Place name mispronunciation

[BurntBroccoli]

Just Googled a few of these - please add any more!

Hunstanton Norfolk
Wrong: Hun-stan-ton
Right: Hun-ston

Bedworth Warwickshire
Wrong: Bed-worth
Right: Bed-uth

Wales
Wrong: Lan-dud-no
Right: Clan-did-no

Oxford (Magdalen college)
Wrong: Mag-de-lain
Right: Maud-lin

Dumfries and Galloway
Wrong: Kir-cud-bright
Right: Kir-koo-bree

Leominster (Herefordshire)
Wrong: Lee-o-min-ster
Right: Lem-ster

Alnwick(Northumberland)
Wrong: Aln-wik
Right: An-ik

Prudhoe (Northumberland)
Wrong: Prud-hoe
Right: Prud-a

Godmanchester (Cambridgeshire)
Wrong: God-man-ches-ter
Right: Gum-ster

Cholmondeley (Cheshire)
Wrong: Chol-mon-de-lee
Right: Chum-lee

I cringe, especially when I hear it on radio or tv as Lan-eth-lee. I bet non Welsh newsreaders and traffic and travel news presenters pray nothing untoward is happening in Llanelli or any other Llans during their shift.

Shrewsbury is Shrowsbry or Shroosbry, unless you are from there, in which case it is Shoosbry.

@Mytholmroyd and@TakeOnFlea
I'm from West Yorkshire and I agree, it's not quite a th sound but it's the closest written version I could come up with! It's sort of a th sound but with my tongue stuck somewhere mid mouth rather than a poking out! My dad came from even closer and he pronounced it slightly differently to me, mind you, I had a posh education so my local accent was very different to his!

@TroysMammy , how about Thlan-gothlun, Dol-gethley and Mackinleth?

Barnoldswick is pronounced Baa- lik

Gattacker, Chilledwall, Fez-akhully, Hi-tun, Egbuth, Mels.

Waves at @UsernameRedacted , DSis, DSIL, DM, DMIL and everyone else in Knowsley.

Absolutely! Even within West Yorkshire there are variations in accent.

I was always just happy if people said Keithlee rather than Keely or Keogely or Kee-igly or Kee-aye-goffly or something other mangled version. I've had them all!

I was quite relieved to change my name when I got married so I no longer had to say 'Keighley - K E I G H L E Y' when asked for my name!

I bet they do! I find the second LL in Llanelli easier than the first for some reason.

My version would be having to read out all the foreign names of students at graduation. Fortunately they come with phonetic spellings but still, it's very hard to master them all!

I should have said any Welsh place names. Hopefully Swansea won't change to Abertawe as I've heard that mangled too.

Shrewsbury's an interesting case.

It's not that it is mispronounced, rather that there is more than one way of saying it.

I always say Sh - rose - bury, but when I spent some time in the area several years ago, I became aware that many people say Sh - ruse - bury.

Garboldisham, not sure if it's Norfolk or Suffolk. It's right on the border and I've not been there in an age. Is, apparently, pronounced Garblesham 🤔

The Mach loop in Wales is called that because it circles Machynlleth and not because of the speed the aircraft travel. Wouldn't surprise me if that coincidence was an influence though. That and avoiding some of the Welsh pronunciation.

There's a village in Cornwall called Mousehole, but I don't think that it's pronounced locally as Mouse - Hole; I think that it may be something like Muzzle, but a poster who is local to the area will know how it's actually pronounced.

I'm puzzled too - I'm born and bred West Yorkshire, live very close to Keighley and I'm struggling to pronounce it or recall hearing it pronounced in any way other than Keithley.

West Yorkshire has some interesting pronunciations, Allerton is Ollertun, Cononley is more like Cun-le, Ovendon is Off-en-dun, Sowerby Bridge is Sor-bi ( almost!) Todmorden is Tod-mu-den. Even Bradford, which looks quite simple to pronounce is more like Brat-fud

Some visitors from abroad once puzzled me by talking about the nice town of Wet Herby. (Wetherby)

Having moved north recently @spanieleyes I get told off all the time for pronouncing Northallerton as Northollertun!

@Mytholmroyd , I agree, but if you speak German, Ll is similar to 'ch'. It's not at all like Scottish 'ch'.

Also @AllProperTeaIsTheft .

Many sounds in Welsh don't have English equivalents. Rh and Ll notably, but also vowel diphthongs (ei, eu, ae etc).

Rh is like saying R+H at the same time.
Ch is like scottish Ch (e.g, loch)
Dd is like th in 'them'
Th is like th in 'thin'.

I was reading an English book the other day and in the space of two pages one name was spelt 3 different ways, and another name 2 different names.

@Mytholmroyd
Yeh, that's North Yorkshire, they have a completely different accent to us Westie's!

Towcester is pronounced Toaster I think!
Wymondham in Windam
Plaistow is Plarsto

I'm trying to think of others...

Was about to suggest all of those and wouldn't expect anyone who doesn't know to pronounce them "properly".

I lived in North Wales for about 7 years and Llandudno was mostly pronounced Clandidno, with a slight throaty sound to the CL/Ll bit. If you'd grown up there, locals probably used more authentically Welsh pronunciation. But no one was berated for saying it as best they could.

I've heard Sowerby Bridge pronounced
"Sew-by" Bridge

@BurntBroccoli
Yes, Sor-bi isn't quite right, Sew-by isn't either, somewhere in between perhaps!

Where I am -
Bincknolll, pronounced Bye-null

No it's not THL either. And you don't put your tongue behind your teeth.
The back of your tongue touches your back teeth but the front of your tongue doesn't touch any teeth.