[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: British Pronunciation (weird names)

[Neil Ward]

Rita said:

<<You answered Amy's pronunciation question, but no one answered mine! Which
was British pronunciation of the surnames Mandeville and > Maskelyne. Here
we pronounce Mandeville as it is written, but I became suspicious when I
read that Featherstonehaugh is pronounced Fanshaw.>>

**********

I don't think there are any tricks with those two:

MAN-duh-vil and MASS-kuh-line, I would say...

Your mention of Featherstonehaugh being pronounced Fanshaw reminds me of a
few other odd British names:

Cholmondely  (CHUM-lee)
Dalziell (dee-ELL)
Marjoribanks (MARCH-banks)

...and then there is the name of our good friend and filkmaster:

Caius (KEYS)

There's also the suggestion (possibly an urban myth) that well-to-do people
(okay, I mean snobs) pronounce the part of London known as Clapham as
'CLARM', instead of the regular 'CLAP-um'.  I've never been able to discover
whether, by the same token, they would call Balham (BAL-um) 'BARM', Peckham
(PECK-um) 'PEAM', STREATHAM (STRETT-um) 'STRAIM' or Lewisham (LOO-ish-um)
'LOOM'.   Probably not.

Neil (who calls Lewisham 'HOME')

________________________________________

Flying Ford Anglia

"The cat's ginger fur was thick and fluffy, but it was definitely
a bit bow-legged and its face looked grumpy and oddly
squashed, as though it had run headlong into a brick wall"
["The Leaky Cauldron", PoA]