Pronunciation of railway associated words.

[britishcolumbian]

24 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Well, yes, he was used to hearing the pronunciation used in one context and unfamiliar with the pronunciation used in a different context. We had an American visitor who, for the first five minutes, pronounced 'Reading' as if it was Reading, PA, but, being a skilled linguist, very quickly changed to pronouncing it appropriately for the Berkshire context. 

Now I'm confused: is Reading, England not pronounced "Redding"?

[Wickham Green too]

... presumably in Pennsylvania they pronounce it as in reading a book ! ...................... I'd always assumed that place was Redding too !

[Michael Hodgson]

3 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

... presumably in Pennsylvania they pronounce it as in reading a book ! ...................... I'd always assumed that place was Redding too !

Not to be confused with Derby.

[Compound2632]

There's the well-known story of the American visitor at Paddington in the 1930s, impressed by the facilities offered by the GWR. Not only dining and sleeping cars but carriages labelled READING and BATH.

Edited May 5 by Compound2632

[br2975]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Well, yes, he was used to hearing the pronunciation used in one context and unfamiliar with the pronunciation used in a different context. We had an American visitor who, for the first five minutes, pronounced 'Reading' as if it was Reading, PA, but, being a skilled linguist, very quickly changed to pronouncing it appropriately for the Berkshire context. 

.

And yet all my relatives who live in PA (my mother's sister was a GI bride) pronounce it as Reading ( as in Berkshire ) not as 'Reeding' 

.

The staff of the local shortline, the  'Reading & Northern ( actually Reading, Blue Mountain & Northern ) also use the Berkshire (and correct ) pronunciation.

[br2975]

44 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

... presumably in Pennsylvania they pronounce it as in reading a book ! ...................... I'd always assumed that place was Redding too !

.

Nope, my relatives live in the Scranton PA area, where a local shortline is the Reading, Blue Mountain & Northern, but known to everyone as the Reading & Northern.

.

Everyone I met there pronounced it 'REDDING' and not 'REEDING'

.

However, everyone smirked when I first asked about another local railroad location, namely "Wilkes Barre" which I pronounced "Wilkes Bar" when in fact it is pronounced  "Wilkesbury"

[Compound2632]

Ah, well, I merely told the tale as I remembered it.

 

I note that for all the places in the US called Reading for which Wikipedia gives a pronunciation, the pronunciation given is the same as Reading, Berks, UK and Reading, Berks, PA.

Edited May 5 by Compound2632

[greatcoleswoodhalt]

Malachite, or "ma-luh-kite" per Google, is one I can never retain properly...

[Michael Hodgson]

38 minutes ago, greatcoleswoodhalt said:

Malachite, or "ma-luh-kite" per Google, is one I can never retain properly...

Probably better than Malla Shite.

[britishcolumbian]

2 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

... presumably in Pennsylvania they pronounce it as in reading a book ! ...................... I'd always assumed that place was Redding too !

I said it as the verb once when I was a kid, visiting the States and playing Monopoly, and was very emphatically corrected that it's pronounced "Redding"... and since getting into railways in general, that's the only way I've ever heard it pronounced...

[St Enodoc]

11 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

exactly the same thing was referred to by different names

Don't mention buffer stops!

 

4 hours ago, br2975 said:

Berkshire

...or Barkshire?

[The Stationmaster]

17 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Well, yes, he was used to hearing the pronunciation used in one context and unfamiliar with the pronunciation used in a different context. We had an American visitor who, for the first five minutes, pronounced 'Reading' as if it was Reading, PA, but, being a skilled linguist, very quickly changed to pronouncing it appropriately for the Berkshire context. 

Ah, so he got to 'Reddin' pretty quickly then!!

 

Signed  A past resident of Tilehurst

 

16 hours ago, Rivercider said:

Mentioned on another thread some time back was the regional variations of referring to the control office.

 

On the Western Region we always spoke of the conTROL office (my emphasis). Later when I worked with former Southern men they referred to the CONtrol.

 

cheers

As a member of an OFs' luncheon group going by the title of  'WR & SR Former Controllers Group'  I can assure that things haven't changed much but we're all good friends.   I actually had in my team in TLF days Controllers based at both Swindon and Friars Bridge Court (aka Fraggle Rock - the temporary outbase while Waterloo General Offices were being refurbished).

 

We had enough trouble at times translating various things between WR and SR methodology in my two train planning offices - ab nd that was in the 1990s.

[br2975]

14 hours ago, greatcoleswoodhalt said:

Malachite, or "ma-luh-kite" per Google, is one I can never retain properly...

.

In a former life I used it in drainage investigation work - and it was always referred to as 'mallerkite'

[Steamport Southport]

12 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Don't mention buffer stops!

 

...or Barkshire?

 

Bunch of Barks doesn't quite work....

 

 

 

Jason

[MattR]

21 hours ago, br2975 said:

And yet all my relatives who live in PA (my mother's sister was a GI bride) pronounce it as Reading ( as in Berkshire ) not as 'Reeding' 

 

Agree. Anyone mispronouncing Reading, PA as "Reeding" must really really be "not from around here".

 

I live in Tennessee, but my family is from Philadelphia ... the ones who didn't immigrate straight to the city from the old country originally came down from Northeast Pennsylvania.

 

 

Edited May 6 by MattR

[The Pilotman]

 

“see bord”

Edited May 6 by The Pilotman

[big jim]

On 24/11/2022 at 22:38, br2975 said:

What about Welsh place names ?

.

Where there is

.

(i) The correct Welsh pronunciation

(ii) The 'bastardised' local pronunciation

(iii) The way the poor saes (English) visitors try to pronounce it

.

 

2 that immediately spring to mind for me 

Talacre - Tall acre

clogaenog - cloggy nog 

 

when I was a kid the cinema in Bala used it have an advert for the only local Indian restaurant in town, it was done in very posh ‘Queens English’ (popular in rural wales at the time) and the announcer pronounced it ‘Baa-La’ as in a sheep sound and a scouse boy, made us laugh every time!  

@Pilotman never heard a speed restriction board been called a ‘see board’  before. assuming it’s a restriction board as I’ve not seen a blue one either! 

Edited May 6 by big jim

[Mol_PMB]

4 minutes ago, big jim said:

@Pilotman never heard a speed restriction board been called a ‘see board’  before. assuming it’s a restriction board as I’ve not seen a blue one either! 

 

See-board at the start and Tea-board at the end perhaps?

(commencement and termination of a TSR)

[big jim]

T board, yes, thats what I call it, not really thought about what the start board is other than its actual name

 

Then there R and T/A board now too, for those who don’t know the A is below the T board at the end of a restriction to tell the driver to accelerate when the front of the train reaches the board rather than the rear, mainly seen after say a foot crossing with poor visibily or a history of misuse to save the whole train trundling over the crossing for no real reason 

 

 

[Pacific231G]

Going back to clerestory, I just looked it up in my 1990 OED (I regard the OED as more authoritative than Chambers) and it gives both pronunciations for clerestory (and also a US spelling "clearstory"). Interestingly though it defines the word as "1. an upper row of windows in  a cathedral or large church, above the level of the aisle roofs. 2 US a raised section of the roof of a railway carriage with windows or ventilators. (Middle English f  CLEAR +STOREY.) 

So, according to the OED, the railway usage of the word clerestory (though not its spelling) was actually an Americanism . 

 

That though is a bit like the railway usage of turnout which was also an Americanism (from the American term for lay-by ) and doesn't appear at all in the OED in its PW usage. For that the OED only has (as the 17th defintion of the word)  "point (usu plural) Brit a junction of two railway lines with a pair of linked tapering rails that can be moved laterally to allow a train to pass from one line to the other." 

Interestingly though, its fourth definition of frog is "a grooved piece of iron at a place in a railway where tracks cross (19th C, orig. unkn)". So that usage is not an Americanism (as is so often claimed by those who don't like us using the word) 

 

All this searching of the dictionary also led me to check up on "shewn". The OED describes shew as "an archaic variation of show". Does that I wonder make the GWR an archaic variation of railway? 😼

 

Edited May 6 by Pacific231G

[Steamport Southport]

Looking through old dictionaries?

 

clere'story n

 

Windowed part of a wall of a cathedral &c. above aisle roof. (clear storey).

 

 

Pocket Oxford Dictionary 1934!

 

That's all it say's I'm afraid. No specific railway reference and it doesn't have sources like the precise dictionaries do. A bit dogeared now but kept for sentimental reasons and the fact it has a lot of words that are no longer in common use, so handy if reading old books.

 

 

Jason

[Michael Hodgson]

5 hours ago, big jim said:

2 that immediately spring to mind for me 

Talacre - Tall acre

clogaenog - cloggy nog

There is a village in Monmouthshire whose nameboards on the different roads in used at least three spellings - Trelleck, Trellech and Trelech.  I think they've now standardised on the last of these, but you will still the other spellings locally.

[The Pilotman]

13 hours ago, big jim said:

never heard a speed restriction board been called a ‘see board’  before. assuming it’s a restriction board as I’ve not seen a blue one either! 

When I started on the Western Region in the late 80s, everyone referred to the commencement board as the “C board” and the termination board as the “T board”. The emergency indicator was called either a dalek or a metal mickey, and the warning board was often called an arrow warning board even though they no longer had an arrow shape by then. Blue was the colour back then, and they were illuminated rather than today’s reflective type. I don’t know if that was just the Western way or whether all the regions used the same style. 
The “see bord” comment was just because the thread is about pronunciation. 

Edited May 7 by The Pilotman

[Jeremy Cumberland]

New question: Plates on signal box levers giving the lever number, description and pulls. I've seen these referred to in writing as "leads", but I don't think I've ever heard the word pronounced. Are they the sort of lead you might use when walking the dog, or the sort of lead you might use for roofing your church (with or without a clerestory)?

[big jim]

8 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

There is a village in Monmouthshire whose nameboards on the different roads in used at least three spellings - Trelleck, Trellech and Trelech

we used to live in a house on ‘Trelech court’ so I know of all sorts of permutations for that name!

 

tree ledge 

trel-ch

tree leck