Friday 2 July 2010

Funny, strange & downright confusing place names.

Another one of those random thoughts that pop into my head!! I was thinking of some Scottish towns annd villages that have really bizarre spellings for their names and the confusion that it causes. Case in point - Milngavie. Anyone who doesn't know would pronounce it "mill-n-ga-vee" but it's actually "mull-guy". Could be confusing if one were to tell a visitor to Scotland to take the train to "mull-guy" and all they saw on the station signs was Milngavie!!

I know of one or two other confusing places nearby to where I live and I thought I'd look around for some more to compile a list. So here it is:

1. Kilncadzow, pronounced "kill-caig-ee". One of my particular favourites, lol.
2. I have to add this as my fiance always gets it wrong - Edinburgh. He pronounces it as he would Pittsburgh but it's actually "ed-in-burr-uh" or "ed-in-burr-oh" depending on whether or not you're posh, lol.
3. Culross and Culter are both pronounced with a "coo" but in the case of Culross, the 'l' is silent.

Moving away from Scotland now:

4. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch in Wales. I won't even attempt to guess how to pronounce it!!
5. My fiance's home sate: Arkansas. Most of my family pronounce it exactly how it's spelled (I do too in my head when I'm writing/typing it, lol) but as most people know it's actually pronounced "are-can-saw".

Some fun names rather than mis-pronounced ones:

6. Okay, Oklahoma
7. Nameless, Tennessee
8. Girdletree, Maryland
9. Back to Scotland for another one: Assloss
10. This last one is so poular there is one in USA (Arkansas) AND one in Australia (Queensland). And it is .......................... Bald Knob.





 

3 comments:

W.B. Picklesworth said...

Oddly enough I actually do know how to pronounce the name of the town in Wales thanks to a family vacation back in 1993 or so. We had a cassette tape of a fellow who taught the pronunciation with a song. On the flip side was a song called "Anglesy" (sp).

ArtformTheHeart* said...

wow, I can only manage the very last little bit "gogogoch" even after having been there back in 1991 or so. Having a song to help with the pronunciation sounds pretty cool though.

W.B. Picklesworth said...

Definitely.