Could someone settle something for me please?

[Phil.]

Topsham in Devon.

I've always pronounced it as Top-sham. My wife's snobby friend who visits a friend there insists that it's Tops-ham.
Can any Devonians give the definitive pronunciation please?

 

[Temple Meads]

I've never heard anyone call it anything other than Top-sham!

 

[Ash Bridge]

I have wondered about this one too, recalling that about fifteen or so years back at Exeter St Davids, I asked for a day return ticket to Top-sham and I was corrected by the booking clerk that it was actually pronounced Tops-ham.

 

[fishquinn]

I've never heard anyone call it anything other than Top-sham!

Same here.

 

[richw]

Top-sham but with some people saying top-shum

 

[Jonny]

As a complete outsider, I would expect to say Tops-ham. That is because -ham is a common suffix. Local pronunciation may vary though.

 

[Gutfright]

As a complete outsider, I would expect to say Tops-ham. That is because -ham is a common suffix. Local pronunciation may vary though.

I've never heard anyone pronounce Faversham as Favers-ham, though.

 

[Calthrop]

If I have things rightly -- English "-sham" place-names derive from very many centuries ago: Anglo-Saxon stuff about somebody's "ham" = home or farmstead. Thus, Topsham: the home / farmstead ("ham") of a chap named something like Toppa.

The pronunciations "Tops-ham", "Favers-ham", etc., could thus be regarded as etymologically / linguistically more correct. Somehow, though -- most people in England seem to go for the alternative pronunciation, with the "sh" as in "shout", or "shrub". "Tops-ham" and such, somehow strikes many of us as precious and pedantic -- as from Phil.'s wife's snobby friend (also Ash Bridge's booking clerk) -- or just plain silly. Maybe a result of nearly everyone having been, for the past century-and-some, able to read and write: we tend to take our pronunciation from the way a word is spelt -- so the "sh" sound, seems the obvious way to go.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Very localised pronunciations of settlement names are often heard uttered by the more aged of the residents who have lived there for most of their lives in the vicinity.

An example is the district of Hebers in the town of Middleton, near Manchester, where the aged residents seem to refer to it as "Yebbers"

 

[Cowley]

Well this is quite funny for me, we're away camping in Cornwall with the kids this week and I'm lying in my tent just having a look on here to see if there's anything interesting to read when I clicked on this thread and, well I grew up in Topsham, although I wasn't born there. From the age of 7 until I was an adult, I went to Topsham First school and Topsham Middle school in the early 80s.
When we moved there I was one of the few kids in my class who's family line didn't go back generations.
Anyway, it was sham. Top-sham. That's how we all said it at school, that was how my friends parents said it also.
But. The really old boys. The older fisherman, I think the ferryman Mr Pym and a few others that were pure old Topsham said it like this: Taps-um.
So make of that what you will!
Probably about as clear as the mud in the Exe.
One things for sure, if I turned up at school that first day calling it Tops-ham I'd soon have got into trouble and usually if you're down there now and you hear it pronounced like that it's from somebody who hasn't lived there long.

Maybe there is no proper answer to this one but if you want to hear it said by one of the old boys go on YouTube and watch "Topsham 1984 A Blue Peter film about flooding in the town", and if someone could link that for me I'd be very grateful. Look out for how the wonderful Jim Voysey says the name of the wreck opposite. About 8 minutes in.

 

[AM9]

When I lived in Hampshire, there was an ongoing debate about the pronunciation of Cosham and Bosham (West Sussex). It seemed that Cosham was pronounced "cosh-um" whereas Bosham was "bozzam". I understood from the locals that the arguments had been going on for years.
Then there was Southwick, the one near Brighton being pronounced "south wick" whereas the village just north of Portsdown Hill being called "suthick".
If you want to see inconsistent pronunciation, look at many of the places in Norfolk.

 

[Cowley]

Another good example from down here being Mousehole. Pronounced Mowz'll.

 

[317666]

Shrewsbury anyone?

 

[AM9]

Shrewsbury anyone?

That depends on which side of the river you come from.

 

[miami]

At university, one would go on the Top Sham Ten. One's pronunciation at the end of the night may differ, I could never remember.

"Tops Ham" sounds like something Cameron would be interested in visiting.

Shrewsbury anyone?

I always pronounce it the correct way.

 

[Busaholic]

Another good example from down here being Mousehole. Pronounced Mowz'll.

Much more interested in how people would pronounce Marazion : I certainly didn't know until I moved down that way.

I wonder how many visit Tops-hop as opposed to Top-shop.

 

[noddy1878]

I have a mate who lives in Topsham and its pronounced Top-sham. I've never heard anyone call it Tops-ham.

 

[Calthrop]

Much more interested in how people would pronounce Marazion : I certainly didn't know until I moved down that way.

"Ma-ra-ZY-on" is "properly how", if I'm right? -- I heard it spoken in a poem, long before I ever went down that way. What would be a theoretical alternative -- "Ma-RAY-zee-on"?

 

[Ash Bridge]

A couple more from the far southwest would be Launceston, pronounced locally as Lanson, also Fowey, pronounced Foy.

 

[PHILIPE]

Shrewsbury anyone?

Both ways are correct. Can be either "o" or "oo"

 

[Cowley]

Crediton-pronounced by the old uns as Kerton

 

[Harbornite]

On ITV news a while back, one of the presenters pronounced Leominster as it was spelt (Leo-Minster) when it's actually Lem-inster.

Fortunately I haven't heard anyone pronounce Smethwick with the W.

 

[Cowley]

On ITV news a while back, one of the presenters pronounced Leominster as it was spelt (Leo-Minster) when it's actually Lem-inster.

Fortunately I haven't heard anyone pronounce Smethwick with the W.

One of my favourites in the whole country is Slaithwaite, pronounced nothing like the way it's spelt. Also Alresford in Hampshire, pronounced Alsford.

 

[richw]

Much more interested in how people would pronounce Marazion : I certainly didn't know until I moved down that way.

I wonder how many visit Tops-hop as opposed to Top-shop.

As a local Maa-ra-zi-on

The one that causes most discussion is mouse-hole or mouz-all

 

[61653 HTAFC]

On ITV news a while back, one of the presenters pronounced Leominster as it was spelt (Leo-Minster) when it's actually Lem-inster.

Fortunately I haven't heard anyone pronounce Smethwick with the W.

Dodworth is one that one hears the incorrect pronunciation a fair bit, rather than the correct "Dodduth".

One of my favourites in the whole country is Slaithwaite, pronounced nothing like the way it's spelt. Also Alresford in Hampshire, pronounced Alsford.

Slaithwaite always comes up on these threads. Slawit to older locals, though it has caught on with the younger generation, and with comers-in because all that folksy quirkiness is "in" at the moment. Slathwaite is also an accepted pronunciation but "Slay-thwaite" is not.

 

[Cowley]

Slaithwaite always comes up on these threads. Slawit to older locals, though it has caught on with the younger generation, and with comers-in because all that folksy quirkiness is "in" at the moment. Slathwaite is also an accepted pronunciation but "Slay-thwaite" is not.

Oh dear, sounds a bit Tops-ham of the north. I suppose language and dialect is something that is constantly changing and evolving and it's better to let it naturally happen than to try and stop it. Who knows how some of these places will be pronounced in a hundred years time?