Pronunciation of railway associated words.

[britishcolumbian]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Egide Walschaerts

Like it's spelt... 😆 Egide is easy enough, like Ay-zheed, with stress on the second syllable. Walschaerts is harder to describe in a simple way (I could write it in International Phonetic Alphabet but that may as well be Sanskrit for most people). I think the closest I can get would be like... Wall's Heart but with a v.

[Wickham Green too]

13 minutes ago, britishcolumbian said:

... Wall's Heart but with a v.

Not to be confused with https://www.doyouremember.co.uk/memory/love-heart-lolly 🤭

[hexagon789]

14 minutes ago, britishcolumbian said:

Like it's spelt... 😆 Egide is easy enough, like Ay-zheed, with stress on the second syllable. Walschaerts is harder to describe in a simple way (I could write it in International Phonetic Alphabet but that may as well be Sanskrit for most people). I think the closest I can get would be like... Wall's Heart but with a v.

He was Belgian though as I recall, so Flemish pronunciation rules I think?

[Porcy Mane]

First time I saw an explanation of Walschaerts was on a series of wall-charts.

[Tom Burnham]

3 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Foreign territory for me - it's the other side of the Medway - I've heard Bearsted pronounced Bare-sted and Beer-sted ........ no idea which is 'right'. 

And used to be Bur-sted in my grandfather's day.

[wombatofludham]

8 hours ago, Hibelroad said:

Hope this isn’t too far off topic but sat nav pronunciation of place names beats any human name mangling hands down. I travelled to Stoke on Trent several times, this was pronounced something like Stoosh un trennnnd. Having now move to Wales the sat nav seems to have admitted defeat and mostly just says turn left or turn right. 

I once used a friend's sat nav to direct me to an exhibition at the GCR(N) which managed to mangle Loughborough to "L-ow-g-bro", so heaven only knows how it would cope with Welsh. 

On the rare occasions I need sat-nav (I'm blessed with the navigational skills of a homing pigeon and once I've gone through the route on Google Earth I can usually navigate on sight) I use the phone's Google Maps to do it, which has trouble with Welsh, wanting to call the street where I live (Glan y Mor, pronounced Glan uh Mor) as Glan Wye Mor, and insisting on reading the road to Rhuthin as the "Rithin Ruthin" road, as well as the Wrecsam/Wrexham road as the "Wrexham Wrexham" road, which suggests it is literally reading the directions off the road signs which will be bi-lingual.  I haven't tried a trip to somewhere with a more complicated set of signs like "Mold/Yr Wyddgrug" or "Welshpool/Y Trallung".  There again the shatnav on the handy lady got positively excited when it directed me over the Mersey Gateway bridge on a trip up to Widnes, her voice went up an octave and sounded like she was enjoying a "pleasuring" when she recorded the name, so no wonder she gets confused by bi-lingual road signs, the poor love.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, wombatofludham said:

I once used a friend's sat nav to direct me to an exhibition at the GCR(N) which managed to mangle Loughborough to "L-ow-g-bro", so heaven only knows how it would cope with Welsh. 

 

I was told that although there are many places in the United States that take their names from British places, there is nowhere called Loughborough as it would be pronounced "Looga-barooga"!

[Porcy Mane]

I used to do voluntary work which involved showing Americans  (North) around the pubs of Durham.

 

Dere-ham was a stopping off point in between Yurk and Edinbuuuurg.

[ardbealach]

And just for the record 66A is pronounced Poll-mad-dee. (Alisdair)

[hexagon789]

25 minutes ago, ardbealach said:

And just for the record 66A is pronounced Poll-mad-dee. (Alisdair)

Polemaddy? More Pol-muh-dee, coming from the Gaelic Poll Mac Dè (Pol Muck Day) meaning 'the pool of the son of God'.

[Oldddudders]

26 minutes ago, ardbealach said:

And just for the record 66A is pronounced Poll-mad-dee. (Alisdair)

Something over 50 years ago, in my Control days, someone kissed the buffers at London Bridge in the evening peak. It was Gerald Daniels (of later steam event fame) who was Duty SM, and he said the driver sounded like a Polmadie man, of whom there were a number at SR depots in those days. I accepted his pronunciation and it matches yours. 

[rogerzilla]

My car satnav does Swindon as "Swine-don".  It must know it well.

 

It also does Pickering as "Pike-er-ing".

[hexagon789]

2 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Something over 50 years ago, in my Control days, someone kissed the buffers at London Bridge in the evening peak. It was Gerald Daniels (of later steam event fame) who was Duty SM, and he said the driver sounded like a Polmadie man, of whom there were a number at SR depots in those days. I accepted his pronunciation and it matches yours. 

As a Glaswegian from birth and who's grandfather worked on the railways including at St Rollox and always pronounced it thus, I nevertheless contend that it is Pol- (short O, rhyming with doll), muh- (with a schwa), dee.

[ardbealach]

Hi Hexagon  Can't disagree with you between the U and the A.  I was trying to correct those who pronounce it "Poll Maddy. (Alisdair)

[hexagon789]

3 minutes ago, ardbealach said:

Hi Hexagon  Can't disagree with you between the U and the A.  I was trying to correct those who pronounce it "Poll Maddy. (Alisdair)

My apologies, with using our own versions of a pronunciation alphabet I think I've misunderstood exactly what pronunciation you were seeking to covey.

 

Sorry for any confusion.

[The Stationmaster]

9 hours ago, hexagon789 said:

He was Belgian though as I recall, so Flemish pronunciation rules I think?

Not necessarily - it depends in which part of Belgium thw word is spoken - so Flemish, French, orGerman pronunciation.  The SNCB staff cafeteria at Bruxelles Midi used have an instructional set of Walschaerts valvegear in the wall - to quite a large scale (it might still be there for all I know but i haven't been in there for over 20 years so they might have redecorated by now.

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, hexagon789 said:

As a Glaswegian from birth and who's grandfather worked on the railways including at St Rollox and always pronounced it thus, I nevertheless contend that it is Pol- (short O, rhyming with doll), muh- (with a schwa), dee.

That was how the staff there pronounced it when i was visiting the depot (on official business 😇) back in the 1990s

[St Enodoc]

52 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

That was how the staff there pronounced it when i was visiting the depot (on official business 😇) back in the 1990s

With the stress on the final syllable, of course.

[BR60103]

I've just looked up Loughborough in my BBC Pronouncing Dictionary. (Which I bought just around the corner from W&H models.)

 

There is a street near us Pinebush.  The satnav calls it Pinny-bush.

 

One of our original motorways is the Queen Elizabeth Way (after the Queen Mum), abbreviated to QEW. The satnav reads that as "queue".

 

[Hroth]

21 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

All roads lead to Araf.

Or Fford Alan

[billy_anorak59]

My old satnav used to regularly mention 'Pet-erb-er-oh', and I wondered what the hell it was on about, until I realised it was trying to say Peterborough.

 

[ardbealach]

9 hours ago, ardbealach said:

Hi Hexagon  Can't disagree with you between the U and the A.  I was trying to correct those who pronounce it "Poll Maddy. (Alisdair)

As they say in Craiglang - you're weclome! (Alisdair)

[scottystitch]

OT, but just wait until the topic broadens and we get to Mr Dalziel (Dee-ell) and Mr Menzies (Maing-is) from Milngavie...(Mull-guy) 😉

 

Best

Scott.

[Wickham Green too]

Milngavie has already appeared in these pages - but I don't think those gentlemen are well known in railway circles !  ......... apart from John M. who had a bookstall or three. 🙃 

[scottystitch]

Just now, Wickham Green too said:

Milngavie has already appeared in these pages - but I don't think those gentlemen are well known in railway circles !  ......... apart from John M. who had a bookstall or three. 🙃 

Oh, I do beg your pardon, in that case.

 

And yes, hence acknowledging it was OT.

 

Best

Scott.