* English language across the pond

[Peter Collier]

In Ancestry.com integration (13682) on Mon Apr 18, 2016 10:08 pm Jón Denbow said:

[...] or if you prefer programme. See, I can speak British!

A sterling attempt indeed, Carl, and much commended but, alas, not quite right (you didn't think we'd make it that easy for Johnny Foreigner, did you?). A television or radio transmission would be a programme, as would a printed guide to a performance, or a schedule of planned events. When it comes to computers and computing, however, we use program.

We do it on purpose, just to keep people on their toes.

[cjdenbow]

[...] or if you prefer programme. See, I can speak British!

A sterling attempt indeed, Carl, and much commended but, alas, not quite right (you didn't think we'd make it that easy for Johnny Foreigner, did you?). A television or radio transmission would be a programme, as would a printed guide to a performance, or a schedule of planned events. When it comes to computers and computing, however, we use program.

We do it on purpose, just to keep people on their toes.

Really? Well, one thing I've learned in my trips across the pond is that you Limeys are consistently inconsistent. Does keep a Yank guessing! BTW, I have English roots in Devon, and I've visited an ancestral home -- Denbow House and Denbow Thatch -- near Exeter. I've also seen the tomb of Sir John Denebaud in Hinton St. George. According to what I've been told, "Denebaud" was pronounced "Denbow" even back then. I rest my case about the consistently inconsistent use of spelling and pronunciation in the Queen's English.

[Peter Collier]

I can see how Denebaud might well have been pronounced Denbow. The latter part of the name has a Norman/French look to it, where the -aud would give you the 'oh' sound like, for example, 'chaud' (meaning 'hot', pronounced 'show'). Den[n]e would be consistentent with Middle English spelling.

There can certainly be some pretty obscure spellings. Beaulieu ('bewley'), Beauchamp ('beecham'), Buccleuch ('buh-clue'), Cholmondeley ('chumly'), Featherstonehaugh ('fanshaw'), Meagher ('marr'), and Menzies ('ming-iss') are some favourites surname shibboleths of mine. Placenames can be even worse: Beaudesert ('belzer'), Belvoir ('beaver'), Launceston ('lahnsen'), and Towcester ('toaster') spring immediately to mind, and there's a Burgh in Lincolnshire ('buh-ruh') and also in Cumbria ('bruff').

Want to take a guess at Tintwhistle? You might find it on a Christmas tree...

[AdrianBruce]

... Menzies ('ming-iss') ...

For what it's worth, Menzies is a different case. The "z" is the nearest character in the usual type faces to the now defunct letter "yogh". It looked sort of like a curly "z" and was pronounced somewhat like a "g". Hence "Menzies" was always pronounced something like "Mingis".

That's one the Scots have for the English.... I think...

[Gowermick]

Not forgetting 'Mahoney' pronounced Marney, or 'Mainwaring' pronounce Mannering, or if the TV programme is to be believed, 'Bucket' is pronounce boo-kay

NB Dilemma is spelt Dilemna, go figure.

[NickWalker]

NB Dilemma is spelt Dilemna, go figure.

Actually no it isn't (but I thought it was too until quite recently) - try looking it up in one of the dictionaries online! This may interest you: Dilemma or Dilemna?

[Gowermick]

Nick
Like you, I was taught it was spelt 'mn' rather than 'mm', and have since always spelt it that way. However, following your comment, I immediately dived into my Dictionaries (Collins and Webster) and was flabbergasted to find there was no mention of Dilemna (not even as a footnote to Dilemma) in either.

So apologies all round. One is never too old to learn something new (even me, who'll be 71 next month!)

[cjdenbow]

OK, please tell me why the Brits pronounce "Worcester" like the way we in the State of Ohio, USA, spell the city located in this state: "Wooster"? I always tell folks from Massachusetts that use the British spelling that by the time the settlers got to Ohio they were more into phonetic spelling. We have a similar situation with "Gloucester," which is spelled "Glouster" in Ohio. Then there's our local hero in Athens, Ohio, from the late War of the Rebellion (1861-65), General Charles H. Grosvenor, whose name, of course, is pronounced as though the "s" doesn't exist. What was it that Winston Churchill once said about the U.S. and the U.K, two nations separated by a common language.

[jimlad68]

I'm not quite sure this is the correct forum, but don't forget that a lot of US English words and sayings are the original, just that UK English has 'moved on'. There are countless examples of original word changes in meaning from both sides on the pond. You only have to think in recent times of the word gay or wicked. I find it a great pity that language changes as much as it does as to me language is all about communication, but I have to live with it!

[tatewise]

I have moved this topic to the General discussion Forum.

[Peter Collier]

OK, please tell me why the Brits pronounce "Worcester" like the way we in the State of Ohio, USA, spell the city located in this state: "Wooster"? I always tell folks from Massachusetts that use the British spelling that by the time the settlers got to Ohio they were more into phonetic spelling. We have a similar situation with "Gloucester," which is spelled "Glouster" in Ohio. Then there's our local hero in Athens, Ohio, from the late War of the Rebellion (1861-65), General Charles H. Grosvenor, whose name, of course, is pronounced as though the "s" doesn't exist. What was it that Winston Churchill once said about the U.S. and the U.K, two nations separate by a common language.

The answer to your plaintive cry is "diachronic sound change". Particularly coming into play here would be that the West Germanic languages tend to put primary stress on the initial syllable, coupled with the fact they also tend to reduce unstressed vowels to schwa (the "uh" sound at the start of "again"). Mix in several centuries of apocope and syncope (ellision of unstressed vowels from the middle and end of words) and you tend to up with short(er) words with a bunch of assimilated consonants at the end.

In layman's terms, over the centuries the pronunciation of long words tends to get a bit mushed-up/slurred and then simplified.

Town names ending in -cester are very old (the derive from the Roman "CASTRA" for camp or fort, as do English town names ending in -chester, -caster, -xeter, or Welsh town names starting Caer-). Pronunciation changes continually over time, of course, whereas English spelling was by and large fixed in the 1500–1600s, which is why it can seem so irregular now to non-English speakers.

English towns ending in -chester and -caster are usually pronounced as you might expect. The pronunciation of most English town names ending in -cester however gets elidided to -'ster:

Worcester > Wooster
Leicester > Lester
Gloucester > Gloster
Towcester > Toaster
Bicester > Bister
Frocester > Froster
Alcester > Olster (but also "all-sester"!)
Rocester > Roaster

The only exception that springs immediately to mind is Cirencester ("siren-sester").

Probably worth pointing out here that most English-English dialects are non-rhotic, so that final "-er" is going to sound like a clipped "-uh" to anyone who speaks with a rhotic dialect (a non-R-dropping accent, like General American or Scots): Woost-uh, Lest-uh, Gloss-tuh, etc.

As to Grosvenor, I think there are almost as many pronunciations of as there are English-speaking people. One in Birmingham that I'm familiar with has metathesis of the /s/ ad /v/, so it ends up sounding like "groves-nuh".

[ColeValleyGirl]

The only exception that springs immediately to mind is Cirencester ("siren-sester").

There are still locals (mostly the older ones) who call it Cisester.

[mjashby]

"OK, please tell me why the Brits pronounce "Worcester" like the way we in the State of Ohio, USA, spell the city located in this state: "Wooster"?

Perhaps for the same reason that, in the USA, Kansas is pronounced Kan-sas, but Arkansas is pronounced Ar-kan-saw!

Seriously, the main reasons for variations in pronunciation are many and varied. You would probably need to examine the origins of British place names together with the way people spoke when the accepted pronunciation and spelling became commonplace, to get a feel for why things are the way they are. Including for example the original Roman (Latin) origin of many English place names, the later 'germanic' Old English language introduced by the Saxons; the later Norman (French) influence post 1066; and Medieval Latin which was the language used in whole or in part in the vast majority of official, church and legal documents well into the 17th century. The accepted pronunciation and spelling of those place names was determined centuries ago and probably by the way people spoke at that time, i.e. the phonetic pronunciation would have come first, and the accepted spelling would probably have been derived from that pronunciation using a combination of the letters available.

With places such as Worcester the English language convention is that c is a silent character therefore reducing the place name to two syllables Wore-ster, which is (in my experience) pronounced much more like Wuss-ter than Woo-ster. Of course, today's accepted spelling and pronunciation of these place names is, in reality, hundreds of years old, significantly before the formation of the United States and also significantly before the majority of people on either Continent were even barely literate.

You may say To-may-toe, but I say To-ma-toe!

Eeh by gum, why mither thissen. 'appen tha's getting flummoxed o'er summat tha can do nowt about. Sithee

(Yes that's English too: http://www.bbc.co.uk/northyorkshire/voi ... sary.shtml)

Mervyn

[Peter Collier]

Eeh by gum, why mither thissen. 'appen tha's getting flummoxed o'er summat tha can do nowt about. Sithee

Ar, y'am roight theer, mate.