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To think an English teacher should know the correct pronunciation of Glamis?

332 replies

susannahmoodie · 16/09/2015 06:15

As in Thane of......?

Or is it now ok to say "glam-mis"??

OP posts:
JeanneDeMontbaston · 16/09/2015 13:50

You and me both, bath.

BathtimeFunkster · 16/09/2015 13:49

I think I need to go back to college so I can take a class with QuiteIrregular :)

JeanneDeMontbaston · 16/09/2015 13:24

I didn't know Macbeth had a Bad Quarto.

scifisam · 16/09/2015 13:15

@ClearBlueWater - there is a whole body of study devoted to how Shakespeare's actors would have pronounced things, which is a slightly different question to how he would have pronounced things. However, Jay-kweez/Jaykz is one of the ones that without doubt because of the metre, rhyme, jokes, and other texts of the time with similar pronunciation.

That's why we know the pronunciation of Jaykweez - it's a result of scholarship, not guesswork.

Same with glams; someone above said it was possibly actually pronounced glamis. That is probably based on a bad quarto - basically early literary pirates going writing down what they think was said on stage and then selling it on to the public who were clamouring for a Shakespeare text they could reenact at home. If you're interested, try reading the bad quarto version of to be or not to be.

The second folio (and, actually, one of the bad quartos) makes it clear that the accepted pronunciation was either glaamz or glamz, but not glamis. Shakespeare didn't write this either - none of his scripts are extant - but it was written and published by people he knew well who also knew the plays well rather than some chancer selling stuff quickly out the back door.

Not all of the words in Shakespeare where their pronunciation is unclear have such solid scholarship behind them, but these two (Jaykweez and Glaamz) do.

JeanneDeMontbaston · 16/09/2015 13:06

No, actually, I think there are things we can rule out. There are lots of possible options, but that doesn't mean anything goes.

lljkk · 16/09/2015 12:53

Glay-miss?

I'm rummaging around behind the sofa but still falling to find a shiny shit to give on how it's said.

JessieMcJessie · 16/09/2015 12:50

Ad free= a degree

JessieMcJessie · 16/09/2015 12:50

Those going on about how it's possible to have ad free in English and not have read Macbeth- agreed.

However this teacher is teaching the play and appears not to have ever seen it performed nor (as achickencalledkorma says) to have noticed that the 2 syllable pronounciation can't possibly fit the metre, when learning about the store is probably the most fundamental part of studying Shakespeare?

YANBU OP. however I'm curious how you know about this- did you and she actually have a conversation in which the word "Glamis" was used? Or do you and your DD or DS chat about Glamis/ Macbeth so much that your DD/DH know how to pronounce it and ratted the teacher out?

HesterShaw · 16/09/2015 12:42

OK full of twats is an exaggeration. Some twats is more accurate.

spoonfulofgoodness · 16/09/2015 12:40

Iguanatail oh how i chortled at your comment

HesterShaw · 16/09/2015 12:40

This thread is full of twats especially the person who put English teachers in inverted commas.

I had a history teacher who was an NQT teaching me A Level - she covered the Fascism modules. She pronounced "Falange" as it is written - Fal-ange. She had excellent results and a few of us went on to get history degrees from Russell Group universities.

Stone the bitch.

ClearBlueWater · 16/09/2015 12:37

Yes, Jeanne , me too Wink

ie neither of us can KNOW definitively that he pronounced it Jacques
(ie modern French pronunciation) or Jay-queez...

given that he had 'fun' with language, ie Leroy for a 'Cornish' name then I don't suppose the Great Man himself would be overly huffy which way we said it? Grin

Need to track down English teacher though and tell him he wasn't definitely wrong, the way we arrogantly thought! Grin

JeffreysMummyIsCross · 16/09/2015 12:35

exits pursued by a beer

Best typo (intentional or otherwise) ever Grin

JeanneDeMontbaston · 16/09/2015 12:32

Yes, that is what I was getting at ...

ClearBlueWater · 16/09/2015 12:30

Picks self off floor. Shock

Bloody hell, who knew? Shock

I STILL think he was correct by default, mind, he didn't have a grasp of the basics of any of our set texts (the 'Wife of Bath' was especially grim, not only pronunciation wise but general gist wise!) and he was a really awful teacher, but, hey, right be default is still right! Wink

re the 'Midlands accent' - it's a pretty moveable feast now, yet alone 500 years ago, so I think it's unlikely anyone has definitive proof of how Shakespeare's average cast member pronounced his lines, is it not?

araiba · 16/09/2015 12:25

what a strange thread

/exits pursued by a beer

hotfuzzra · 16/09/2015 12:22

I had a cookery teacher who one lesson taught us to make croissants.
Pronounced croy-sunts. When I corrected her precocious twat I got told off!
Ok so she wasn't a French teacher but come on!

scifisam · 16/09/2015 12:11

ClearBlueWater, your teacher was right, the other kids were arrogant and wrong - this is a Shakespeare play, not a modern story about someone called Jacques.

"Jakes" is also correct in some lines where the characters are taking the piss out of him by intentionally abbreviating the pronunciation of his name to sound like a toilet; elsewhere it's Jay-kwees. Never Jacques.

JeffreysMummyIsCross · 16/09/2015 12:09

I am a teacher of English and my main memory of seeing Macbeth on stage is a naked Sean Bean...it was good!

Lucky you. My abiding memory of seeing King Lear on stage is seeing (from a seat at the front of the stalls) a 70-something Ian McKellen naked. It was a bit uncomfortable, tbh (though I imagine that was the point) Grin.

JeanneDeMontbaston · 16/09/2015 12:09

But ... why would a French pronunciation be right given Shakespeare was from, erm, the Midlands?

His French is sometimes deliberately shit ('Leroy, a Cornish name').

Isn't it quite possible people in his company didn't all talk with the same accents or sound the same?

ClearBlueWater · 16/09/2015 12:08

x posts, scifiscam

Shock NO - don't believe it? Don't tell me old MrLambertwhocantfinishasentenceashewatchesthetrainsgopastheclassroom was right about Jay-queez?
Shock

ClearBlueWater · 16/09/2015 12:05

I had a Secondary teacher who taught us to pronounce:
'Jacques' as 'Jay-queeeez'.

We studied As You Like It.

A pupil with a connection with France told him it was 'Jacques' but, no, he insisted, 'Jay-queeeez' it was. When we met up with some other High School kids to go and see the play and spoke of Jay-queez they pissed themselves laughing. Thanks, Mr Lambert! Hmm

But, we did say: 'Glarms' (wrongly? according to trudging?)

scifisam · 16/09/2015 11:59

I wouldn't expect everyone to know how to pronounce the word.

I wouldn't expect every English grad to know how to pronounce the word because they might not have studied that particular play.

I would expect every teacher, English grad or not, who knows they're going to be teaching Macbeth, to have watched the play in at least two versions, read around it and studied it a bit, before teaching it, even if it never came up on their undergraduate degree. You do get advance warning of which texts you're going to be teaching. The pronunciation will be clear from watching any performances of the play. It is not a minor word in that play, either.

Same with teaching As You Like It and knowing that Jacques is pronounced Jay-kwees in that play. Not something everyone would know, but the teacher should.

For me it would be a flag that would make me wonder how much the teacher had studied the text they are now teaching. Learning about a text alongside your pupils can be OK sometimes if you have other teaching skills, but for really able students it is necessary for the teacher to genuinely know more about the subject than their class does, and really able students need teaching too.

JeanneDeMontbaston · 16/09/2015 11:59
Grin

I love that clara! That came up on my FB the other day. It's awesome.

Dexterwasright · 16/09/2015 11:58

I hate to upset all the educated masses from Edinburgh University etc but actually your DCs' teacher is a teacher of English, many English teachers teach other subjects!
I am a teacher of English and my main memory of seeing Macbeth on stage is a naked Sean Bean...it was good!