Trivia: Mispronounced station names

[fat_boy_pete]

Two others, Kirkcaldy (Kirkcoddy) on the Fyfe Circle line and Witham (Wit-ham) on the GE Main Line are often mispronounced by non-locals.

Abroad. Lodz on Poland os pronounced 'Wooch'. We could probably do a long thread on overseas names.

Witham is actually pronounced Wit-um locally in Essex unlike With-um in relation to the village in Lincolnshire.

 

[Ashley Hill]

Witham is actually pronounced Wit-um locally in Essex unlike With-um in relation to the village in Lincolnshire.

Likewise Witham in Somerset pronounced Wittham but now better known as East Somerset Junction.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Redruth gets mispronounced by outsiders; is it RED-ruth or red-RUTH. It's a dead give away to locals who can tell if your a local or not.

Er... so which one is "correct"? Or is that for Cornish folk to know, and the rest of us to struggle to find out?

Funnily enough the very reason you outline is precisely why I have heard of Des Moines and why I looked up its pronunciation

Speak for yourselves... I always knew it as the home city of Slipknot!

 

[Class800]

Redruth - the train announcements emphasise RED in quite a comical way - but it is very much meant to be emphasis on RUTH. The timing is a bit unusual, so it's not really RED RUTH but more RE DRUTH

 

[Calthrop]

Redruth - the train announcements emphasise RED in quite a comical way - but it is very much meant to be emphasis on RUTH. The timing is a bit unusual, so it's not really RED RUTH but more RE DRUTH

Yet further to the Redruth question: the "ruth" or "druth" part -- is is pronounced with a short "u" as in "bump"; or like the female Christian name?

 

[Class800]

Yet further to the Redruth question: the "ruth"" or "druth" part -- is is pronounced with a short "u" as in "bump"; or like the female Christian name?

Like the name for sure

 

[hexagon789]

Yet further to the Redruth question: the "ruth"" or "druth" part -- is is pronounced with a short "u" as in "bump"; or like the female Christian name?

Rih-DROOTH essentially

 

[Calthrop]

Rih-DROOTH essentially

Thanks !

 

[oldman]

According to my Concise Oxford dictionary of English place-names, Redruth means red ford, but red = Celtic ford, and ruth = Celtic red, hence the pronunciation.

The same source says that the Pen in Penrith means chief so it 'should' be PENrith; I've always said Pen-RITH, by analogy with PenZANCE and many other Celtic-origin place-names. I don't know what locals do with Penrith and Carlisle.

 

[snowball]

Until recently I assumed Greenock was pronounced Grenock through a false analogy with Greenwich.

 

[hexagon789]

Until recently I assumed Greenock was pronounced Grenock through a false analogy with Greenwich.

Gree-nuck is more the right pronunciation - the vowel in the 'nock' is very short. From the Gaelic Grianáig meaning sunny mound or hill.

It was spelled Grenok into the 1700s.

 

[Class800]

LNER seem to adopted an official pronunciation of KING GUSSIE - from every file I can find, it is always (mis) pronounced that way on their trains, both manual and auto announcements. We will have to find King Gussie himself to attend the train's arrival

 

[hexagon789]

LNER seem to adopted an official pronunciation of KING GUSSIE - from every file I can find, it is always (mis) pronounced that way on their trains, both manual and auto announcements. We will have to find King Gussie himself to attend the train's arrival

I thought they had fixed the recordee announcements after all the hullabaloo over the original Azuma announcements getting it wrong.

 

[Class800]

Maybe - everything on Youtube is wrong that I can find, but there may be an upload lag.

It isn't a new issue - Anne recorded announcements as far back as 2015 said KING GUSSIE

It's more funny than anything too annoying surely

 

[norbitonflyer]

Witham is actually pronounced Wit-um locally in Essex unlike With-um in relation to the village in Lincolnshire.

The Witham is also a river in Lincolnshire, running through Grantham, Lincoln and Boston

 

[bramling]

Maybe - everything on Youtube is wrong that I can find, but there may be an upload lag.

It isn't a new issue - Anne recorded announcements as far back as 2015 said KING GUSSIE

It's more funny than anything too annoying surely

Not really, a respected institution like the railway should be getting these things correct. It simply points to a shoddy and slapdash operation.

From a user’s point of view, if no one is supervising and quality assuring the station announcements, how do I know same doesn’t apply for the train maintenance?

 

[norbitonflyer]

Did the Queen Mother not make exactly this error when naming “Royal Anglian Regiment”….?

The veteran newsreader Reginald Bosanquet once made the same mistake on News at Ten - particularly unfortunate as the news item was about the army's intervention in the religious sectarian Troubles in Northern Ireland

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Nov 2021 ==

Its Hol - born which drives me bonkers. Even from station staff who work there. There used to an advert on the buses ( and perhaps tubes) in the 60's which laughed at people who didn't say 'Hoh-bn' with no 'l' and a 'schwa' in the second syllable.

There was a whole series of adverts for Cockburn's port using the names of Tube stations to educate the public into how to pronounce the name of their product. So we had not only Hockborn but Co'fosters and Heathrock Central

Two others which foxed me when I first came across them were Ruislip (which I had assumed would be pronounced Roo-ee-slip)

In my track-bashing days Kilmacolm was the end of a branch on Clydeside, closed in 1983 but re-opened as far as Paisley Canal in 1990. In my Sassenach innocence, and to the amusement of the ticket clerk at Glasgow Central, I put the stress on the second syllable instead of the third.

I wasn't caught out by Milngavie though - my first encounter with it was as the start of the West Highland Way, and the guide book helpfully tells you how it's pronounced. Although, being very much the posh end of town in the Victorian era, the Glaswegians described it as the sort of place
"where every household has a slavey* / who's taught to call the place "Milne-Gay-Vee" "

*old-fashioned term for a junior housemaid, skivvy, or maid-of-all work

 

[Class800]

Not really, a respected institution like the railway should be getting these things correct. It simply points to a shoddy and slapdash operation.

From a user’s point of view, if no one is supervising and quality assuring the station announcements, how do I know same doesn’t apply for the train maintenance?

Saying KING GUSSIE isn't safety critical

 

[Westerndiesels]

Frome was sometimes wrongley pronounced to rhyme with Rome as opposed to room. Mainly in late 70s. Most get it right now but the o with the e would usually mean a word is pronounced like Rome or phone for example.

 

[londontransit]

I think we've had Slaithwaite. I had no idea how Manea was pronounced until watching a video the other day which included the announcements on the 755s... which raises a question about how Gidea (Park) is pronounced.

AFAIK Gidea Park was pronounced as 'Squirrels Heath.'

 

[RSDonovan]

Weems Bay. Or is it Weemiss Bay?

 

[Class800]

Locally at least the former

 

[JRT]

The 331s can’t even pronounce Frizinghall correctly!

There’s also Fazakerley, commonly pronounced / known by locals as ‘Fazak’.

Frizinghall – has only recently been reprogrammed from FriZZinghall to the correct Fryzinghall – although on a winter's day waiting on the platform Freezinghall seems more appropriate!!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Nov 2021 ==

Cononley — no problem, everyone pronounces it as it's written including the announcements.
However I have read somewhere that the local pronunciation is Cunley.
I would say that most of those traveling aren't locals (holidaymakers or offcummed’ns )

 

[Ken H]

Ones that annoys me are Doncarster and Lancarster.
Oh Castleford is as spelled, not castlefud. But usually Cas.

 

[WestRiding]

Moorthorpe getting pronounced Morethorpe. Even by locals.

 

[adrock1976]

An international one I have thought of that could cause confusion to the unknown is Dunedin in New Zealand.

It is not pronounced as two words joined together (dune and din), but as "Dun-edin".

In the days of the former British Empire when we invaded other lands, displaced indigenous populations, and drew straight lines on maps, Dunedin got its name when Presbyterians from Scotland landed there, and gave it that name as Dunedin is the Gaelic name for Edinburgh.

 

[Clansman]

Fair few from Scotland...

Kirkcaldy; pronounced Kirk-aw-dee or Kirk-aw-day, (not Kirk-all-dee, and certainly not Kirk-oh-dee)

Blair Atholl; pronounced Blair-ath-ull (not Blair-At-Holl)

Aviemore; pronounced Av-ee-more

Monifieth; pronounced Maw-nay-feeth

Insch; pronounced In-shhh

Portlethen; pronounced Port-Lethin (not Portal-thin, Port-Lithin, or Port-Le-Thin)

Carnoustie; pronounced Car-noo-stee (not Car-now-stee)

Hyndland; pronounced Hyned-lind or Hine-lind

Yoker; pronounced Yoh-kurr (not Yaw-kerr)

Leuchars; Loo-churrs (ch is the same sound as in loch - rather than K as in lookers)

Lenzie; pronounced Len-Zee

Falkirk Grahamston - often pronounced by locals as Fall-kirk Grame-stin without emphasis on the 'h' in Grahamston

Polmont; pronounced Poll-mint (not Paul-mont)

Montrose; often pronounced Mun-trose (as opposed to Mont-rose)

 

[urbophile]

Ones that annoys me are Doncarster and Lancarster.

I've not heard it on train announcements, but one southern pronunciation that gets up my nose is 'Donc[schwah]ster'. Oddly they don't say 'Newc'sle' but Newcahstle which is annoying in a different way. But even most northerners stress the first syllable rather than the authentic second.

 

[RH Liner]

And let’s not forget Baff Spar - not many stations are named after the corner shop.

 

[snowball]

Weems Bay. Or is it Weemiss Bay?

Weems, in much the same way that Glamis is Glahms.

And Leuchars is as in the drink, Leucharzade.