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Trivia: How could station names fit the ideas for "simplification" of English?

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LateThanNever

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yorkie said:
Sorry, other way round! The suggestion for that was from someone else and misread the reply. I've amended my post accordingly.
Click to expand...

yorksrob said:
I'm rather curious as to why Gillingham (Dorset) is considered as requiring alteration but Gillingham (Kent) isn't mentioned so must be fine as it is :lol:
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Surely that's because in Dorset it' a hard G - Gill as in fish gills! Not Jill as in Jack, which it is in Kent.
 
Zamracene749

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Some North east ones:-

Prudhoe= Prudder
Durham= Durram
Grosmont=growmont
Sleights= Slights
Ruswarp= Ruzarp
Pegswood= Pigsurd (you have to say this fast to sound correct)

Plus one where lots of folk add a letter- there is no 'r' between the a and s in Newcastle....

Another possible north south divide at Chichester- the one on the metro system is pronounced so that 'Chi' rhymes with Sky? Not sure about the Sussex one?
 
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Busaholic

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beermaddavep said:
Another possible north south divide at Chichester- the one on the metro system is pronounced so that 'Chi' rhymes with Sky? Not sure about the Sussex one?
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The Sussex one is pronounced with a 'soft' Chi for the whole word, but when abbreviated by locals to Chi it is pronounced to rhyme with sky!
 
61653 HTAFC

61653 HTAFC

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Penistone could do with being spelled "Penny-stun" to stop people taking selfies in front of the signposts...
 
backontrack

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Foakstun Centroll
Sent Pankras
Looton
Bedfud
Markit Harbruh
Luffborough
Seemer
Stayleebrij
Eeglscliff
 
pne

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How would one re-spell Slough?

"ough" has notoriously many pronunciations in English (rough, cough, cought, bough, etc.), so "Slough" is ambiguous.

The "obvious" alternative (see "cow, now, how, etc.") is "Slow" but that's liable to be read as rhyming with "sloe" (the berry) due to the word "slow" meaning "not fast".

"Slou"? "Slowe"? "Slaou"? "The station formerly known as Slough"?
 
bb21

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pne said:
Where's this?
Click to expand...

Seamer.

pne said:
How would one re-spell Slough?

"ough" has notoriously many pronunciations in English (rough, cough, cought, bough, etc.), so "Slough" is ambiguous.

The "obvious" alternative (see "cow, now, how, etc.") is "Slow" but that's liable to be read as rhyming with "sloe" (the berry) due to the word "slow" meaning "not fast".

"Slou"? "Slowe"? "Slaou"? "The station formerly known as Slough"?
Click to expand...

Maybe we should just get rid of English, and use the IPA instead.

GatwickDepress said:
It's north of Rumsgayd.* ;)
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Oh, that one, with a hard "g". I kept wondering where Mardget is last night. :lol:
 
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klambert said:
So how would Machynlleth be pronounced?

Maccck-un-fleuurgh?
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I don't really think there is an English equivalent for the "ch" sound in the Celtic languages (Welsh and Gaelic being the most pertinent to this thread). The digraph ch is pronounced thus.
[youtube]dRiWBRS3OC8[/youtube]
(Wikipedia)

Replacing it for "ck" is categorically wrong. I find that there's nothing more frustrating than people talking about "Lock Lomond" and the like. (And the Germans apparently find it annoying too, on a side note - Ich is not pronounced Eek, for example).

Herein lies a problem in this thread - you cannot simply create simplified English pronunciations when many Scottish and Welsh station names are derived from two non-English languages, as there are sounds that simply do not exist in RP. You therefore cannot simplify them without changing the word altogether. So I would ultimately agree with the OP - we should not change spellings! At least not en masse, as suggested.

On a side note, I hate to say that I've reluctantly given in to a ruling from the IUPAC that Sulfur (as well as Sulfate, Sulfuric, Sulfurous and Sulfite) is to be spelled in the American way, for international standardisation. Indeed it has been this way since 1990! (It also has legal issues for me as well, which I won't bore you with in too much detail). However, I would like to ask the IUPAC if they intend to spell Phosphorous as "Fosforus" in the interest of simplicity? However, this is a diversion to argue that altering spellings can be beneficial, but doing so in a ridiculous way as suggested in the opening article is ludicrous.
 
D6975

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pne said:
How would one re-spell Slough?

"ough" has notoriously many pronunciations in English (rough, cough, cought, bough, etc.), so "Slough" is ambiguous.

The "obvious" alternative (see "cow, now, how, etc.") is "Slow" but that's liable to be read as rhyming with "sloe" (the berry) due to the word "slow" meaning "not fast".

"Slou"? "Slowe"? "Slaou"? "The station formerly known as Slough"?
Click to expand...

Commonly called Sluff down my way. :)

And what about Slaithwaite.
Another one where even the locals pronounce it two different ways.
 
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