Upper-class pronunciations are all over the place. The Cholmondeleys are pronounced the CHUM-leys. The Earl of Harewood is the Earl of HAR-wood. The Beaulieux are the BEW-leys. In accordance with the convention that French words should be pronounced as far away from the actual French style as humanly possible, just to show those French people who’s boss, Beauchamp Place, a street in Knightsbridge, BEACH-um Place. Jacques, in Shakespeare: JAKE-weeze. Your valet is your VAL-let. Madame Tussaud’s wax museum? To some Brits it’s MA-dam TOO-sod’s).
That is from Sarah Lyall’s not fully analytical but often quite amusing The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British.
Here is a picture of Thomas Cholmondeley [CHUM-ley], and with this caption: "The trial has opened in Nairobi of an aristocrat
accused of murdering a black Kenyan man he suspected of poaching on his
family’s 100,000-acre estate." The case, the second of its kind brought against Thomas, remains pending. Here is more information. Here is his girlfriend.
I’ve never quite got the strange pronounciations. However, some things the author suggests are a bit odd themselves, especially in their emphasis. And they’re all subject to regional variation, obviously.
I certainly don’t recognise the Jacques. The Beauchamp is usually more even (Bee-Chum) and the well-known wax emporium would usually be pronounced with a much more even Madam, and the second syllable of the second word is more like “swords” than “Sods”.
It’s nice to know that we’re liked by many Americans, though!
In Virginia, one of the First Families of old English origin (although probably with some Italian connection way way back there) are the Taliaferros. That name is pronounced “Tolliver.”
Barkley,
Taliaferro was Booker T. Washinton’s middle name also, because that was his owner’s name when he was born.
If several Huguenot families settled in one town, then they’d keep their surnames, however pronounced. If there was only one, however, they would often be called “French” which they would often then adopt as a surname. So says my Huguenot wife’s family, anyway.
Catch these wierd and wonderful pronouciations while you can. Literacy is slowly strangling them. Even the fine old Englich town of Sissister is often now pronounced the way it is spelt – Cirencester.
There’s also Througham (thruff-em). Of course, compared to Irish orthography English — even perverse upper-class English — is a breeze.
And, of course, “Leicester” is pronounced “Lester.”
What’s weird about that, Barkley? Right here in MA we have “Gloster” (Gloucester) and “Wuster,” or “Wusta” (Worcester)
Wow, another patronizing book by an American overseas ridiculing the locals for not being just like Americans.
I wish cretins like her were more like the typical American, i.e., devoid of a passport.
Vadranor,
Actually, it is. Thanks.
Barkley;
Where do you suppose Worcestershire sauce comes from?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worcester
Bernard,
There is also a Leicester, MA (pronounced Lester).
We mangle a few here like: Haverhill, Tewkesbury, or Billerica.
Of course, my favorite Massachusetts pronunciation belongs to Berlin, MA.
This is kind of ridiculous. While there are real cases of upper-class types affecting accents to fortify the class lines, many names in Britain (both place names and family names) have been preserved in a written form for nearly a millennium. No one should be surprised that both the rules that relate pronunciations to spellings, and the pronunciations themselves, have changed. We also keep aitches in wheat and whale… and the English, who have had a standardized spelling for longer than we Americans, have lots of difficult-to-spell variants of our medical words.
Worcestershire sauce, of course.
The explanation about length of words and names being in place in Britain is what I have always heard as the explanation for all these oddly abbreviated pronunciations, although there may be a class thing in the variations on pronunciation of French names. Even so, in Wisconsin there are a lot of place names that are French whose pronunciation has been Anglicized, thus “Fond du Lac” is pronounced as it looks and “Prairie du Chien,” the last word is “sheen.”
As for “Xmas,” I regularly get nauseated by religious fanatics who get all upset by it. However, the “X” is a taken from the Greek, in which it was the first letter in the word “Xristos,” that is, “Christ,” which was a title given to Yeshua bin Yusuf, that he never heard or bore or used in his own lifetime.
@Robt Scarth: “Scotland, where everywhere is spelled Ecclefechan and pronounced Kirkcudbright”.
The book is obviously so light-weight it would blow away in the first breeze. Patronising? Yes. Inaccurate? Yes. But worth bothering about? I don’t think so.
I have to say that I am currently reading this book and having difficulties. The author seems to only hang out with public school types in London. Her observations sound snobbish and hackneyed. I don’t even think her comments are funny, though other readers find her hilarious. Is it just me????
Welcome to our company which sells all kinds of FFXI Gil.
perhaps you should more clear about the content
Anyone want to try the Scottish names ‘Strathaven’ and ‘Buccleuch’?
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