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Trivia: Place names that you're not sure how to pronounce

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Spartacus

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In my train planning days we used to simplify many of the more complicated pronunciations for ease of communication, you could spend ages trying to work out where a colleague meant when they sounded like Arkwright trying to get even the first syllable out, especially of some Welsh names: 'What's the headway at Lan...Llaand...Landeee...Landeel Most of the time they were replaced by rather smutty (though rarely worse than Carry On) approximations of their real pronunciations (informally of course) to make them more memorable, and it had the bonus that anyone not knowing our pidgin names would have a good idea what we were talking about. Clandildo Junction was much easier, and Felin Fran, well! Visiting South Wales quite a bit now I sometimes have to bite my tongue when I start to pronounce them the way we did!
 
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MidnightFlyer

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Renstrie isn't it? The old freight terminal (I forgot what it dealt with) used to go by both names IIRC.
 
fowler9

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Railsigns said:
I think the more correct pronunciation is Wootch, because the dź is devoiced at the end of a word.
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Yeah I have a friend from Lodz (Sorry I don't know how to put the bar on). Thing is when she says it it does sound very much
Ike Woodge. I have met people in Poland and told them where this particular friend is from. I have prounced it correctly and they have not known where I meant, they assumed I meant somewhere else because they didn't expect an Englisherson to be able to pronounce it. I ended up saying Lodz like you would pronounce it in English and they were like "Oh yeah". Ha ha.
hexagon789 said:
Milngavie pales in significance compared to Kilncadzow!
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Is it something like Muh-guy? Apologies if we have done this one already.
 
fowler9

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hexagon789 said:
Same here, the differences in pronunciation between different forms of English and other languages has long held a fascination for me also
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Spot on mate. Even if for purely selfish reasons like it saving me money at the bar. Ha ha. A couple of years back I was in Gdansk and one of the lads took an interest in learning a few phrases like ordering drinks. So we are in a bar and he double checked how to order six Vodkas (It was my birthday and there were six of us, I don't normally touch Vodka). I recommended him a good decent brand of Polish Vodka and sent him on his way. He comes back twenty quid lighter saying "I thought it was meant to be cheap here" so I asked what he asked for. He just went to the bar and said "Six of your best Vodkas my good man". They saw the tourist coming and sold him six of the most expensive vodka they had.... which was Swedish.
 
hexagon789

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fowler9 said:
Spot on mate. Even if for purely selfish reasons like it saving me money at the bar. Ha ha. A couple of years back I was in Gdansk and one of the lads took an interest in learning a few phrases like ordering drinks. So we are in a bar and he double checked how to order six Vodkas (It was my birthday and there were six of us, I don't normally touch Vodka). I recommended him a good decent brand of Polish Vodka and sent him on his way. He comes back twenty quid lighter saying "I thought it was meant to be cheap here" so I asked what he asked for. He just went to the bar and said "Six of your best Vodkas my good man". They saw the tourist coming and sold him six of the most expensive vodka they had.... which was Swedish.
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Ha ha ha :lol:. Poor guy, I think I'd just point at the bottle, saves on ambiguity...and money!
 
fowler9

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And apologies for veering off topic. I just appreciate the usefulness of being able to say things properly.
 
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6Gman

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Spartacus said:
In my train planning days we used to simplify many of the more complicated pronunciations for ease of communication,
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We had an (English) place on the WCML which we referred to as Starving Town.

Because we could.
 
hexagon789

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Moving out of Scotland, there are a couple of Canadian ones that come to mind:

The mildly tricky Newfoundland (nyoo-fund-LAND)

To the difficult Tsawwassen, British Columbia (roughly Tuh-wassen if I remember correctly)

To the very confusing Waskatebau, Alberta (Wuh-set-nuh)
 
fowler9

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hexagon789 said:
All I can seem to remember of Maori is that Wh is something of a cross between an F and a V
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Yeah, more of a tongue twister that one than actually difficult to pronounce. Ha ha.

I spent my 37th birthday there walking through the Redwood forest just outside Rotorua. I got up at 5 am and took photos of the Ohinemutu Marae at dawn with steam rising up of the volcanic mud pools. From the forest we had amazing views of of the Pohutu geyser which is the largest active geyser in the Southern Hemisphere. That evening I shared some beers with a recently homeless guy who was staying in our hostel which had amazing views over the council office car park from the balcony. Ha ha.
 
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hexagon789

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fowler9 said:
Yeah, more of a tongue twister that one than actually difficult to pronounce. Ha ha.
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Maori along with many Polynesian languages always seems too full of vowels and repeated syllables, which makes those languages appear right tongue twisters.
 
fowler9

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hexagon789 said:
Maori along with many Polynesian languages always seems too full of vowels and repeated syllables, which makes those languages appear right tongue twisters.
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Yeah, I think the repeated bits are to emphasise something. I went to the Abel Tasman National Park and got an Aqua Taxi up the coast for a hike. The first place it stopped was called Kaiteriteri. I know that Kai is food or gifts in Maori and that the place called Kaiteriteri means plenty of food. Hence my guess that repeating the phrase means "loads". Ha ha.
 
hexagon789

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fowler9 said:
Yeah, I think the repeated bits are to emphasise something. I went to the Abel Tasman National Park and got an Aqua Taxi up the coast for a hike. The first place it stopped was called Kaiteriteri. I know that Kai is food or gifts in Maori and that the place called Kaiteriteri means plenty of food. Hence my guess that repeating the phrase means "loads". Ha ha.
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Hawaiian is like that too, repeating the save word emphasises or increases it.

Back on the subject of place names, a short Scottish one I don't think we've had yet - Udny.
 
fowler9

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hexagon789 said:
Hawaiian is like that too, repeating the save word emphasises or increases it.

Back on the subject of place names, a short Scottish one I don't think we've had yet - Udny.
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Yeah apologies, I drifted off there, ha ha, not a clue about Udny.
 
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