Pronounce English Accurately

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Wacky place names

There are a very large number of place names in the British Isles whose spelling and pronunciation don't match up very well, giving us another excellent opportunity to practice reading the IPA.

Some of these are well known - you probably know that Derby is pronounced /ˈdɑː.bi/, with the vowel in 'car', not /ˈdɜː.bi/, with the vowel in 'bird', and that Salisbury is /ˈsɒlzbri/, nothing like the spelling at all. But did you know that Teignmouth, in Devon, is /ˈtɪn.məθ/, and Streatham, in London, is /ˈstret.əm/?

Let's start with a group of names you're probably familiar with, but some may still be a surprise. These are place names ending in '-wick' and '-wich', all of which are Anglo-Saxon in origin. In some but not all of them, the 'w' is silent.

You probably know Norwich /ˈnɒr.ɪtʃ/, Harwich /ˈhær.ɪtʃ/, Greenwich /ˈgren.ɪtʃ/, Woolwich /ˈwʊl.ɪtʃ/, and Warwick /ˈwɒr.ɪk/.

So, off we go. Your job is to read the IPA correctly.

/ˈber.ɪk/ ….

Berwick.

/ˈdʌl.ɪtʃ/

Dulwich.

/ˈæn.ɪk/

Alnwick, with a silent 'l' as well.

/ˈtʃɪzɪk/

Chiswick, in London,

and one which really caught me out when I visited not long ago:

/ˈwɪt.ɪk/

Wightwick,

a rather nice house near not so nice Wolverhampton. I had no idea it wasn't pronounced Wightwick until I went there and heard everyone talking about 'Wittick'.

Similar is /ˈsʌð.ək/

Southwark is on the south bank of the Thames in London.

Not all names ending in -wick and -wich are pronounced with silent 'w':

/ˈdrɔɪt.wɪtʃ/

Droitwich is pronounced the way it looks,

as are Middlewich /ˈmɪd.əl.wɪtʃ/ and Nantwich /ˈnænt.wɪtʃ/.

Then we have town names ending in '-cester', all of which were Roman military camps. Some of these may be familiar, others less so. All of them confuse our American cousins rather wonderfully.

Let's read the IPA.

/ˈglɒs.tə/ - Gloucester

/ˈles.tə/ - Leicester

/ˈwʊs.tə/ - Worcester

/ˈbɪs.tə/ - Bicester (Oxfordshire)

/ˈɔːl.stə/ - Alcester (Warwickshire) - less well known

/ˈtəʊ.stə/ Towcester, Northants. Yes, it's a homophone of 'toaster'.

And as far as I know there's only one in which the '-cester' is fully pronounced:

/ˈsaɪ.rən.ses.tə/ - Cirencester.

Now let's move on to some more unpredictable ones. My first group of these are all French names.

Just say them aloud from the IPA before going on.

/ˈbjuː.li/

Beaulieu, Hants

/ˈbiː.tʃ.əm/

Beauchamp

/ˈbiː.və/

Belvoir

These are Norman French names which the ignorant English peasants simply mispronounced, and now by default they've become the standard pronunciations for those places.

On we go. Read aloud:

/ˈbe.kənz.fiːld/

Beaconsfield, just off the M40 halfway between London and Oxford.

/ˈlem.stə/

Leominster, Herefordshire

/ˈbɪd.ɪ.fəd/

Bideford, Devon - it's not /ˈbaɪd.fəd/.

/iːd/ and /eɪʃ/ - There must be something about the South West, because in Devon, there's a village named Ide but pronounced /iːd/, and just nearby is Ash, pronounced /eɪʃ/.

/fɔɪ/. Even further down in the south west you'll find a very picturesque town called Fowey, Cornwall - pronounced /fɔɪ/.

Let's go on - it gets wilder and wackier!

/lɪm/

Lympne - despite all those letters, it's simply /lɪm/.

/ˈkɒŋz.bri/

Congresbury, Somerset.

I never knew that one until I did this course. I've driven past it many times on the motorway down to the South West - never visited, I must admit - and I've always pronounced it /ˈkɒŋ.grəs.bri/. No longer - now I know it's /ˈkɒŋz.bri/.

And through /ˈkɒŋz.bri/ runs the river Congresbury Yeo, pronounced /jəʊ/.

/fruːm/

Frome - also in Somerset.

/skuːn/

Scone, a place in Scotland.

'Scone' the edible teatime things are /skɒn/ in polite company, never /skəʊn/. The place in Scotland is /skuːn/.

/ˈmæ.rə.lə.bən/

Marylebone, in London - all the unstressed vowels should be schwa - /ˈmæ.rə.lə.bən/.

/ˈgrəʊv.nə/ - Grosvenor - a common name of streets around the country - has no 's' sound.

Similar is /ˈgrəʊ.mənt/ - Grosmont, a village on the picturesque North York Moors Steam Railway, but this can be pronounced with or without the 's', either /ˈgrəʊ.mənt/ or /ˈgrəʊs.mənt/.

Sometimes there is more than one pronunciation of the same name, according to where it is or how it's used.

Here's an example of this:

/ˈmɔːd.lɪn/

and

/ˈmæg.də.lɪn/

Say them both aloud.

/ˈmɔːd.lɪn/ is the pronunciation of Magdalen/Magdalene (Magdalen College Oxford and Magdalene College Cambridge), but in the name St. Mary Magdalen/Magdalene it's /ˈmæg.də.lɪn/.

/ˈhəʊ.bən/ -

/ˈhəʊ.bən/ is the commonest pronunciation of Holborn, in London again, and around the country in street names, but it's also pronounced with the 'l', both as /ˈhəʊl.bən/ and as /ˈhɒl.bən/.

Another less well-known but crazier example is Woolfardisworthy, Devon, the name of two villages. One is pronounced /ˈwʊl.zə.ri/, the other as it is spelt, /wʊlˈfɑː.dɪs.ˌwɜː.ði/.

Getting crazier still is /ˈheɪz.bə.rə/ - say it aloud.

This is the pronunciation of Happisburgh, a village in Norfolk famous for the unfortunate fact that it is falling into the sea.

I had no idea that Happisburgh was pronounced /ˈheɪz.bə.rə/ until I went there on holiday and still find it rather hard to see that name and read it in a completely different way!

Just a couple from Scotland.

/ˈed.ɪn.brə/ or /ˈed.ɪn.bə.rə/ - Edinburgh is almost always pronounced as if it were 'Edinborough'. You will rarely hear anyone say /ˈed.ɪn.bɜː/. This is what by all logic it really should be, because it's nothing to do with the English word 'borough' - it's 'burgh' meaning 'castle'.

/ˈkɜː.kuː.bri/, /ˈkə.kuː.bri/

A wacky one is Kirkcudbright - it's pronounced /kɜːˈkuː.bri/.

/ˈstreɪ.vən/ and /wiːmz/

- /ˈstreɪ.vən/ is Strathaven and /wiːmz/ is Wemyss/.

Going further afield, to the USA, we find

/ˈtuː.sən/ - Tucson (Arizona)

and /kəˈnet.ɪ.kət/ Connecticut.

There are many more of these, but don't worry about them. If they're big places or well-known names, then people will know how to pronounce them, and may cheerfully correct you if you get them wrong. But smaller places are just as much a mystery and surprise, and often a source of fun, to non-locals who come across them as they are to anyone else.

Now we'll move on to the next section, on what happens to speech sounds in connected, faster speech.