Launceston
Many thanks to Bryan for expanding my knowledge (see Moppet Update and Bryan's helpful info on how the locals pronounce Launceston (Tasmania).
I think this comment actually serves to underline the serious point such as it ever was within what really was just a whinge (how very, very English I have become). The English just make it up as they go along when it comes to the pronunciation of random letter combinations, then get quite precious about others' creative endeavours with same combinations.
What other derivation of Beaconsfield could there be but Beacon's Field (whether a field with a Beacon set in it or a field owned by a family of name Beacon - and where do you think they got their name)? And the 'received' pronunciation of Launceston wherein all the vowels are swallowed is simply centuries of laziness cast in concrete.
One of the traps for unwary colonials washing up on these shores is the lugabaruga test - I have no other idea how I might spell it, or what else I might call it. The English might be not nearly as good as they like to think they are at most things but at sniggering they are world champions. How they enjoy baiting new arrivals! No bloody wonder we cluster in the rat and flea infested tenement buildings along and off Earls Court Road.
I had two distinct advantages arriving here so many years ago. One of them was the school I attended; no physics or chemistry lab, but fabulous kitchens, a craft block and a top drawer line in speech and deportment classes. Yes, speech and deportment. I spent what were supposed to be the best years of my life walking in a tight circle with a book on my head while reciting suitable poetry with well rounded vowels.
The other advantage was C. I haven't thought of C for years now. I wonder where she is. Last I knew she was off to Perth with her hubby to work for a West Australia based business man of immense success who may or may not still be alive. I met C in September 1987. She sounded frightfully English but she didn't look it. C was the product of a brief marriage between russian mother and indian father; after the marriage ended C and her sister were adopted and raised on the Isle of Wight.
A couple of years down the line C introduced me to the woman she'd first 'roomed' with after arriving in Australia - this woman confided that back in those days C------- was plain C---- and had a distinctly pedestrian accent. Seems the more time she spent in proximity the harder she strove to distance herself from us.
C regarded me with suspicion and decided to put my rounded vowels to the test by asking me if I could pronounce: Loughborough. I'd never seen the word before but my educated guess, though not spot on did impress. You see most Australians (ill-educated, convict bred oiks that we are) confronted by the above place name come out with something that sounds to C's tender ears like loo-gah-bah-roo-gah. Properly one should say luff-brah.
Lazy bloody Brits. Notice how much of the place name they don't actually bother to pronounce?
Gloucester, Leicester; they held no perils for me. And I kept my trap shut while my english colleagues regaled one another with tales of the latest ignorant yank to ask the way to gl-ow-cess-ter road or lie-cess-ter square [that should be gloss-ter and less-ter].
Pronunciation of english is a source of endless amusement but one in which the 'ignorant' american could have the last laugh more often than is commonly recognised. The american english often retains the grammatical rules, spelling and pronunciation exported from England while at home the language has distorted through the centuries. Who is wrong in this? No one. But in a game where the English insist on setting the rules, and those rules are based on age and precedent the Americans have considerable advantages in terms of ammunition. Nevertheless languages are living things and the changes ought to be embraced. So the English can go on being lazy, the Tasmanians can have their way and we'll have ours.
Incidentally the rigidity sought by the Academy in Paris masks a reality - that French has undergone precisely the same process, whereby the French of Canada reveals the language as it was when it was exported there from France while the language in France has mutated. The same, for all I know, is true of every language we've ever devised, and I'd be willing to wager on that.
This isn't entirely random and tangential.
Next time we're speaking I must ask my sister where she was born. I'd like to know whether she says 'lawn-cess-ton' [like me she grew up in Melbourne] or 'lon-cess-ton' [because she's a smart arse] or 'l'n's't'n [to humour me].
Mind you I self consciously say T'ronto rather than Toronto when asked the same question because someone once told me I should.
Pots and kettles, pots and kettles.
Brant Webb and Todd Russell are still locked beneath the earth as I write this. This is the most recent news via The Age
I think this comment actually serves to underline the serious point such as it ever was within what really was just a whinge (how very, very English I have become). The English just make it up as they go along when it comes to the pronunciation of random letter combinations, then get quite precious about others' creative endeavours with same combinations.
What other derivation of Beaconsfield could there be but Beacon's Field (whether a field with a Beacon set in it or a field owned by a family of name Beacon - and where do you think they got their name)? And the 'received' pronunciation of Launceston wherein all the vowels are swallowed is simply centuries of laziness cast in concrete.
One of the traps for unwary colonials washing up on these shores is the lugabaruga test - I have no other idea how I might spell it, or what else I might call it. The English might be not nearly as good as they like to think they are at most things but at sniggering they are world champions. How they enjoy baiting new arrivals! No bloody wonder we cluster in the rat and flea infested tenement buildings along and off Earls Court Road.
I had two distinct advantages arriving here so many years ago. One of them was the school I attended; no physics or chemistry lab, but fabulous kitchens, a craft block and a top drawer line in speech and deportment classes. Yes, speech and deportment. I spent what were supposed to be the best years of my life walking in a tight circle with a book on my head while reciting suitable poetry with well rounded vowels.
The other advantage was C. I haven't thought of C for years now. I wonder where she is. Last I knew she was off to Perth with her hubby to work for a West Australia based business man of immense success who may or may not still be alive. I met C in September 1987. She sounded frightfully English but she didn't look it. C was the product of a brief marriage between russian mother and indian father; after the marriage ended C and her sister were adopted and raised on the Isle of Wight.
A couple of years down the line C introduced me to the woman she'd first 'roomed' with after arriving in Australia - this woman confided that back in those days C------- was plain C---- and had a distinctly pedestrian accent. Seems the more time she spent in proximity the harder she strove to distance herself from us.
C regarded me with suspicion and decided to put my rounded vowels to the test by asking me if I could pronounce: Loughborough. I'd never seen the word before but my educated guess, though not spot on did impress. You see most Australians (ill-educated, convict bred oiks that we are) confronted by the above place name come out with something that sounds to C's tender ears like loo-gah-bah-roo-gah. Properly one should say luff-brah.
Lazy bloody Brits. Notice how much of the place name they don't actually bother to pronounce?
Gloucester, Leicester; they held no perils for me. And I kept my trap shut while my english colleagues regaled one another with tales of the latest ignorant yank to ask the way to gl-ow-cess-ter road or lie-cess-ter square [that should be gloss-ter and less-ter].
Pronunciation of english is a source of endless amusement but one in which the 'ignorant' american could have the last laugh more often than is commonly recognised. The american english often retains the grammatical rules, spelling and pronunciation exported from England while at home the language has distorted through the centuries. Who is wrong in this? No one. But in a game where the English insist on setting the rules, and those rules are based on age and precedent the Americans have considerable advantages in terms of ammunition. Nevertheless languages are living things and the changes ought to be embraced. So the English can go on being lazy, the Tasmanians can have their way and we'll have ours.
Incidentally the rigidity sought by the Academy in Paris masks a reality - that French has undergone precisely the same process, whereby the French of Canada reveals the language as it was when it was exported there from France while the language in France has mutated. The same, for all I know, is true of every language we've ever devised, and I'd be willing to wager on that.
This isn't entirely random and tangential.
Next time we're speaking I must ask my sister where she was born. I'd like to know whether she says 'lawn-cess-ton' [like me she grew up in Melbourne] or 'lon-cess-ton' [because she's a smart arse] or 'l'n's't'n [to humour me].
Mind you I self consciously say T'ronto rather than Toronto when asked the same question because someone once told me I should.
Pots and kettles, pots and kettles.
Brant Webb and Todd Russell are still locked beneath the earth as I write this. This is the most recent news via The Age
posted by Enyo @ 9:49 pm
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