The Russian word for a railway station ( вокзал ) is pronounced "voksal" because the first stations there were modelled on Vauxhall Station in London and the name just stuck.
I knew this but I heard that when the Tsar of Russia made a State visit to London in the mid 1800s he arrived by train at Vauxhall station from his port of arrival. Not knowing much English he saw the sign Vauxhall and thought this just meant station.
@@Robob0027 Sounds rather like Peter Ustinov's mother's experience on arriving in England from her native Russia. She was puzzled that every railway station seemed to be called Bovril.
Plaistow in LB Newham is pronounced 'plarstoe' but the south of the River version is 'playstoe". Near Plaistow Station in Newham I Katherine Road pronounced phonetically, unlike every other English pronunciation of any of the many ways of spelling Katharine
On 'ham' as 'um', LB Newham was from East Ham and West Ham which were, of course, 'East am' and 'West am'. After moving to East Ham in 1981, I was surprised to find people born and raised in the borough called 'Noo ham', saying the 'h' or 'Noo am' with the ham/am said very clearly and equal stress as first part. Never what everyone else assumed, namely 'Nyewum' with stress on first syllable
I thought naught of Loughborough as I always thought it too rough - though I have thoroughly broken through that thorough thoughtlessness since and now I am overwrought with guilt at my prior thoughts that have since been throughly furloughed.
I will always remember the tourist who asked me if he was on the right train for Action Town. With a set up like that, it was all I could do to give a serious reply.
Thank God there's no place called Acton Park. (New Jerseyites and some New Yorkers should get this, but for y'all Brits in the audience... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-flkW-ceNvck.html)
I just saw your comment after I posted mine. Yeah, I heard an American tourist say that too, but that was probably because they only looked at the word for a split second.
Ah yes, phonography versus orthography. In Italian, when you hear a word, you know how to write it, and vice versa. In French, you don't, but at least you can almost always know how to pronounce a word that you see written. In English... well, best of luck. You'll need it. The fact that "I read a book" can be pronounced two ways, with two slightly different meanings, says it all.
@@adamcetinkent I think the French are just too lazy to pronounce the ends of their words :P I mean, in old French, it would have all been pronounced. It's just got... "lazier" over time.
Danish has been said to be the world's hardest language to learn for foreigners. Spoken Danish is very different from how it's written and when you mix in hundreds of different dialects the rule for how to pronounce certain things depend on where in the country you are, and just like English we have a good portion of words that have several different meanings, but are pronounced exactly the same. But Danish has a few extra quirks like variable grammar - meaning you can often move around nouns and verbs and retain the same meaning of a sentence - and we use a lot of negation to create questions. And just to make it more fun: Danish is contextual, so a sentence by itself can have multiple meanings and you need to know the context it applies to in order to understand and translate it. This is why things like Google translate is hopeless when it comes to Danish.
I'm glad you're already teaching me how the stations are pronounced. so that I don't mispronounce them myself in my 'London underground experience' videos this summer!
Keep your trousers tucked in. They don't say "Mind The Gap" for nothing you know. If one of those little buggers runs up your leg and bites you in the unmentionables and you could die of a bad case of Cocker Knee before you've finished haggling over the fare with the black cab driver that takes you to hospital.
My first day of work in the city was delayed at Ruislip, on arrival at the office I explained to my very awkward boss my lateness was due to a delay at 'Rooslip,' he corrected my error and suggested I 'get some tuition in the queens farking english'.
Although not the same thing something happened to me in New York. On my first day at the office I arrived late due to a delay on the subway. I apologised to my boss by say how sorry I was but there was a hold up on the subway. The whole office fell silent until somebody asked "with guns"?
I add that as a native of the west country I made a point whilst working there with 'grumpy boss' of picking him up continually on his pronunciation, anything with an 's' or a 'c' became a 'z' of course. I would like to say there was a jovial ending to this tale. There is not, he remained perennially farking grumpy.
@@Robob0027 Lol, a "hold up" in some parts of the U.S. is slang for "hostage/kidnap situation". Additionally, a "shooting" can also either mean "filming" (as in a film crew shooting a scene) or literal shooting with guns (i.e. public mass shooting) depending on which parts of America you're in.
Marylebone is a classic. It even got some correspondence, recently, in "The Railway Magazine". I used to pronounce it Marry-le-bone, although that didn't seem quite right given the number of R's in the name. Nowadays, I would tend to say Marr-le-bone. At least I'm not alone with this "difficulty".
For a while I travelled from Richmond to Victoria on the District Line, and the drivers were always announcing that the train called at "all stations to Up minister"
Time for my occasional "related story from a non-Brit" that probably won't interest many people. Around where I grew up in the Netherlands, we had a station named Horst-Sevenum, named after the two nearby places of Horst and Sevenum, but funnily enough the station was not located in either of those places, as it's actually located in the small town of Hegelsom (even though people usually say they'll take the train "in Horst"). People regularly seem to think Horst-Sevenum is one place, and I often have to correct them on that, because Horst and Sevenum have a bit of a rivalry going on. Anyway, on every train I rode when I was very young, the conductor would pronounce "Sevenum" wrong, as "Seven-um". The actual pronunciation is "Zay-vuh-num", though "Say-vuh-num" is also generally accepted. At some point, I think staff were made aware, as in my many travels on the line since, I have heard it pronounced correctly, except for two occasions. One of those occasions surprisingly had an r sound between the e and the v. Oddly enough, the narrator of the spoken Wikipedia page for the station pronounces the o in the name of the town of Hegelsom as a u, which is a pronunciation I have never heard myself even though I grew up in the area and know it very well. Other stations here that are often mispronounced are "Kruiningen-Yerseke" ("Yerseke" is "ear-suh-kuh", not "yair-suh-kuh"), Wijchen (which is close to "Wee-khun", not close to "Why-khun"), Heiloo (with the emphasis on the second syllable, not the first) and Gorinchem (which for some reason is pronounced kinda like "Khor-kum"). Every "kh" I wrote here is a guttural g sound.
I lived and worked in the Netherlands for a while. For some of the time I stayed in Nieuwegein. The closest I can get to pronouncing the place is Nee-vugh-eye-n.
@@michaeldwyer3352 Scheveningen doesn't have a station. Also, for the mispronounced names, I listed places that are often mispronounced by Dutch folks. Because even though our place names are a lot more straightforward with their pronunciation than British ones, there's still a few outliers.
I once boarded a train at Selhurst and heard the guard pronounce the following stations in VERY heavy West Indian accent: ‘Stret-HAM, Bal-HAM, and Taunton-Hee’. The latter I took to mean Thornton Heath.
This could be your channel trailer, really epitomises the channel rather well. Look at us all vigorously debating the important issue of the day that is station names. The things Jago can make fun for us eh?
Whenever I see your videos I always remember what my English teacher (From Kent and I'm Italian) used to say about English humour and you are the truly representation of it hence you make me smile every time I hear your comments. Thank you!
I used to work with a slightly volatile young person who one day proclaimed that they had just received a telephone call from some "joker" who wanted to travel to Marrow Bone. When the likelihood that the actual destination sought was Marylebone was explained to them they were cross that it hadn't been pronounced correctly by the customer. I remained silent as the individual concerned originally came from Szczecin and I suspected that we may be approaching deep water on the issue of mispronunciation!
Well, to be fair - Polish pronunciation may be hard, but it's not inconsistent. Given Polish orthography, there is exactly one way to pronounce Szczecin, or Wroclaw, or Bydgoszcz. Which, you know, is not how English is!
@@Ealsante That is true, I don't have the fortune of being able to write Polish but can speak it. However just by reading it, I can tell what it says phonetically most of the time.
@@Ealsante I’ve got a Polish middle name and always enjoy hearing people on the phone mangle it. Though just last week there was a German (I think, very very very mild accent) man on the phone and he pronounced it almost perfectly!
I was once told that Marylebone is shortened in proportion to the speaker’s familiarity with the place, and a friend always refers to his place of work as being on Mar’Bn High Street.
I suppose I work in Marylebone, but as I get off at Regent's Park I'm happy to never pronounce "Marylebone" out loud or ever really mention it. So I can pretend I know what the correct pronunciation is, when I really don't
did once here some Germans put the K back into Knightsbridge obligatory evan edinger is in a place i should have expected but surprised nonetheless moment
Gloucester had an aircraft factory. Because potential customers found the pronunciation as confusing as did the people of London with Gloucester Road. They actually changed the name , or at least the spelling , to the Gloster Aircraft Company.. don’t get me started on Loughborough, Southwell, and a whole host of “wicks” 😀
I stumbled over the name Gloucester Road the first time I saw it on a Tube map at age 6. Oddly enough, though, none of the others mentioned here caused me any problems. And I favour "MARRiluhbuhn" as the pronunciation of That Station's name.
On one train journey in Adelaide the driver announced "Next stop, Chel-ten-ham", which had all the passengers either laughing out loud or looking around grinning at each other, because we all knew it was really "Cheltnum"!
I was on the Northern Line the other day and these tourist were talking about Leicester Square. One of them pronounced it: "Leye ses ter. Also my great uncle called St. Pancras as St Pancreas!
One of the first flash Tower Blocks that went up in Stratford, before the 2012 Olympics, had a huge advertising hoarding with the legend " Fast links to Kings Cross /St. Pancreas". 🤣
It's interesting how pronunciations can change over time. My mother's family lived in Marylebone for a couple of hundred years and my Great Grandfather worked on Marylebone Station for GCR, LNER & BR. They called it "Marrabn".
As someone who grew up in Epping Forest, it is 100% definitely "Theydon Boys", but the announcement on the Central Line does say "Theydon Boyce" if you listen closely. But this is definitely pronounced incorrectly. Nobody in the area would ever say "Theydon Boyce".
People tend to say 'Chesham Boyce' as often as 'Chesham Boys' today. To find out what the correct pronunciation is, perhaps attending a meeting of Chesham Bois Parish Council would tell you which is seen as the right one by people elected to represent it.
Brilliantly amusing, Jago ! Superb even !! Thank you ! I was once asked by an American gentleman if my train went to Loogerbarooger .....Loughborough, as mentioned in you video, was his destination on his ticket !!
As a British Rail management trainee in the mid-'80s I spent time in the booking office at Cambridge station. An American visitor came in & asked for a ticket to 'Elwhy'. Turned out they wanted to visit Ely.
It's when out of towners ask, 'do you want to go for a drink in Clapham Junction?' And you have to reply, 'Erm, do you mean Battersea?' And then they look at you like you're mad.
Lots of nice schwa sounds in these names. Never stressed, has many spellings, and perhaps much better known as a concept to ESL speakers than to native English speakers.
In the old Worcester Royal Infimary, the area where casts were applied was marked as 'Plaister Room'. So Plaistow/Plarstow could have been an example of a wider 18th or early 19th century pronunication. The old WRI was originally built in 1771 but was mostly Victorian.
Haha "tally from the toob". You're right to avoid mentioning Loughborough though, several years back I had worked a flight into Bristol and was getting the train back to Manchester. I was stood by the door for I like window-hanging ;) and despite being adorned with an airline uniform complete with wings was collared by an American couple, almost straight out of Dallas "I say son can you tell me where to change trains for Loogabooga?" After asking him to repeat that a couple of times (as I genuinely had no idea what he was on about) I asked to see his ticket, "oh, Loughborough, change at Derby". A few weeks later the same thing happened but they wanted to go to "Reeding", at least that one was easy to figure out. IIRC Continental Airlines had just started flying from New York to Bristol. Happy days :)
Incidentally, Plaistow was mispronounced as “play-stow” for many years on the Hammersmith and city line, before they updated the auto-announcements. It was always a point of ridicule for the local commuters, back in the day!
IA friend of mine had a couple of Australian tourists walk into her Brixton Opticians practice a few years ago asking directions to the very ‘outback’ sounding Luger Baruger Junction🤣
True story (well, it was in the papers): Two American tourists were on railway tour of Europe. At Stockholm Central Station, they asked for tickets to Venice and were duly sold two tickets and told what platform the train left from. After many hours on the train, they were still in Sweden and wondered why. Turned out they were on their way to Vännäs in northern Sweden, which is what the ticket seller thought they said.
When I was but a wee lad, I always pronounced Marylebone as 'Marro-bone'. Possible because of the Pal 'Meaty Chunks with Marrow Bone' advertisements on telly at the time. (It was the early 80's...we didn't know any better!)
For those who live around Boston(US),the suburbs are awash in London place names,and so is a good part of Massachusetts! Anyway,a good atlas,and pronunciation guide would help a traveler from the US,get around London,and England in general! There is a Plaistow,in New Hampshire,and that's only one notable place name!! Some Indian names,in both New England and on Long Island,can and do throw people, really hard curve balls,but that's for another day! Thanks,Jago,your tour de force,as Professor Higgins,was excellent,as usual! Thanks for the diversion from the ordinary!! Thanks again 😊!
But the "ham" in Framingham (I used to live near there when I was little) is pronounced "ham" while most Brits would say "Framingum", whereas Dedham and Needham are "Deddum" and "Needum" (I think). Go figure.
@@a133m210 Add,there is also a Jamaica Plain,near the former Arborway carhouse,which is next to the former Forest Hills train station[New Haven],and Elevated station! Plus to tie it altogether,the Jamaica Plain terminal was the site of another carbarn! Small world 🌎! Thank you 😇 😊!! Just a couple of New York/New England tie-ins!! Thank you 😇 😊 💓 ☺️!Belated Happy Thanksgiving 😊!!
According to Wikipedia it was originally the Gloucestershire Aircraft Company Limited but was renamed because "foreigners found Gloucestershire difficult to pronounce".
The tombstones of two men killed in a boiler explosion, at the foot of the Lickey Incline at Bromsgrove, make reference to the Birmingham & Glo'ster Railway - I imagine there are many such cases, thinking on it.
The temporary abbreviation of Gloucester Road to Gloster Road in some publications may have been part of an Edwardian trend in abbreviations or modifications of this kind. Adverts for regional companies and shops in directories of the period, for example, showed the two digit telephone numbers as 8y instead of 80 if they wanted to assure their customers that they were trend-setters. It was short-lived.
My Nan was born in Warren Street and my Mum in Marylebone Hospital; they both pronounced it ar "marribun" almost like "marry bun" but with a short "i" - hence that's how I pronounce it too.
Lovely to see "my" station Gloster Road featured yet again. I was familiar with the plane manufacturer Gloster before the station, so I took to it like a duck to water. That bit about Mr. Pancras and Mr. Pancreas was hillarious.
The funniest thing I heard was when a BBC presenter said "there is a problem on the central line at Gnats Hill (Gants Hill) lovely station strange name.
Been loving your channel here in the Philippines for a couple of years. It disappeared for a while so now I can look forward to catching up! Maybe one day I might try and do something similar for the LRT & MLT systems here but, somehow, I don’t think it would be as interesting as the London Underground system! Thanks for your highly entertaining vids. Best Wishes.
Thank you for mentioning the Plaistow trap! I fell right into that one on my first visit to London. Luckily I didn’t have to go there often. However, in 1985 I designed a station renovation scheme there and proudly presented my design to the GLC (remember that?) and LT with the correct pronunciation! Phew! All went well! Thank you for another very informative video! Best regards as always from darkest Germany!
The onboard announcement on the Bakerloo says "Marly Bone" with equal stress, which sounds even odder than the ones you list. I think in the past we have also had Play-stow
Growing up in Dunedin, the re were parts of the city i just never end up going to,,,one was the suburb of Corstorphine .....( so many streets and suburbs were named after places round or in Edinburgh,),,. I have always called it "Corsterfeen".... we thought it pretentious if anyone called it " CorstOrfin",,but apparently that what the Scots of that place call it. btw,,,,90 km+- south of here, at the head of Wellington Harbour is the once industrial working class now very $$ suburb..raised 2 metres in the 1856 earthquake..called Petone. You may have one try at getting That right.
The first time I went to London I didn't even attempt Marylebone until I heard it as "mah-lee-bn". Nothing too nasty here in B.C., though there are lots of anglicized native place names that came in to English directly, or via Spanish or French. I live in one, Kamloops from tk'emlups, "meeting of the waters". Our neighbours to the south confuse tourists with place names like Puyallup and Boise ("pew-ALL-up" and "boy-see").
Commiserations for you having such interesting neighbours to the south. I have a son buried in Boise. And I have always pronounced it incorrectly, just to see their reactions. :)
I've always heard it as 'pew-ell-up" but hey what's in a word right? I chuckle at Tsawassen but love Silmilkameen(sp?). Oh and yea - Marylebone is a bad one. I've been to London a few times and never knew until my wife said 'mar-bun' now I know what to say - but I'm still not sure of the correct pronunciation :).
In Minnesota there’s the Zumbro River, its name a very altered version of Rivière des Embarras ("Obstruction River") which has nothing to do with its most popular native name…
When I became a bus driver in Peterborough I had problem with the pronunciation of some roads. Coming from South London I knew of the place called Arundel Castle. So had problem when people were asking for A Run Dal Road. Another was Beaver Road spelt Belvoir Road. But the best is a village called Cowbit, pronounced Cub-it.
I have lived in Peterborough over 25 years and only recently realised that I was saying Godmanchester wrong! Many of the odd pronunciations of place names are in the East but nothing beats Gillingham for two different pronunciations depending which county you are in! I think it's just to catch people out.
@@hairyairey There's also Shrewsbury, which even its inhabitants can't agree on. ("Shroozbery"? "Shrohzbery??") When I found my dentist was actually from there I asked her for a definitive ruling. "Fifty-fifty!" was her reply. Having grown up hearing Shroozbery on the broadcast football results, I've stuck with that ever since.
@@Krzyszczynski My understanding is that for Shrewsbury, the "oh" pronunciation is the Welsh way, and that the "ew" pronunciation is the English way. Despite this, I had only ever heard it said with the "oh" until a few years ago, which the inhabitants of the town, mostly being English, consider to be wrong.
When I started watching this, I thought Marylebone would be the jewel in the crown. I wasn't disappointed. What is disappointing is that Mrs Bakerloo still calls it Mar Lee Bone, even though TfL has been asked for years to send her to elocution lessons. I was born there and live there, and am at one with Mr Hazzard that it's Mahler Bun (that well-known Viennese whirl), which is exactly what the residents call it.
I have a self-inflicted station mispronunciation, although it isn't related to the Underground. Whenever I'd have to mention Cutty Sark for Maritime Greenwich I used to swap the first letters around as a joke. Unfortunately, I've done this joke so many times that I now accidentally default to calling it Sutty Cark for Garitime Mreenwich. I suppose that's payback for irritating all of my friends with it...
Oh,this is good. Maybe even too good,AND a lovely picture of Loughton station,10 seconds in. This video is indeed, " Rich in Marylebone Jelly " . That's a reference strictly for the superannuated . I have only recently discovered that Holker, admittedly far from London,is not pronounced Holker 🙃. Oh,and there was a Gloster Aircraft Company,spelt thus,who,inter alia,made and flew the first jet plane in these islands.
Shakespeare, or his printers at least, called/spelled he who was to become Richard III the Duke of Gloster, so the pronunciation of that place has a very long pedigree.
@@eekee6034 Ancient advert for dog food PAL from the sixties. Slogan, " Rich in marrowbone jelly ". Sad,made sadder by the fact that 'Marylebone' makes me think of those adverts. Conditioning or what 😱
As someone that was born and bred in the Greenwich you are talking about, and I still live here as well ... Us natives pronounce it "Grin-ij'. The incorrect train announcements on this annoy us all. I've even heard a young boy loudly say to his mum, "that's not right mummy, it's Grin-ij, isn't it... G R I N I J Grin-ij!!!" On a train one morning. It brought a smile to the whole carriage! I even called John Craven on the Multi Coloured Swap Shop back in the day when there was a segment about place names and told him this.( I think around 1979) We had a quick live telly conversation and it was over. Imagine my 8 year old delight and wonder when on Newsround the next Thursday, there was totally coincidentally a story about Greenwich... And the wonderful Mr Craven used the correct pronunciation I'd given him the Saturday morning before.
@@JofromItaly I lived in Greenwich for 40 years. You are exactly correct here - Grinidge is for ordinary folk who are native to the area. Grenitch is for posh types and people who don't live there. Similar thing applies to Plumstid v Plumsted, and Woolidge v Woolitch. Ya gotta love SE London.
here in South Yorkshire we have Adwick-le-Street ("ad-wick"), and Adwick on Dearne ("ad-ick"), showing that even the same spelling can't guarantee consistent pronunciation the two villages are less than 10 miles apart, fortunately only one of them (Adwick-le-Street) is on the rail network see also, Blackley, Greater Manchester ("blake-lee") vs. Blackley, West Yorkshire ("black-lee")
When the three Yerkes (ta-DAAH!) tubes opened early in the 20th century there were several complaints about how train staff slurred the names of stations when making announcements quickly ("Ampstid" and "Ighgit" were particularly deplored). Alan A Jackson also mentions "Totnacorranex" (Tottenham Court Road next). It was all part of bringing speed-conscious American methods to bear on the operation of that new-fangled thing in Britain, a rapid transit railway. The more decorous Brits had a lot to learn, but they eventually did so. Recent edit: just realised I should have included the name of Mr Jackson's co-author (of Rails Through The Clay), Desmond F Croome. Soz, Des.
I recently visited London with my family and we stayed near Gloucester Road Station and traveled through it many times. My dad and I both knew how to correctly pronounce the name but the rest of my family kept saying it wrong no matter how many times we corrected them.
I always thought I knew how to pronounce Marylebone, but after watching your video, I now realise that I haven't the faintest idea! Thanks! There again, I've never been there in my life, so it hasn't been an issue!
There's a rule of traditional RP that explains what is now the less common alternative pronunciation of "Highgate". That rule is that vowel sounds in all unstressed syllables (predictably, with some exceptions, such as words ending in y) are pronounced "u" as in "cup". So, because, like most English words, Highgate has the stress on the first syllable, only the first syllable has its vowel sound as spelt, as in "i". The last syllable, "gate" does not have its as spelt vowel sound, but the "u" sound, so it's pronounced "Higut" in traditional RP. The same goes for other names with the "gate" ending as part of the same word, such as "Aldgate" (listen to Sid James pronounce this word in a "Look at Life" film from the 1950s on RU-vid - this rule was the same in old cockney accents as in traditional RP; the two have more in common with each other that neither have in common with much else than one might expect). Incidentally, this also probably explains why "pronunciation" is spelt the way that it is and not "pronounciation". This also explains the traditional RP way of pronouncing "Marylebone", which, interestingly, is the pronunciation that you missed from your long list of alternatives. The traditional RP way of pronouncing "Marylebone" is "Ma-ruh-luh-buhn". If you search on RU-vid for a video of an old newsreel from about the early 1960s of I think the new Falcon locomotive, you will hear this pronunciation. But a splendid video as always. I have heard many people pronounce "Leicester Square" as "Li-ces-ter square". I have even heard of someone who pronounced "Edgware" as "Ed - gware" rather than "Edge - ware".
@@andyjay729 not necessarily most commonly - traditional RP, after all, was not necessarily the most common accent (although it might have been in Highgate).
Leicester Square would be irredeemable, except that it is redeemed by the Cork and Bottle wine bar, which Londoners enjoy right under the noses of the braying hordes.
There was a young girl from Slough Who had the most terrible cough. She wasn't to know It would last until now, But I'm sure the poor thing will pull through. (I think this originally came from I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue)
Holborn promounced Holl born was always a favourite for me when speaking to a non londoner. But I had always been told that the station for Marylebone was Marry le bon. We even joked when I worked round there that it was something to do with Simon! My mother always pronounced Vauxhaul as Vux Hall. Plaistow seemed to have an R as in Plarstow, but when it came to the Northern in South London it got really weird. CLAAARM, B' tersey, Ballham and even Rayners Park on Southern Rail. It is fun to look back on some of these from school years.
...and I was so looking forward to calling you a cunning linguist there, Jago my good chap! Of course, there's also the Cockney pronunciation of all the station names, e.g. Suvvuck or Handslo.
The London Overground station of Bushey, to the NW of London and within the bounds of the M25 orbital motorway, is actually in Oxhey. Bushey is a mile-or-so up the road to the west. It was formerly known as Bushey and Oxhey station. During WWII, when station signs were removed or obscured to confuse any potential invaders, the place names were painted out on station signage, leaving only the ampersand between them visible. Hence the station locally and jokingly became known at that time as "&" station.
Some American friends of my family got lost in the Chilterns and called for help from "High Wye Combey", or High Wycombe as it more prosaically known...
It reminds me of a rhyme - which I hope I remember correctly! I wonder what would cure my cough? A cup of coughee should. It wouldn't do me any harm, and it might do me gould.
I understand that at the time of the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway (part of the nascent Northern Line), the guards were in the habit of calling out the station names when the trains had arrived at the platforms. Some of names shouted out (in the local vernacular of the guards) were all but unintelligible and were a source of passenger complaint. Highgate often came out as a strangled 'Iggit.
Pancras is an abbreviation of the Greek name Pankrathios, which is fairly common in Orthodox countries. You can safely tell your mate he's full of a certain unmentionable substance.
As someone who spent 15 years teaching English to foreigners, I really enjoyed this. Here in Scotland, we have a similar "dispute" on how to say Tyndrum - but I think the Gaelic road-signs introduced by the SNP Government put the argument firmly to bed. (Taigh an Droma). Thanks for brightening up my Saturday morning Jago - when I saw my propsed Playlist I went straight for this one!
I explain to my bemused students the lack of ID cards in the UK by pointing out that we can always winkle out spies, fifth columnists and other ne'er-do-wells by their pronunciation. "Marchioness of Cholmondeley" is as good as any iris scanner to detect a persona non grata!
@@CoastHobbit9340 Yeh - pronunciation is often used as a kind of snobbery-tool by people who like to feel superior to others. Remember Hyacinth Bucket on TV? I don't know your age, but you may recall that Gordon Brown's Labour Government had a scheme to introduce ID cards in the UK, but it was scrapped by the incoming Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition in 2010 to save money.
I was on an underground train once and a couple of Americans were going on about 'li cest ter square' eventually I got so angry with their pronunciation I said It's 'Leicester Square' so they said 'thank you' and got off - we were no where near Leicester Square
Many years ago when I was living in London (I am Irish), the word “Holborn” came into a conversation I was having with some born & bred Londoners. Naturally I pronounced it “Hole Burn”. “Nah, nah, mate. It’s ‘Oh Bun’, innit?” came the correction.
In the early '90s I briefly worked in Ruislip. My understanding is that the name derives from the old English rysc hilp - 'rushy leaping place' - because it was the highest point at which the river Pinn could be forded.
Even those pre-recorded station and on-train announcements get pronunciations wrong sometimes. For years the station of Bursledon (near Southampton) - which should be pronounced Burz-ul-dun - was mispronounced on these as Burlz-dun because someone unfamiliar with it either misread it or assumed there was a typo.
I work at Baker Street Station, and the northern terminus of the Bakerloo Line is normally pronounced Harrow & Wealdstone, but the announcements on the train sometimes say Harrow & Wealdstn with no prolonged o sound at the end.
Germany has few such places (and a good thing too, our consonant clusters are tough enough on the old throat as is), but one of the rare ones is the town (and station) of Eltville, near Wiesbaden. It looks almost French or English, but the name is actually pronounced with three syllables - elt-vil-uh.
When I use to drive the 49s I had a lady ask me if I went to Clahm.... Well that's how she pronounced it, I asked if she meant Clapham, no she said Clahm... I asked her to spell it... I said yes Clapham.... She was in her words awfully distressed lol... The other ones from the 90s were St, Reatham...Streatham... Battersea pronounced Batter-cee-ahh... And Balm... Yes Balm.... Balham.... The 90s yuppie extension from the 80s yuppie explosion 🙄😂 great episode sir.... Only 4 days left of covid quarantine here for me in Austria woohoo 😁
May I offer you the salutation - Air-Hell-Air. A standard greeting given by denizens of the area around Sloane Square to fellow toffs. The true origin of Clahm, Blahm and Batter- sea- ah. I dwelt in those regions for some 20 years 😊
Am from Gloucester in Gloucestershire and have seen dozens of spellings for our city over the centuries. I’ve seen a map from the 1400s where our Bristol road is labelled “hay wey Bristowe” as in the high way to Bristo in middlish English.
So I felt like finding out why the names are weird. The ones I haven't mentionned are "the word is commonly used so got shortened". Most of the ones I do mention are that but not in an obvious way because they happened a while ago. Ruislip: The ui was originally pronounced /y/ (its an ee sound with rounded lips), which then merged with the ee sound and later it became the modern sound for the letter i. So using ui might be a weird way of writing /y/, which is quite weird, it was normally written y in old english, and spelling was standardised in middle english when /y/ didn't exist. Except in some Southwest dialects /y/ still existed, as well in some loanword so its possible it survived in Ruislip. Plaistow: might have been said a then ee like modern eye (which is what the letters used to represent), but the ee sound got lost at some point to shorten it. Theydon Bois: Bois is french, but it got into english a while ago when it was pronounced boyce (boy with a s sound on the end). S then became z at the end of a word after a vowel in basically every word. Hainault: it isn't a french word, but "The spelling was altered from the 17th century because of a false connection to Philippa of Hainault, the wife of Edward III" who was french. Ladbroke: The long versions of vowels used to just be said the same as the short versions, and it got shortened because of being commonly used. Then the long vowels changed a bunch so broke seems weird. I think it also got changed because it should be said brock if it was only shortened. So my reason might be wrong. Greenwich: Same reason as ladbroke, its green → gren. But this one I'm pretty sure about Holborn: its similar to what happened with the word yolk. But normally the l wasn't lost except for before a k, so its a bit weird. EDIT: or another explanation: the l was lost and the o was lengthened to compensate during middle english (when long o was said "or" (without the r sound if your american)) and then became modern "long" o.
I presume Holborn was from Holy Bourne - the sacred waters , so Holyborne (there is one of them in Hampshire ?) to Holburn to Holbon is how I see it should have gone. Anyway this Lad is Broke, due to visiting too many Ladbrookes.
@@highpath4776 I searched a bit more, and the name Holborn refers to the River Fleet so your right about the bourne bit. "hol" meant hollow in old and middle english, so it could be that.
@@d.l.7416 I thought the Fleet Valley runs roughly under High Holborn Viaduct down to Blackfriars, and that there was another river running toward the thames - roughtly along Lambs Conduit Street that Holborn itself was named after (though Jago has covered the two Holborn stations that my cause my confusion, Perhaps Holborn station should have been called Southampton Row
Commonly used, thus shortened … That's a fair conjecture, but it can't be the whole story, otherwise at least Edinburgh would have a reasonable pronunciation. As for Holborn, if TfL want it pronounced "Houben", they should bloody well spell it that way!
@@peterjansen7929 Burgh is actually just an alternative spelling of borough held over from old english. It was pronounced as its spelt in old english but had changed by middle english. Most spellings were standardised in middle english so an old english spelling is irregular. So that's actually a reason I forgot, old spellings often get preserved in placenames.
I'm italian and I was tricked by some of this as Southwark, theydon bois, borough...and about Greenwich and Marylebone I disputed with my english friends too ! 😂 Love this video great job as ever! 😃
I asked a family friend, who hails from England, about the correct pronunciation of Leicester. I spelled it out (didn't want to be a total rube by mispronouncing it), got the right pronunciation, and have been grateful ever since.
