Pronunciation Of a Name

Hey Damian

You forgot Derby, which is actually pronounced Darby.

the evil nerd

In the town of Derby was a clerk named Berkeley who drove his kerr into the marjoribanks of Derwent.

Wasn't the word "clerk" formerly spelled "clark"?

Massachusetts has got a Worcester, and we pronounce it /wUst@r/ or /wUst@/ as well.

Also, in Ohio, there is a city that is actually spelled "Wooster" - I guess they were fed up with the crazy English spelling. :-)

Suburbs of Adelaide, Adelaide, which undoubtedly be places in Eng -

Payneham - Pay-num (schwa 2nd syllable)
Hackham - Hack-um (schaw 2nd syllable)


Melbourne

Darebin - Dar-e-bin


Queensland

Tugan - Ta-gan

Sorry

Tugan - Chew-gun

Are you 100% sure the name Thames is pronounced "Tems"? It sure doesn't look like "Tems". To me, it looks more like it should be pronounced something like "Tames". If the name Thame is pronounced like "Tame", then it stands to reason that Thames should be pronounced like "Tames". I'm confused.

Don't you trust us, Annabelle? ;-)

Please take a look at the following:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=thames

It's not that I don't trust you, it's just that I'm confused. I tried that link you gave me, but I have to sign up and become a member in order to actually listen to the audio pronunciations. And the bad news is they want my credit card information! All I'm asking is, are you 100% sure that the name Thames is pronounced "Tems"? I know when I first started this post, I gave two pronunciations that I've heard for the same name, "Tems" and "Tames". someone said that either way is right. But it seems there's an argument where others speculate that the only pronunciation of this name that's the right one is "Tems". Can somebody please clear up this linguistic confusion for me?

Say "Temz" if you want to sound like a native UKer who's in the know. Say "Tames" if you don't give a damn what the natives think you sound like.

Damn my post looks bitchy...even to me, in my inebriated state. I'm gonna sleep this off now. Good night

<<I tried that link you gave me, but I have to sign up and become a member in order to actually listen to the audio pronunciations>>

Oh, sorry about that, Annabelle. Actually, I provided that link so that you can see the pronunciation guide, not the audio file. But, you're in luck! bartleby.com has an audio file that's free, and you don't have to be a member to listen to it.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/11/T0141100.html

I've been doing a wee bit of "research" into names and pronunciation in the UK. Many of the names which are not pronounced as they are spelt seemed to have had "foreign" origins, especially French, a Language which has had a huge influence on English since the Middle Ages.

Many of the surnames have had aristocratic connections and here are several which are not voiced anything like the way they're spelt:

Featherstonehaugh ...ponounced correctly as "Fanshaw"!
Cholmondeley ..... "Chumley"
Beauchamp ..... "Beech-um"
Beaulieu ..... "B-yew-ley"
Buccleuch ..... Buck-loo

Some of them are obviously Ferench in origin but not pronounced in a French way at all...just been Anglicised in strange way. I really think that a sort of snobbery in the English aristocracy had the perverse desire to be so posh as to have a pronunciation set up this way.

I also think there is in inbuilt sense of "superiority" in many ENGLISH people to deliberately make a mush of pronouncing foreign place names properly...it's almost a fun game among them. The Scots and the Welsh see it all the time when the Sassenachs take delight in mangling Scottish and Welsh names.

Still, I suppose many of them do the same with the above weird examples I give above.

Sorry for typos...in a bit of a rush. No excuse I know but there you go!

Damian, I was thinking the same of the French, at least of the French aristocracy and royals before they lost their heads. My philosophy is that the French changed their pronunciations of words that were shared with the English language, words that were borrowings or because of their common Latin origins. Consider most of English vocabulary is of Latin and Romance language origin. I get the feeling this was to make a mockery of the English and the English language because of its mongrelisation (as portrayed in "The History of English" documentary series) and was a form of snobbery from the French aristocracy.