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Original poster

How do you pronounce Beatrice and where are you from?

188 replies

Crunchymum · 25/05/2019 21:37

Ball park on location of course

"Beer-triss" - South East

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Purplelavenders · 28/05/2019 13:22

I say Beh ah triss. 3 syllables

BigGlasses · 28/05/2019 13:15

I have never known how to pronouce it so tend to avoid saying it out loud! The ways I have heard it pronouced are:

Beet - tris
Bee - tris
Bee - ah - tris
Baya treece (spanish)

I normally go for somewhere in the first 3 and just pronounce it really quick!

littlemeitslyn · 28/05/2019 10:08

Beer triss Scotland

Bouncingbelle · 27/05/2019 23:55

Beet-riss scotland

TheRLodger · 27/05/2019 21:53

Bee- a - triss south west

Drogosnextwife · 27/05/2019 21:52

Bee ah triss, Scotland

BasicsOnly · 27/05/2019 21:51

Bee-triss

BendydickCuminsnatch · 27/05/2019 19:58

Another yep we speak the same!

AnotherRubberDuck · 27/05/2019 19:55

I've read the full thread but its getting even more confusing now!
I say Bir-triss. 2 syllables. (Live in SE, grew up in London, raised by a Yorkshire lass, so who knows what that means!)
I do say beer with one syllable. Like bir. I also say room like rhum, but only when it's attached to another word, so living rhum, dining rhum, but just room is the long vowel roome pronunciation. I wonder why that is?!

But I thought Evelyn had 3 syllables?! evv-er-lin, or eve-er-lin.

Ivestoppedreadingthenews · 27/05/2019 19:49

Bee-ah-triss

BendydickCuminsnatch · 27/05/2019 19:19

@lottiegarbanzo Yeah! I do! Never noticed that before 😄

OhhMyLittleGirls · 27/05/2019 18:59

I say Beer-triss and from Kent

lottiegarbanzo · 27/05/2019 18:16

Bendydick, do you say room as 'rhum' (kind of), no long vowel sounds? I can believe a very short 'bir'.

I feel that as soon as the vowel is lengthened at all it travels gently from ee to ah, or to uh. Could certainly be wrong about this though!

Sashkin · 27/05/2019 18:00

floraloctopus that was my great aunty Evelyn, you have to imagine an elderly Yorkshire miner's wife, very broad accent. Not a million miles from Thora Hird. Definitely Ev-lin. Very short "Ev". I really like it, much more so than Eev-lin.

May well have been a mispronunciation, I can't imagine her parents were very cosmopolitan given the time and place they grew up. But we had lots of very unusual names in that generation of our family: Freda, Miriam, Eileen, Thora, Oswald.

BendydickCuminsnatch · 27/05/2019 17:34

I truly say ‘beer’ as 1 syllable. Like ‘bir’. I say ‘here’ in the same way. But I haven’t been following the thread so maybe I shouldn’t shove my oar in 😁 I say Beatrice with 3 syllables.

lottiegarbanzo · 27/05/2019 17:18

There are about a billion threads about Evelyn already. My sole point there was about the short 'uh' conjunction that exists, amongst most of those speakers who claim to say / hear it as two distinct syllables (Ev-lin), as with beer-triss.

I'm challenging anyone to say 'beer' as one syllable, really and truly.

The closest I can get to this sounds like a subtle 'blend' from one, ever so gently into another.

TatianaLarina · 27/05/2019 17:18

There’s always one...

floraloctopus · 27/05/2019 17:12

Well if we're derailing onto Evelyn, you can pronounce it Eev-lin, Ever-lin, and Ev-lin. I've met examples of all three.

Ev-lin doesn't make sense, surely that'd be Yvelin like Yves

Sashkin · 27/05/2019 17:09

And I've also met a Kate who pronounced it Katy (I work with the public, I meet a lot of people). Yes it's non-standard. Yes that's definitely how she spelt it and pronounced it.

Sashkin · 27/05/2019 17:06

Well if we're derailing onto Evelyn, you can pronounce it Eev-lin, Ever-lin, and Ev-lin. I've met examples of all three.

TatianaLarina · 27/05/2019 16:48

Probably doesn’t apply to Kate.

3timeslucky · 27/05/2019 16:18

If someone called me Bee triss or Bay a triss I would correct them

Surely that applies to any name? That if someone pronounces it "incorrectly" you'd just state how you pronounce it? Unless their pronunciation was because of a regional accent or an inability to pronounce certain sounds. Because that would be both rude and futile (even if their pronunciation annoys you).

I'd imagine you'd only get called Bay a treece if you were French/taken to be French/talking to a French person. It is the default pronunciation of the name for me because I know a French Beatrice (complete with the accent that I don't know how to type) and so it is what I think if I see the name. But if you were introduced as Bee-ah-triss I wouldn't spontaneously revert to French.

TatianaLarina · 27/05/2019 16:06

If someone called me Bee triss or Bay a triss I would correct them.

(The French version has an acute accent on the e).

lottiegarbanzo · 27/05/2019 15:26

This thread has left me with an awareness that pronunciation of the word 'beer' is far more complicated than I'd ever imagined!

My own conclusion is that the 'one syllable' versions of beer are not actually one syll, there's a soft transition in the middle. Making Beatrice in this sort of accent much like Evelyn - not actually two syllables but with a short -uh- in the middle.

Then there's beer as, with two even syllables, 'bee-uh', so three-syll Bee-uh-trice.

I don't say Beatrice the way I say beer at all though!

3timeslucky · 27/05/2019 15:09

First instinct Bay-ah-treece (That's supposed to reflect the French pronunciation)
Second Bee-uh-triss. But the uh is very short but definitely more uh than ah.
I'm Dublin Irish and I think I default to the French because I know a French one.

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