Nene and croquet.

[Mike Sales]

I'm going to go on pronouncing it "Neen."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-n ... e-57142457

[Jdsk]

Thanks. I heard that on the radio but couldn't make out what it was about.

Jonathan

PS: Great game.

[661-Pete]

Well, not being too familiar with the area, I always thought it was "Neen". But English place-names are full of surprises.

Perhaps the next croquet match should be held in the village of Leigh (near Reigate). Or the other Leigh, near Tonbridge.

[Jdsk]

Or as an internal dispute in Shrewsbury.

Jonathan

[rjb]

I prefer mine with ham.
https://www.google.com/search?q=croquet ... OUxQk3s0BM

[Mick F]

We know someone who hails from Shrewsbury.

He'll tell you it's to do with what side of the River Severn you're from.
Shrows-bury or Shrews-bury.

[Jdsk]

If only it were that simple.

I have family brought up close to Shrewsbury and siblings vary between themselves.

Jonathan

[merseymouth]

Or maybe Leigh in Lancs? More Crown Green than Croquet county!
Shrewsbury is always a name in pronunciation dispute, shrews and shrows? Just think about Barnoldswick, Lancs? Don't know about the Yorkshire version??
In the Lancs one it is generally pronounced Bar-lick. IGICB MM
* Stalybridge also causes division.

[661-Pete]

We have plenty in Sussex, but most local folks are wise to the pronunciation of, say, 'Steyning' or 'Ardingly'. Though I have heard variants on 'Selmeston'. And anyone who hails from Southwell (Notts) might get it wrong with 'Southwick' (Sussex).

[Jdsk]

Then Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim: and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim, because they said, Ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites, and among the Manassites.

And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay;

Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.

Jonathan

[Mick F]

Heard on R4 yesterday an announcer calling Altrincham ............... alt-rinch-ham!
Everyone(?) knows it's pronounced alt-ring-um.

Don't get me onto the subject of Castleford or Glasgow.
They ain't Carstleford or Glarsgow!

Locally, we have Morwellham Quay.
Blame the Victorian mapmakers for spelling it that way.

https://www.morwellham-quay.co.uk

There is Morwell, Morewell Barton, Morewell Rocks, Morwell Wood, and the whole area is called Morwell .......... yet the quay is Morwellham ............ Ham is a bend in a river, so it is actually Morewell Ham Quay. Because it's spelled wrongly, people naturally pronounce it wrongly, even some locals.

The quay is at Morwell Ham.

[Mike Sales]

Milngavie.
Launceston.
Derby.
Aslackby.
Hunstanton.
Quadring Eaudyke.

But these are a different case to Neen/Nen.
Place names whose pronunciation differs from the usual english laqnguage rules.

[Jdsk]

Modern ham and -ham seems to have two different origins: ham meaning village and hamm meaning meadow in the bend of a river.

The second looks right for Morwellham... was it originally -hamm?

Jonathan

[PDQ Mobile]

We know someone who hails from Shrewsbury.

He'll tell you it's to do with what side of the River Severn you're from.
Shrows-bury or Shrews-bury.

Just call it Salop!

(Or Amwythig.)

[Mike Sales]

Several place names in the Fens incorporate the word "eau".

1 Eau or Ee?
The stream that winds through the centre of the village of Bicker was once a small, navigable river that connected to an inlet of The Wash called Bicker Haven. It is called the Old Eau. How is “Eau” pronounced? Anyone who has learned a little French will usually say “ow” as in “slow” or “glow” because they recognise the word as the French for “water” and that is approximately how “eau” is pronounced in French. Many people who were born in the Bicker use that pronunciation too, as do most people who have moved here from elsewhere. But not all. Some say “oo” and a few say “ee”. Where have these variations come from?

An entry in “A Dictionary of Lincolnshire Place-Names” by Kenneth Cameron (pub. English Place-Name Society, 1998) suggests that the word and pronunciation “eau” is a “spurious Frenchified form” that occurs in the Fens. The writer argues that this word has grown from the Old English “ea” (pronounced as in “bead”), a word meaning stream or river, and that this is the original pronunciation. The fact that Quadring Eaudike was written Quaderyng Eee in 1343 and Quadryngedyk in 1403 lends strength to that point of view since it is a name taken from the same water-course that flows through Bicker.

https://bickerparishcouncil.wordpress.c ... riosities/

This site also discusses other dialect names, like "kek" for cow parsley, which I remember from childhood.