Station pronunciation

[trainophile]

Holyhead in ATW-land is always HOLLY-head, announced in a bright and cheerful voice.
Makes you quite keen to go there...
Unlike Crewe, which is quite hard to announce in an upbeat way.
Curiously, the Welsh announcer used by ATW is very dry and technical, and gets no emotion into his announcements.

Apart from "Maesteg", which is delivered with such enthusiasm you'd think the (lady) recorded announcer had a lover there!

 

[BurtonM]

Llanelli, Pwllheli etc pose problems for many.

 

[mirodo]

The long station name of "Alnmouth for Alnwick". The 'L' is pronounced in Alnmouth but not in Alnwick. (The latter being yet another silent W of course...)

And of course, the "mouth" part is fully pronounced, rather than reduced to "mth" as in Portsmouth, etc.

 

[Traveller54]

Stow on the new Scottish Borders line is pronounced "Stou" unlike say Stow-on-the-Wold.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Thankfully (or not!) I've yet to hear a genuine (as opposed to deliberate for humorous effect) mispronunciation of Penistone...

 

[LWB]

With respect to the Shrowsbury/Shrewsbury question there is an accepted pronunciation of ew as ow in words from Westerny/Midlandy/Cotswoldy parts that has them both pronounce ow. This has spread throughout the country and appears in words such as sew (pr sow) and historical spelling of shew (show). All Great Western drawings from the drawing office used shewn instead of shown which was no doubt pronounced shown. Old (wartime era) films often have shew or shewn on notice boards etc.

 

[backontrack]

http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2008/02/06/shroosbury-v-shrowsbury/

should i throw another spanner in the works n point out many like myself dont even pronounce the r and say "shoosbury"... ?

Mark Steel touched upon this in a radio show he did there.

I heard that the real old countryside pronounciation was Sozebree I think living memory has probably lost that now.

I grew up with Shewsbury (no r) as the normal way to say it.

Silly story and one that is quite boring, so i think i will call it SNOOZZBURY.

Night Night.

I'm not sure that we can rely upon 'original' spellings of anything. If you go back any more than a couple of hundred years, spelling was a far less formal thing, with multiple ways of spelling the same words having equal credence.

So whilst 'Shrozebury' may have been a spelling used in official documents dating back some time, it may well be that then as now, the posh people called it 'Shrowsbury', and the ordinary folk called it 'Shroosbury' or even 'Shoosbury'.

So why is High Ercall pronounced High Arcal?

I seem to recall somewhere that Shrewsbury was once spelt Shraughsbury, maybe that is why we southerners call it Shrowsbury? Probably in the same way that we say walking up the bank and not walking up the bonk

Don't you just love regional dialects lol!!!!

Shoosbury born & bred. You don't even pronounce the 'R'!

Iv'e called it Shoesberry for the past 70 years and my family before me and all my extended family. I don't care what anyone else calls it - if they don't say the same as me, I don't regard them as a Shoesberrydonian.

its nom of the adove its pronounced shoesbrie

 

[crispy1978]

Most Welsh stations!

 

[edwin_m]

Most Welsh stations!

There actually seems to be some logic to Welsh pronunciation, unlike most of the English, Scottish and Irish examples quoted here which are effectively random.

 

[Darren R]

Most Welsh stations!

It's not pronouncing them that's the problem - it's spelling 'em!

 

[WestCoast]

Kirkham and Wesham?

The locals call it Wes-ham, but anyone from more than a couple of miles away says Wesh-am.

 

[SeanG]

I'm from Bolton and used to date a Cow 'ead (translation: Girl of Westhoughton origin); I pronounce it almost like Wes-tor-tun (spoken in a single breath with an almost-silent second 't').

Others do, however, say "West-how-ton"

As a Cow 'ead (Ceryed) I'd say Howfen

 

[Parallel]

Holyhead in ATW-land is always HOLLY-head, announced in a bright and cheerful voice.
Makes you quite keen to go there...
Unlike Crewe, which is quite hard to announce in an upbeat way.
Curiously, the Welsh announcer used by ATW is very dry and technical, and gets no emotion into his announcements.

I do love how the female ATW autoannouncer (Ruth) says Rhymney too - So happy and upbeat! "RUMney".

Has anyone else noticed how she has a tenancy exaggerate 'n's on terminus stations. i.e. "Barry Islannnnnnd", "Bridgennnnd" and "Milford Havennnnn".
---

Some people who aren't local refer to Frome as 'Fro-m' rather than 'Frewm'.

I have also noticed subtle differences how people pronounce Salisbury - Sol-sbury and Saul-sbury - About a 50/50 split. Some also say 'bry' rather than 'bury' - The same as Westbury.

 

[Dr_Paul]

Back in the days of BBC's Ceefax, I saw a reference to a station called 'Lempster'; I presume this was the result of someone saying 'Leominster' over the telephone to the Ceefax editor.

I once wrote a short phonetic dictionary of London names for an Indian girlfriend who hadn't long been in the country: Tah Ill, Obun, ErnIll, Ba'sea, that sort of thing.

 

[mirodo]

Back in the days of BBC's Ceefax, I saw a reference to a station called 'Lempster'; I presume this was the result of someone saying 'Leominster' over the telephone to the Ceefax editor.

I once wrote a short phonetic dictionary of London names for an Indian girlfriend who hadn't long been in the country: Tah Ill, Obun, ErnIll, Ba'sea, that sort of thing.

Forn'eef?

 

[satisnek]

Forn'eef?

A good attempt, but the locals' pronunciation (having once known a true local) is very hard to put in writing. It's a combination of 'th' pronounced as 'f', a glottal stop and a dropped 'h', said quickly.

As for Portsmouth and Bournemouth, I always thought that the auto announcer used in the Wessex area (Celia?) sounded rather twee - perhaps they should have used someone with a bit of a burr!

And maybe you need to be a Snow Hill Lines local to hear it, but there's a slight emphasis on 'Rowley Regis', particularly noticeable on the final consonant. This is because the original announcement package said 'Roe-ley' and Anne(?) had to re-record it!

 

[Dr_Paul]

Forn'eef?

Yes, I think that was another one. Then, of course, there's the skin complaint of East London -- Acne.

What about the Great Central's perennial Marylebone? I've always pronounced it Marralabone, but everyone seems to have his or her own version.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Yes, I think that was another one. Then, of course, there's the skin complaint of East London -- Acne.

What about the Great Central's perennial Marylebone? I've always pronounced it Marralabone, but everyone seems to have his or her own version.

Marley-bun?

When I moved to Kingston, I got talking to a co-worker whose other half lived in "Snellier"... It took me quite a while to realise this was in fact St. Helier in Merton!

 

[MrPIC]

Next door to Wallin'on. As a South Londener myself I get flak from my other half whos from the midlands for saying Birminam instead of Birmingham

 

[rf_ioliver]

Too many people get wound up about outsiders not knowing how to pronounce their town names when the spelling gives little clue, unless you know the name you are going to get it wrong.

Irish names are often unpronounceable to foreigners, even the Anglicised versions that are used for most places. The written name of my hometown Dun Laoghaire is a completely different word to that used in speech so without knowing it nobody is going to pronounce it correctly.

Irish orthography was based on an old, no longer spoken dialect for some reason meaning that it has (at least as far I can work out) no relationship with how modern Irish is pronounced.

At least English orthography is somewhat logical....sometimes

Welsh is so much earlier

t.

Ian

 

[talldave]

Marley-bun?

When I moved to Kingston, I got talking to a co-worker whose other half lived in "Snellier"... It took me quite a while to realise this was in fact St. Helier in Merton!

I was born in Snellier!

I spent my university life in Salford ("Solford") and ironically ended up working for many years at Salfords - never to discover if it was meant to be "Solfords" or "Sallfords"!

 

[birchesgreen]

Next door to Wallin'on. As a South Londener myself I get flak from my other half whos from the midlands for saying Birminam instead of Birmingham

Yes Berminum is the correct pronunciation.

Staying in the Midlands LM seem to have changed how they say Wootton Wawen which doesn't seem quite right to me but maybe is correct...

 

[plymothian]

Torre tends to pose a problem, instead of simply Tor, many try think it's named after the footballer.

 

[didcotdean]

People from Norfolk (or familiar with it) get caught out in Leicestershire where the village of Wymondham is pronounced as it is spelt.

 

[craigybagel]

English based guards on the heart of Wales line get a crib sheet with the pronunciations as part of their route learning pack! I'll have to dig mine out and see what it says about Shrewsbury...... Although for what it's worth pretty much all all the train crew based there and at the surrounding depots call it Shroosbury, or of course Salop......

 

[oldman]

Is it PENrith and CARlisle (English) or penRITH and carLISLE (celtic)? BELfast or belFAST? It seems the English have won in CARdiff (for a change).

 

[Tommy1581]

The long station name of "Alnmouth for Alnwick". The 'L' is pronounced in Alnmouth but not in Alnwick. (The latter being yet another silent W of course...)

Aaln-mouth for Annick.

Now Morpeth...
Arriva North East CS call it Muure-path
Automated announcements at Metro Centre call it Mu-ore-peth
I call it Morr-perth

 

[backontrack]

Is it PENrith and CARlisle (English) or penRITH and carLISLE (celtic)? BELfast or belFAST? It seems the English have won in CARdiff (for a change).

PenRITH and CarLISLE.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

People from Norfolk (or familiar with it) get caught out in Leicestershire where the village of Wymondham is pronounced as it is spelt.

How's the town pronounced? Windum?

 

[Traveller54]

Kingussie is of course pronounced king-yoossie, not the comic character from my youth, King Gussie. Can't remember which comic though, Beazer or Topper maybe?

 

[backontrack]

Kingussie is of course pronounced king-yoossie, not the comic character from my youth, King Gussie. Can't remember which comic though, Beazer or Topper maybe?

Yeah, kin-yoossie.

Altnabreac is alt-na-brek.