Yesterday, on the tube, two Americans said to me:
'Excuse me, do you know if this train stops at LIE-cest-er Square?'
After correcting them ('It's LESTER Square, innit!') they started chatting about the journey they were making the following day, to a place called 'Looga-Borooga'. After racking my brains for a few minutes I realised where they were talking about.
Loughborough.
We do have a pretty strange language at times. The above conversation reminded me of a chat we had with our stalker, Chris, in Hamburg last summer. It went a bit like this:
Chris: I go to live in Ips-ich.
Katie: Oh, I have a cousin who lives in Ipswich.
Chris: Does she know you don't pronounce the 'w' in 'Ips-ich'?
Katie: Um...
John: (helpfully) You don't pronounce the 'w' in 'Norwich'... Maybe that's what you mean?
Chris: No, I mean 'Ips-ich'. I go to Ips-ich.
The mistake was understandable, but he refused to believe us! (He then hinted that he wanted us to drop him off in Ipswich, but we managed to make our escape...)
While we're on the topic of funny pronunciations for place names, my Geordie friend Laura pronounces 'Great Yarmouth' and 'Bournemouth' as 'Great Yar-mouth' and 'Bourne-mouth' (as opposed to 'muth'). And there's no arguing with her, because that's how it's spelt.
Weird.
1 comment:
Uff! I'm so glad i'm not the only one who looks stupid trying to sound english...You know the pub "the plough"? well,I pronounced it like I though you'd pronounce every word writen that similar to cough. Some helpful brits did correct me kindly (after not being able to stop laughing for half an hour. So rude!)
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