Can we have a 'how do you pronounce that' thread please?

[Wonkybanana]

I'll start with one that drives me crackers, Louboutin.

Is it -
LOO-boo-tan

Loo-BOO-tan
or
Loo-Boo-TAN

Please put me out of my misery!
(As you might have guessed, they're not in my price range however it's pronounced.)

Or is Ark an saw a different place?

Ar can saw

On a side note Bill Bryson has some bits on American pronunciation and one I remember is American town Cairo pronounced Kay Ro with locals mystified by suggestion it might be anything else

Ark can saw?? why?

Sauvignon blanc

I say sew veen yon

I thought Des Moines DID have both its final 's's pronounced ie 'Des' like Des Lynam and 'Moines' to rhyme with 'coins'?

Clearly you'vre not a Bill Bryson fan

The opening line of 'The Lost Continent' is: "I come from Des [Day] Moines [Moyne]. Somebody had to."

Buzz, no, I don't think I've read him, or if I have it was a long time ago. I'm sure I think that because I remember someone in Northern Exposure (yes I know it was a billion years ago) saying 'Des Moines' with both s's when asked where they come from.

On the pronunciation of Arkansas and Kansas

www.businessinsider.com/why-we-pronounce-kansas-and-arkansas-differently-2014-2

Featherstonehaugh = Fanshaw

What in holy fuck???

@poopy.

Failed to post a link re: Featherstonehaugh.

Apparently something to do with having too many unstressed vowels or perhaps having been written differently in the vernacular in days gone by. Apparently there was s tendency to drop vowels when writing.

So Fanshaw could have evolved that way.

Have we had Chumlee for Cholmondley yet?

Or what about Risley for Wriothesely (of Wolf Hall fame).

I imagine a posh person saying these place names very quickly

@lowlandLucky

Place near where i live is called Tarbolton but pronounced Tar bout in

Hi there, we’re about to view a property new tarbolton... any views on the area at all? Not sure if poss to send private message(sorry not used this much so not sure how works!)

Oooh this thread has popped back after 3 months!! Was following and completely forgot...

Seeing as I'm here how do you pronounce Leviathan? And treatises?

Lev—EYE-a-thon. TREE-a-teases.

Thanks @Puckishly

I've been pronouncing Leviathan correctly then. Treatises was always Treat-sees in my head no idea why.

Not that I talk about treatises regularly over morning coffee mind...

Demense

Pretty much 'domain' (which it's a synonym for, anyway, in certain of its meanings').

The girls name, Saoirse?

SEER-shuh (second syllable is a schwa', an unstressed 'neutral' vowel, like the 'a' in 'about')

The 'aoi' vowel cluster is more familiar to many overseas people from the name Aoife (EEF-uh).