Josiah Duggar Part 4

[Ais]

8 hours ago, fluffernutter said:

Here's something we say in this here that i don't think is common in many other places: "We need to read (pronounced red) up the house today." Anyone else anywhere say this?

Yep, we read (red) up here too. 

“I must get read up” = “I really must tidy my house”

[Markie]

Sorry, back to Josiah. Anyone else really wish the Duggars and other fundie families would only pick a couple siblings to be in their wedding party? I'd be thankful to choose my own dress and not match anyone else. The bridal parties are massive and crowded on stage. 

[SapphireSlytherin]

And here I am just wondering why Josiah's topic is at 30 pages and still going... lol

[front hugs > duggs]

Similar to the Toronto/Tronno pronunciation is Baltimore. In my experience, locals pronounce it more “Bawlmore”. 

And my husband makes fun of me for the way I say Trenton. I don’t put much emphasis on the second “t” and slur it. He sounds super proper saying it in his English accent with the hard “t” sound 

[lumpentheologie]

2 hours ago, Fascinated said:

Ok allyallguys.  Who else cringes when hearing foyer pronounced foy-yuhr?  

I had to think for a long time about how else you would pronounce this.  Now I get it.  But everyone I know says foy-er -- I'm pretty sure it's an normal variant. 

[Rachel333]

It doesn't bother me if people pronounce "foyer" as "ˈfoiər," which is the first listed pronunciation in the google dictionary anyway. Plenty of words of foreign origin get pronounced differently in English, and I think that's okay. It applies in reverse too, with people who speak other languages adopting English words but pronouncing them differently.

One funny example is "forte," as in "a thing at which someone excels." It comes from French and so should actually be pronounced like "fort," but people make it extra foreign sounding and pronounce it "for-tay." It would actually sound wrong if you pronounced it the French way.

[Fascinated]

1 minute ago, Rachel333 said:

It doesn't bother me if people pronounce "foyer" as "ˈfoiər," which is the first listed pronunciation in the google dictionary anyway. Plenty of words of foreign origin get pronounced differently in English, and I think that's okay. It applies in reverse too, with people who speak other languages adopting English words but pronouncing them differently.

One funny example is "forte," as in "a thing at which someone excels." It comes from French and so should actually be pronounced like "fort," but people make it extra foreign sounding and pronounce it "for-tay." It would actually sound wrong if you pronounced it the French way.

That’s an excellent point!  I should have thought of that myself as I have a Kia Forte. His name is Will. 

[ShadowCat]

2 hours ago, front hugs > duggs said:

Similar to the Toronto/Tronno pronunciation is Baltimore. In my experience, locals pronounce it more “Bawlmore”. 

And my husband makes fun of me for the way I say Trenton. I don’t put much emphasis on the second “t” and slur it. He sounds super proper saying it in his English accent with the hard “t” sound 

The original Baltimore in West Cork is pronounced "Baaltimore" with a very flat a sound, like the Cal in California. 

It's derived from the Irish meaning Town of the big house. Baile an Tí Mór

[Gillyweed]

3 hours ago, Jenn The Heathen said:

I live in NJ (the shore area) and I’m not sure if this is just us or a statewide thing, but my husband and I say “you guys” so much that our kids collectively refer to us as “guys.”  We’re still mom and dad individually, but if they’re trying to get the attention of both of us, they say “Hey, guys.”  At first I was bothered by it, but I realize it’s our own fault.  Plus it’s funny to hear “GUYS!” really loudly when one of them wakes up from a bad dream in the middle of the night.

I'm from Central Jersey and exclusively say "you guys"! I go to school around DC now and am always slightly worried I'll offend someone with this speech habit

[Rachel333]

Regarding the intrusive 'r', Trump does that sometimes. He talked about "this Russiar thing with Trump and Russia," for example. (There's video of it here.)

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

1 hour ago, Rachel333 said:

One funny example is "forte," as in "a thing at which someone excels." It comes from French and so should actually be pronounced like "fort," but people make it extra foreign sounding and pronounce it "for-tay." It would actually sound wrong if you pronounced it the French way.

Except that the word "forte" has made it's way into common English use from being used in musical notation, as far as I know. That means it's from Italian, not French. So, "for-tay" is correct. 

[Rachel333]

11 minutes ago, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

Except that the word "forte" has made it's way into common English use from being used in musical notation, as far as I know. That means it's from Italian, not French. So, "for-tay" is correct. 

According to the dictionary, "forte" in that connotation comes from French, while the musical term comes from Italian.

Apparently it did use to be pronounced with one syllable, and it might be confusion with the musical term that led to the pronunciation in common use now.

[victoriasponge]

I didn't even realise I had the intrusive R (I'm English, of course I do) until a 9 year old girl at camp in the Catskills asked why I add an r. I just sat there thinking 'but... I don't?' until they managed to get me to realise what they meant. It'd be really difficult and proper to manage to say certain sentences without it.

As for place names, there's a ton of English ones that make no sense, and ones that do but places in the US with the same name are pronounced differently. (Birmingham is the big one I can think of, we don't pronounce the 'ham' on the end properly - Birming-um, and some county names, Sussex, Essex etc. get pronounced with a full 'Ex' when we wouldn't and 'shire' gets pronounced like we're from some fantasy novel. Nottinghamshire (um, not ham, sher, not shire) etc.) Oh, and Derby. We say darby for that, not like the derby like the event in America. And then all the ones with extra letters we don't use: Leicester, Bicester, Worcester (all the cesters). Part of the problem is the different vowel sounds, though.

I say 'you guys' unless I'm talking to really old people who tend to dislike the 'Americanisation' of it. Maybe I should say y'all to really throw them.

[scoutsadie]

14 minutes ago, victoriasponge said:

As for place names, there's a ton of English ones that make no sense, and ones that do but places in the US with the same name are pronounced differently. (Birmingham is the big one I can think of, we don't pronounce the 'ham' on the end properly - Birming-um, and some county names, Sussex, Essex etc. get pronounced with a full 'Ex' when we wouldn't and 'shire' gets pronounced like we're from some fantasy novel. Nottinghamshire (um, not ham, sher, not shire) etc.) Oh, and Derby. We say darby for that, not like the derby like the event in America. And then all the ones with extra letters we don't use: Leicester, Bicester, Worcester (all the cesters). Part of the problem is the different vowel sounds, though.

Oh, will you please tell me if you know why "Southwark" is pronounced "Suffick"? I have googled it to no avail, but as an Anglophile/Londonphile, I'm dying to know. Thx!

[victoriasponge]

3 minutes ago, scoutsadie said:

Oh, will you please tell me if you know why "Southwark" is pronounced "Suffick"? I have googled it to no avail, but as an Anglophile/Londonphile, I'm dying to know. Thx!

Okay, so I always pronounced it 'Suth-uck' 'th' as in the. Not suffick. Just had to google that was right and that's how the internet told me to pronounce it too.

My best guess is you misheard a Londoner (they drop the 'th' for a 'f' sound often depending on accent) and the 'ick' is the best Americanisation (or your country of origin) of our 'uck' sound. Anyway, why it's pronounced uck instead of 'wark' - idk, it's easier would be my best guess, honestly. Along with Holborn being 'hoe-burn' (or an approximation of that anyway). Not that tourists pronounce any of them right. (Greenwich, Holborn, Southwark, Chiswick etc.)

[SapphireSlytherin]

Another difference in BritEnglish/AmerEnglish:  clerk. In England, it’s pronounced clark. 

[AprilQuilt]

30 minutes ago, victoriasponge said:

And then all the ones with extra letters we don't use: Leicester, Bicester, Worcester (all the cesters). Part of the problem is the different vowel sounds, though.

Ha. I lived for quite a while in Norfolk, with elastic vowels and as few consonants as possible. eg 'Costessey' = 'Caw-see'; 'Wymondham' = 'Windum'. I put it down to the wide open skies and hill-less landscape.

I knew I'd become an East Anglian when I bought a bus ticket to the city centre and heard myself saying sehhh'ee sehhhhn'ur.

 

21 minutes ago, scoutsadie said:

Oh, will you please tell me if you know why "Southwark" is pronounced "Suffick"? I have googled it to no avail, but as an Anglophile/Londonphile, I'm dying to know. Thx!

I think @victoriasponge is right, you'll have heard a local saying 'Suvvark' because they don't pronounce the 'th'. There's rarely a specific story for why place names are pronounced other than they are spelt; London's just been around for so long, through waves of industry and cultures, that meanings and pronunciations migrate.

I'm a south London resident myself, and my work involves its history - I love the weird ancient place names. To make things more complicated, 'Greenwich', although pronounced 'Grennich' by most Londoners, is called something more like 'Grinnage' by old-school locals. By the eighteenth century, the pronunciation of 'Rotherhithe' had been bastardised to 'Redriff' (and you'll see it spelt phonetically like this on a few period maps), but as literacy increased, and more people first read/wrote the name than heard/spoke it, the pronunciation returned to something more faithful to the letters.

[bal maiden]

35 minutes ago, scoutsadie said:

Oh, will you please tell me if you know why "Southwark" is pronounced "Suffick"? I have googled it to no avail, but as an Anglophile/Londonphile, I'm dying to know. Thx!

I wonder if you may be confusing Southwark and Suffolk? The former is pronounced “Suth-uck” with a soft th as in the word leather. Suffolk is pronounced “Suff-uc”.

 

edit to saynever mind, I think @AprilQuilt‘s explanation above is more likely what’s going on! 

 

[victoriasponge]

14 minutes ago, AprilQuilt said:

Ha. I lived for quite a while in Norfolk, with elastic vowels and as few consonants as possible. eg 'Costessey' = 'Caw-see'; 'Wymondham' = 'Windum'. I put it down to the wide open skies and hill-less landscape.

I knew I'd become an East Anglian when I bought a bus ticket to the city centre and heard myself saying sehhh'ee sehhhhn'ur.

I go to uni at UEA... suffice to say explaining the pronunciations to my parents wasn't all that easy.

[AprilQuilt]

3 minutes ago, victoriasponge said:

I go to uni at UEA... suffice to say explaining the pronunciations to my parents wasn't all that easy.

*hi fives*

I did my BA and MA there! I love Norwich, and I miss it horribly. My dad is from Suffolk (and an Ipswich supporter no less) so the accent was fine but the Canaries not so much.

[PennySycamore]

All this talk about place name pronunciations reminded me of something I heard someone musing about recently:

Lots of locals, especially older people say Green vul instead Greenville, but Simpsonville a few miles south is Simpsonville.  Always.

[luv2laugh]

I embarrassingly always pronounced Greenwich as “Green witch” until someone corrected me saying “Gren-itch”

[SweetJuly]

I wonder how long this thread will be allowed to become before a new one gets opened

[scoutsadie]

42 minutes ago, AprilQuilt said:

Ha. I lived for quite a while in Norfolk, with elastic vowels and as few consonants as possible. eg 'Costessey' = 'Caw-see'; 'Wymondham' = 'Windum'. I put it down to the wide open skies and hill-less landscape.

I knew I'd become an East Anglian when I bought a bus ticket to the city centre and heard myself saying sehhh'ee sehhhhn'ur.

 

I think @victoriasponge is right, you'll have heard a local saying 'Suvvark' because they don't pronounce the 'th'. There's rarely a specific story for why place names are pronounced other than they are spelt; London's just been around for so long, through waves of industry and cultures, that meanings and pronunciations migrate.

I'm a south London resident myself, and my work involves its history - I love the weird ancient place names.

Thanks to all of you for weighing in - I love this stuff, too! And yes, I have been interpreting the "vv" sound as "f."

And @AprilQuilt, I really love that you get to study London's history through your work. Although I'm American, it's my favorite city, even though I've only spent a week there in person (so many more hours via history and historical fiction). I'm not much for the supernatural or woo, but I joke that my 81% UK DNA somehow resonates when I read or think of that city. 

(In fact - and I will only admit this to y'all - my hubs has planned a week-long surprise trip to Paris for V Day and a tiny part of me is like, "Um, why somewhere French instead of London or elsewhere in the UK? Have you met me?" ...And yes, I realize that kinda makes me sound like an ungrateful jerk...so again, blaming the DNA.) 

[SportsgalAnnie]

On the topic of pronunciation, one that gets me is how often people pronounce Appalachian. 

Its App-uh-latch-un