How to Pronounce British Town Names
Adore this video. All of it. I think I’ve mentioned here before how completely lost I was when I first moved to England. Completely bereft of all manner of clue when it came to pronunciations of places and town names. And it all coalesced into a right car crash one day when I saw that the school was going to have a weekEND (as the Brits pronounce it) in Edinburgh. Edinburgh. I mean, where does one go wrong pronouncing Edinburgh? I read the poster (advert) for the weekEND and decided I wanted to go. So I wander over to my friends and say, loudly, “So, MATES, who’s going up to ED-IN-BURG for the weekEND.”
Crickets.
Nothing. Everyone was staring at me. Looking back on it, if I had be a hair quicker I could have played it off as a commentary on the ridiculousness of the absolute lack of phoneticims there in the UK. But instead, everyone burst out laughing.
“Wha?” I say.
“Are you daft? It’s ED-IN-Buh-Ruh.”
“Right, I said that, ED-In-BuRG.”
“Yeah, cause that’s what I just said.”
Awful. Awful.
Anyway, I loved this video and Atually learned a ton too. Bah! Can’t have learning going on here! What is that about?! So, in the spirit of not learning, I thought I’d drop in another great non-learning opportunity from the Anglophenia. This time, how to insult someone using British insults. Reminds me of my Shakespearian insults page I recently did. Good times.
