from now on, and tell people they are named after the Cornish caravan park at Porth Ackabins where they were invented. 1 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BachelorBoy Posted June 2, 2023 Share Posted June 2, 2023 8 hours ago, TerryD1471 said: The names Worcester, Leicester, Leominster, Woolfardisworthy etc. come to mind. Don't forget there are two villages called Woolfardisworthy, with different pronunciations. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium BR60103 Posted June 2, 2023 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 2, 2023 My sister claimed that my father was the last person in Southern Ontario to consistently pronounce clerk as clark instead of clurk. I run into words in the newspaper which have been hyphenated badly giving rise to interesting new sub-words or pronunciations. (Can't think of any just now.) Being in Canada, we always said garage in the French fashion. I checked a dictionary once and it gave gar-age. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozexpatriate Posted June 2, 2023 Share Posted June 2, 2023 1 minute ago, BR60103 said: My sister claimed that my father was the last person in Southern Ontario to consistently pronounce clerk as clark instead of clurk. It was my dad's job title. He always pronounced it as "clark". 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pH Posted June 2, 2023 Share Posted June 2, 2023 6 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said: Scon? Scoone? Scown? Depends whether you’re talking about baked goods or a town in Scotland. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BachelorBoy Posted June 2, 2023 Share Posted June 2, 2023 3 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said: Apparently, Hyundai... Well, according to their adverts. The "hyun" is pronounced similarly to the "nyon" in canyon. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jjb1970 Posted June 2, 2023 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 2, 2023 Probably most Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai words. I don't speak any of those languages but try to learn basic pleasantries and key phrases when I visit countries. The problem with those languages they use sounds we don't, and pronunciation and tone are critical. I suspect most foreigners butcher them, on the other hand people appreciate the effort to try. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted June 2, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 2, 2023 7 hours ago, Martino said: What about garage? Always used to be gararge in my day, now apparently garidge……. Then there's 'gay-rarge'. My reference is a 1962 song by Steve Lawrence - The Lady Wants To Twist : "Fetch the Bentley from the gay-rarge, Herman!" Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted June 2, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 2, 2023 8 hours ago, Martino said: What about garage? Always used to be gararge in my day, now apparently garidge……. 8 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said: Always gar-arge for me. That's cos you is posh, I bet you visit Barth as well! Mike. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted June 2, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 2, 2023 (edited) Mike. Edited June 2, 2023 by Enterprisingwestern 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted June 2, 2023 Share Posted June 2, 2023 This garage business is, or was, at least to some extent a class or faux-posh thing, with the posh and pretentious using the French pronunciation, and everyone else saying ‘garridge’, or in the case of older country people something like ‘gerridge’. It wasn’t quite a hard ‘e’ sound, but it wasn’t a hard ‘a’ either ……………. Thinking about it, one of my neighbours is a centenarian who was born in a small village five miles from where I grew up, and she still has a lovely country voice, so maybe I should trick her into saying it, secretly record it, and post a sound file here. Or, maybe not. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium New Haven Neil Posted June 2, 2023 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 2, 2023 For me, it is/was the Christmas play - pantomime. I thought it was pantoMINE. Then again I'm a Geordie so pronunciation isn't my strong point. As for Mr Owen - yeah, my surname has but three letters unless anyone else spells it, then it comes with 4 or 5. Hay, Hays, Hayes. Hay, please, the Scottish way, no extra English letters. Here on Fraggle Rock, the (common) Manx surnames Collister and Callister are both pronounced either way - nightmare job. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold melmoth Posted June 2, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 2, 2023 10 hours ago, Martino said: What about garage? Always used to be gararge in my day, now apparently garidge……. This has had the unexpected bonus of allowing James O'Brien to annoy Nigel Farage on his radio show by calling him 'Mr Faridge'. 1 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steamport Southport Posted June 2, 2023 Share Posted June 2, 2023 Garage - no second elongated r sound and no "id" sound More like forage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted June 2, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 2, 2023 Sherry's son, when quite young, got hold of the expression 'a piece of quiet'. And I was convinced, much earlier in life, that there was a soccer team called Brighton & Hovelvian. Regional accents do legitimately vary the sound of many words of course. Something over 50 years ago, a Sunday engineering possession in E Sussex, involving Single Line Working, had gone wrong and passenger services were seriously delayed. For some reason, the Divisional Manager ended up in Croydon Control, and asked where the heck the Area Manager was? A phonecall to the AM's home elicited the news that he was in the bath. "Well, he'd better get out the bl**dy bath!" was the response, with the vowel in the last word most certainly revealing his origins well north of Potters Bar..... [The AM was effectively 'found out' and was removed from post the next day. Not all that long afterwards, following a major delay in the morning peak at Balcombe Tunnel, when the DM was in Haywards Heath box and failed to take charge, while others rightly deferred to him and awaited his instruction, he also was removed. His Scots successor as DM did not fall into any such traps, and finished his career as GM at York.] 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold 45655 Posted June 2, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 2, 2023 On 01/06/2023 at 05:25, toby_tl10 said: Is there a consensus of how "Maunsell" is pronounced? Yes. The trouble is, the consensus is wrong. “Maunsell rhymes with cancel and Bulleid rhymes with succeed.” H. A. V. Bulleid, Bulleid of the Southern, Ian Allan, 1977. “My late friend A. B. MacLeod told me that [Maunsell] would get very cross indeed if someone pronounced his name as ‘Mawnsell’. It was ‘Mansell’ and on that there was never any compromise, the ‘u’ being superfluous in the pronunciation.” Jeremy Clarke, ‘Maunsell’s Pièce de Resistance’ in Southern Way vol. 39 (2017) p.82. Keith Alton. 1 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Lurker Posted June 2, 2023 Share Posted June 2, 2023 13 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said: Garage - no second elongated r sound and no "id" sound More like forage but I pronounce garage pretty near garridge and forage as pretty near forridge - perhaps the second syllable is somewhere between an a and an i sound. certainly not as strong as the local pronunciation of Erith ("Errif" - the f for a th is allegedly a local dialect rather than just poor pronunciation, at least according to Bexley speech and language). I use a long a when I say Bath, but certainly not for garage or plastic or transport or transit - all of which I have heard over the years but less so recently 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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