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Mr Portillo does not know proper pronounciation of a town


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I always remember a comedian saying that she grew up in a town so dull that it couldn't even find a European town with which to twin, but had to make do with a suicide pact with Loughborough.

 

 

I remember that being the late Linda Smith from Erith which had a suicide pact with Dagenham.

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Poor Mr Portillo, he is getting such flack, locals will always have local ways with names, and some like Trottiscliffe in Kent , pronounced Trossley are designed to trip up the unwary traveller in the UK. 

 

Don't forget many locals in areas like to wind up visitors for their own amusement, I was in a Welsh shop where the staff and customers were chatting away in English, but then an obvious holiday maker came in and they reverted  to Welsh only, making him look like an idiot, and afterwards collapsed in laughter at the incident, mainly as they had a bet as to how many Welsh places names they could each get a customer to get totally wrong. The winner got the prize as the man was going on the Ffestiniog and the man got him to read out the place names of all the stations.

Having lived in Wales for a time as a kid I get away without such attention as I can give the impression I can speak it (which I can't really).

 

Stephen.

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The Ffestiniog is in a class all of its own with Dduallt.

 

I've heard "Dyoolt", "Dyool-it", "Doo-alt" and even "Dud-a-lot" but few who haven't heard a local pronounce it correctly would even get close.  

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Don't forget many locals in areas like to wind up visitors for their own amusement, I was in a Welsh shop where the staff and customers were chatting away in English, but then an obvious holiday maker came in and they reverted  to Welsh only, making him look like an idiot, and afterwards collapsed in laughter at the incident ...

 

I don't know about now, but the exact opposite used to happen in shops in the Gaelic-speaking areas of the Scottish Highlands. People speaking to each other in Gaelic would switch to English if an obvious Sassenach (i.e. non-Gaelic speaker) walked in. I was told by a Gaelic speaker with whom I worked that they felt it would be rude to continue in Gaelic and so exclude the visitor. I've also had that happen with French and Swedish speakers. 

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Contrary to myth, it happens here in Wales too, the overwhelming majority of Welsh speakers I know switch to English if there is a monoglot Saes in earshot.  When I was learning Welsh if I went into a shop or local hostelry where Welsh is spoken I inevitably had to start the conversation in Welsh to get some practice in, or the shop assistant would switch to English.  Having said that I have switched to Welsh with Welsh speakers to have private conversations in front of English only speakers, I figure that if the English think Welsh speakers are talking about them then why dissapoint them.  I've even got a teeshirt saying on the front "Ydw, dw i'n siarad amdanat ti" and "Paid a bod mor paranoid" on the back.

 

As you can probably tell I do have a wasp the size of an A380 up my gusset about this perennial anti-Welsh language tom-tit from some English.

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My sister (who incidentally went to LBRO) lives in Nottingham, near to which is a place called Gotham. I was told, quite adamantly, by an affronted local that it is pronounced "Goat-ham".

 

Gotham in Nottingham is indeed "GOAT'm" or "GOAT-ham" just as Batman in Melbourne is "BATm'n"

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I have it on good authority that it's Lornston. Though I was told that by a Tasmanian.

 

Launceston is LAN-s'n or LAWN-st'n when in Cornwall but LAWN-sess-ton in Tasmania

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We have a Moscow in Ayrshire, but just to be different from the Russian Capital it is pronounced Mos cow as in the bovine variety.  Long term residents of my home village always correctly say Eagles Ham, outsiders have a habit of saying Eagle Sham

 

Jim

 

Talking of places in the UK with names of foreign towns, here in Wales we have Nazareth (here in Gwynedd) and Bethlehem in Carmarthenshire.  Just before Christmas one of our readers on the Talking Newspaper read out an item about someone doing a sponsored walk from Nazareth to Bethlehem in support of refugees and I thought "That's brave, not exactly a peaceful part of the world" except he was doing the Welsh version.

 

​Still thought "That's brave" though.

 

Bethlehem post office apparently gets swamped in the run up to Christmas with cards trying to get the Bethlehem post mark.

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Talking of places in the UK with names of foreign towns, here in Wales we have Nazareth (here in Gwynedd) and Bethlehem in Carmarthenshire.  Just before Christmas one of our readers on the Talking Newspaper read out an item about someone doing a sponsored walk from Nazareth to Bethlehem in support of refugees and I thought "That's brave, not exactly a peaceful part of the world" except he was doing the Welsh version.

 

​Still thought "That's brave" though.

 

Bethlehem post office apparently gets swamped in the run up to Christmas with cards trying to get the Bethlehem post mark.

 

 

Poor Mr Portillo, he is getting such flack, locals will always have local ways with names, and some like Trottiscliffe in Kent , pronounced Trossley are designed to trip up the unwary traveller in the UK. 

 

Don't forget many locals in areas like to wind up visitors for their own amusement, I was in a Welsh shop where the staff and customers were chatting away in English, but then an obvious holiday maker came in and they reverted  to Welsh only, making him look like an idiot, and afterwards collapsed in laughter at the incident, mainly as they had a bet as to how many Welsh places names they could each get a customer to get totally wrong. The winner got the prize as the man was going on the Ffestiniog and the man got him to read out the place names of all the stations.

Having lived in Wales for a time as a kid I get away without such attention as I can give the impression I can speak it (which I can't really).

 

Stephen.

 

Contrary to myth, it happens here in Wales too, the overwhelming majority of Welsh speakers I know switch to English if there is a monoglot Saes in earshot.  When I was learning Welsh if I went into a shop or local hostelry where Welsh is spoken I inevitably had to start the conversation in Welsh to get some practice in, or the shop assistant would switch to English.  Having said that I have switched to Welsh with Welsh speakers to have private conversations in front of English only speakers, I figure that if the English think Welsh speakers are talking about them then why dissapoint them.  I've even got a teeshirt saying on the front "Ydw, dw i'n siarad amdanat ti" and "Paid a bod mor paranoid" on the back.

 

As you can probably tell I do have a wasp the size of an A380 up my gusset about this perennial anti-Welsh language tom-tit from some English.

Friend of a friend some years ago signed up to a Welsh language course (in monoglot English Cardiff where there are probably more Welsh speakers than the rest of the world put together, but make up a tiny percentage of the population), and, lacking practice in colloquial speech, went to the National Eisteddfod which that year was in Bangor, or, as it is known locally, Bangor, aye.  He stayed in a pub in Caernarfon down the road and went in each day.  Now, if you are learning Welsh and go to an Eisteddfod, you can wear a big red 'D' badge for Dwsgyr, Learner, so that everybody takes a bit of time to be slow and patient with you when you make mistakes, a good idea which works well.

 

Anyway, he'd come back to the pub in Caernarfon in the evening and, still wearing his 'D' badge, was approached by a local who rattled off a conversation at the breakneck speed of Gogspeak they use in those parts, only for Stef to look at him blankly and and explain, in the best Welsh he could manage, that he was only a learner and could you repeat what you've just said a little slower, please.  The Caernarfon bloke looked at him with some contempt and explained that 'I was talking to you in English!'.  Sometimes you just can't win...

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Talking of places in the UK with names of foreign towns, here in Wales we have Nazareth (here in Gwynedd) and Bethlehem in Carmarthenshire.  Just before Christmas one of our readers on the Talking Newspaper read out an item about someone doing a sponsored walk from Nazareth to Bethlehem in support of refugees and I thought "That's brave, not exactly a peaceful part of the world" except he was doing the Welsh version.

 

​Still thought "That's brave" though.

 

Bethlehem post office apparently gets swamped in the run up to Christmas with cards trying to get the Bethlehem post mark.

post-188-0-94096400-1484603830_thumb.jpg

 

Moscow to California - 1hr 2mins by car!!!

 

Jim

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Just catching up with the Blackpool to Essex trip Mr Portillo filmed.  Judging by the number of Nodding Donkeys and rather tired looking 150s he had to endure, it's clear the Northern fleet is in need of renewal, even when refurbished they can't disguise their age or in the case of the 14x units, their noise and lack of comfort.

 

You'd almost think Northern had deliberately scheduled their least appealing stock just to make a point.

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