American tourist stopping you

[Norm]

We had a local village at home called Houghton

The one near Bury Hill just north of Arundel? Love riding round there, although the hills and the distance from Norm Towers means that I've only done in on a motorbike.

I worked with an American guy who I over-heard speaking to someone in "Ipsitch". When questioned, it turned out that he meant "Ipswich" but it took a lot of persuading from me and half a dozen other colleagues to convince him that the "w" should be pronounced.

The very next call he made was, of course, to Dulwich... I had to leave the room I was laughing so hard.

 

[karen.488walker]

Kent has some terrible places for all nationalities, Wrotham (Rootham), Meopham (Mepham) and Ightham (ryhymes with light ham) to name a few. I didn't have a clue before I got here.

 

[Over The Hill]

I quite like sending Americans off track. In Salisbury once I was asked for directions to the cathedral and sent then around the corner to a very modest church.

On the other hand, I really cannot bear the stupid oddities of our language. To me letters represent sounds and so should be put together in a way to make the sounds that form the word.

Clearly our language fails to do this. I can’t see the wisdom of spelling things as we do so I can be reading in Reading or think that Marlborough is a rough borough.

I am sure the Irish laugh at us trying to get around their similar random letter system.

 

[dellzeqq]

Yorkshireman has a point - how many of us know the way to Poughkeepsie? Or New Orleans? Or even Los Angeles?

 

[Kirstie]

My favourite pronunciation story

 

[palinurus]

I bet I'm the same in Wales.

I know I am.

I was once asked by an American where "loobooroo" was.

Loughborough apparently.

 

[gaz]

The age old classic of St Reatham or as it's more commonly known Streatham

 

[Globalti]

My favourite pronunciation story

OMG! That poor cat! Or paw cat?

 

[dragon72]

Southwick in Hampshire is pronounced "Suthick"
Southwick in Sussex is pronounced "South-wick"

It just is.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Sorry to puncture the general merriment, but many of the US pronounciations are actually closer to the original English pronounciations than our current degraded versions. For example, my dad was laughing at an American who asked him how to get to 'Luger's Hall' (Lugershall - pronounced lugger-shall these days). The American was in fact dead on, in terms of the etymology of the placename.

And standard English versions are often completely different from local dialect too (as the Geordie examples show!). There's a village near my folks called Wherwell - pronounced 'ware-well' by most incomers, visitors and younger people but a swallowed 'worr-ull' by older locals).

 

[Kirstie]

Even when they try to say 'loughborough'?

 

[killiekosmos]

Not about pronunciations but an American holiday story. On a Med Cruise up on deck as ship sails into Mykonos. Chatting to others roundabout. A large American, telling us this was his first trip to Europe, expressed surprise that Rome had proper roads. He than asked where the Greeks quarried the pure white stone that all the houses were build with.

 

[automatic_jon]

Wymondham in Norfolk = Wind'am. Which confuses most people really.

 

[Norm]

I think it is Browser who lives near one of my favourites, namely Cowbit (pronounced kubit).

To follow up on FM's bonfire urinations, whilst many don't like "Americanisation" of English, the Americans do, in general, pronounce things in a way which would be more understandable to the man on the 16th century Clapham Omnibus. In most cases, it is the way we say things in Britain which has changed and American pronunciations are closer to traditional English.

 

[chap]

Don't they ask for Edin Borrow?

They can't help it tho' can they? Haven't bought the appropriate dictionary and expect everyone in the world to speak their language

What time does the one o'clock gun go off?