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The Anglo Files
Upper-class pronunciations are all over the place. The Cholmondeleys are pronounced the CHUM-leys. The Earl of Harewood is the Earl of HAR-wood. The Beaulieux are the BEW-leys. In accordance with the convention that French words should be pronounced as far away from the actual French style as humanly possible, just to show those French people who's boss, Beauchamp Place, a street in Knightsbridge, BEACH-um Place. Jacques, in Shakespeare: JAKE-weeze. Your valet is your VAL-let. Madame Tussaud's wax museum? To some Brits it's MA-dam TOO-sod's).
That is from Sarah Lyall's not fully analytical but often quite amusing The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British.
Here is a picture of Thomas Cholmondeley [CHUM-ley], and with this caption: "The trial has opened in Nairobi of an aristocrat
accused of murdering a black Kenyan man he suspected of poaching on his
family's 100,000-acre estate." The case, the second of its kind brought against Thomas, remains pending. Here is more information. Here is his girlfriend.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on September 3, 2008 at 07:51 AM in Books | Permalink
Comments
I've never quite got the strange pronounciations. However, some things the author suggests are a bit odd themselves, especially in their emphasis. And they're all subject to regional variation, obviously.
I certainly don't recognise the Jacques. The Beauchamp is usually more even (Bee-Chum) and the well-known wax emporium would usually be pronounced with a much more even Madam, and the second syllable of the second word is more like "swords" than "Sods".
It's nice to know that we're liked by many Americans, though!
Posted by: Andrew - An English one at Sep 3, 2008 9:13:21 AM
This reminds me of something I read once, that upper-class Huguenot refugees in England maintained the original spelling of their names, but completely anglicized the pronunciation (so that "beau" is pronounced like the first syllable of "beautiful"), whereas lower-class Huguenot refugees maintained the pronunciation and conformed the spelling (so that a lower-class Huguenot family named "Beauchamp" would have changed the spelling to something like "Bowshon").
Posted by: y81 at Sep 3, 2008 10:08:57 AM
In Virginia, one of the First Families of old English origin (although probably with some Italian connection way way back there) are the Taliaferros. That name is pronounced "Tolliver."
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Sep 3, 2008 10:11:40 AM
Andrew,
Yes. In As You Like It there is a character named Jacques whose name is pronounced as Lyall describes. He is often referred to as "melancholy Jacques," though the casue of his melancholy is unclear. Maybe it's hearing his name mispronounced.
It does get to to you after a while.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at Sep 3, 2008 10:19:20 AM
Barkley,
Taliaferro was Booker T. Washinton's middle name also, because that was his owner's name when he was born.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at Sep 3, 2008 10:23:12 AM
Thanks Bernard!
And y81 - I live near a village called Beaulieu, but this particular place is more of a Norman conquest thing. And it is indeed said Bew-Lee. And to corroborate you other observation, I also know someone of the name Bewley, so presumably a lower class French immigrant somewhere down the line!
Posted by: Andrew at Sep 3, 2008 10:47:20 AM
If several Huguenot families settled in one town, then they'd keep their surnames, however pronounced. If there was only one, however, they would often be called "French" which they would often then adopt as a surname. So says my Huguenot wife's family, anyway.
Posted by: dearieme at Sep 3, 2008 11:21:43 AM
P.S. a woman who supposes that cricket is boring is unsound.
Posted by: dearieme at Sep 3, 2008 11:23:50 AM
Catch these wierd and wonderful pronouciations while you can. Literacy is slowly strangling them. Even the fine old Englich town of Sissister is often now pronounced the way it is spelt - Cirencester.
Posted by: David Heigham (pronounced Hyam) at Sep 3, 2008 11:53:42 AM
Does she mention the usual favourite 'Featherstonehaugh' pronounced 'Fanshaw'. Surprisingly common that one.
Posted by: John Meredith at Sep 3, 2008 12:13:28 PM
There's also Througham (thruff-em). Of course, compared to Irish orthography English -- even perverse upper-class English -- is a breeze.
Posted by: Kieran at Sep 3, 2008 12:49:52 PM
And, of course, "Leicester" is pronounced "Lester."
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Sep 3, 2008 2:17:14 PM
And, of course, "Leicester" is pronounced "Lester."
What's weird about that, Barkley? Right here in MA we have "Gloster" (Gloucester) and "Wuster," or "Wusta" (Worcester) :-)
Posted by: bernard Yomtov at Sep 3, 2008 2:22:29 PM
Isn't the spelling of the name of the character in "As You Like It" Jaques rather than Jacques?
Posted by: Vadranor at Sep 3, 2008 2:44:45 PM
Wow, another patronizing book by an American overseas ridiculing the locals for not being just like Americans.
I wish cretins like her were more like the typical American, i.e., devoid of a passport.
Posted by: bart at Sep 3, 2008 3:24:12 PM
There are many surnames of French-Canadian origin found in New England, as people migrated across the border. The Americanized pronunciations are not as outlandish as the British versions described here, for instance Jacques I believe is "jakes". For a Quebecer, though, it takes some getting used to Gagnon being pronounced à la "gag me with a spoon".
Posted by: at Sep 3, 2008 3:43:52 PM
Vadranor,
Actually, it is. Thanks.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at Sep 3, 2008 4:47:44 PM
B.Y.,
Of course, the pronunciation of "Gloucester" is
borrowed from England, where it is the same there.
I am not sure there is an English "Worcester,"
however.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Sep 3, 2008 4:52:23 PM
Barkley;
Where do you suppose Worcestershire sauce comes from?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worcester
Posted by: bartman at Sep 3, 2008 5:14:49 PM
And in Scotland there is Kirkcudbright.
Posted by: Robert Scarth at Sep 3, 2008 5:49:03 PM
Bernard,
There is also a Leicester, MA (pronounced Lester).
We mangle a few here like: Haverhill, Tewkesbury, or Billerica.
Of course, my favorite Massachusetts pronunciation belongs to Berlin, MA.
Posted by: Xmas at Sep 3, 2008 5:59:45 PM
And, I misspelled Tewksbury, didn't I.
Posted by: Xmas at Sep 3, 2008 6:01:43 PM
This is kind of ridiculous. While there are real cases of upper-class types affecting accents to fortify the class lines, many names in Britain (both place names and family names) have been preserved in a written form for nearly a millennium. No one should be surprised that both the rules that relate pronunciations to spellings, and the pronunciations themselves, have changed. We also keep aitches in wheat and whale... and the English, who have had a standardized spelling for longer than we Americans, have lots of difficult-to-spell variants of our medical words.
Posted by: andthenyoufall at Sep 3, 2008 8:07:03 PM
Xmas,
You're right of course.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at Sep 3, 2008 10:02:26 PM
Worcestershire sauce, of course.
The explanation about length of words and names being in place in Britain is what I have always heard as the explanation for all these oddly abbreviated pronunciations, although there may be a class thing in the variations on pronunciation of French names. Even so, in Wisconsin there are a lot of place names that are French whose pronunciation has been Anglicized, thus "Fond du Lac" is pronounced as it looks and "Prairie du Chien," the last word is "sheen."
As for "Xmas," I regularly get nauseated by religious fanatics who get all upset by it. However, the "X" is a taken from the Greek, in which it was the first letter in the word "Xristos," that is, "Christ," which was a title given to Yeshua bin Yusuf, that he never heard or bore or used in his own lifetime.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Sep 4, 2008 11:03:01 AM
