Pronunciation watch

[Richard Tarleton]

I think something like "better see coyed" (but the "see" short) - emphasis on "Coyed"; the rhythm like the opening of the Roobarb & Custard cartoon series theme tune.

I shall now stand back and let bona fide Cymry give the correct details (simultaneously explaining the curious looks I've been given when I've used this pronunciation when in Betws).

That's how I know it - if you're an actual Welsh speaker which I'm certainly not your pronunciation has an added je ne sais quoi which non-speakers can't emulate. I frequently heard former colleagues from that end of the country abbreviate it to "bettus".

Interesting area for being a fragment of temperate rain forest. We'll be heading up there for a very short break before long.

PS - caught Sarah earlier going the full Katie on Jacob Lindberg - "Yacob" may well be correct Swedish pronunciation for all I know, but I'm pretty sure he's just Jacob to his friends. Lovely guy.

[french frank]

I frequently heard former colleagues from that end of the country abbreviate it to "bettus".

The problem with non IPA transliterations, like 'bettus', 'better' is that different people will pronounce them in different ways. I'd transliterate the w as something like a short euh-, IPA ʊ (bit like RP book, i.e. if you pronounce book with a ʊ ).

[Bert Coules]

Try this (don't be put off by the initial six seconds of silence):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzLrfOpIUJ4 .

[Richard Tarleton]

That's more or less what Ferney and I indicated. The most interesting thing about this is how she pronounces the terminal "s" in "Wales", contrasting with how an English person says it.

Anyway, how about this - always a favourite, just up the road.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

"Eggloowis surroo"?

[LMcD]

Re. Betws-Y-Coed....thanks for all the replies!

[Richard Tarleton]

More "eglisuru"......

[Serial_Apologist]

Re. Betws-Y-Coed....thanks for all the replies!

And I always thought Betsy went to a Co-ed!

[french frank]

That's more or less what Ferney and I indicated.

More or less, and up to a point. But closer to what I indicated If you take the RP pronunciation of 'book', and remove the consonant sounds at either end, you have IPA ʊ. Which is Welsh 'w'. Just thinking: I don't think Welsh has the z sound which would explain Wale-ss

[Richard Tarleton]

I don't think Welsh has the z sound which would explain Wale-ss

Ah, that explains a lot

[Pulcinella]

We had a very pronounced and audible l in Milhaud from Katie on TV last night, as she was introducing Scaramouche; corrected (as in, absent) after the performance. I wonder who told her!

[LMcD]

We had a very pronounced and audible l in Milhaud from Katie on TV last night, as she was introducing Scaramouche; corrected (as in, absent) after the performance. I wonder who told her!

O Sole Milhaud?

[Serial_Apologist]

O Sole Milhaud?

Sounds too fishy - ask dovers.

[Pabmusic]

Thanks Pabs. I now have permission not to grind my teeth during news items.

On reflection, are these pronunciations in some way class based? Cf Romsey and Rumsey in Hampshire.....

Whether there is an element of that, neither pronunciation preserves the original Scrobbs- (which gives us the Shrop- of Shropshire. The -oo sound is certainly the more recent for -ew (it's not that long ago you could find 'show' written as 'shew'.**

The 'scrob' is our 'shrub' (sc in Old Emglish is sh). Which perhaps introduces another element. Perhaps the original sounded more like Shrubsbry to an Anglo-Saxon. Actually, the name would have ended with the guttural yogh as well (ʒ) - so it would have been very diffeerent.

The Great Vowel Shift has much to answer for.

**Edit:

On reflection, I may be wrong here. 'Scrob' does give us 'shrub' and 'scrub' (as in scrubland - a later word from a time when people had forgotten the 'sh' sound and were going just by what the letters looked like) - and there certainly is heathland around Shrewsbury, which is at the edge of the Cheshire Plain. It was confusion in the minds of medieval writers that gave us both sh- and sc- from the OE sc- (pronounced sh-). Think of shirt, shift, and skirt. 'Scrob' was almost certainly pronounced something like 'shrub' - but with a very much more recessed vowel-sound than my open flat 'u'. Percy Grainger wrote of one of his Lincolnshire singers who called him "yoong mahn", and I rather think the sound was more like that 'yoong' - which isn't really very far from '-ew'. Which all suggests that the 'ew' sound is earlier.

I did wonder whether (as is very common) the first element (Scrobb, as in Scrobbsbyrig) was someone's name. But I think not. Where a name is incorporated you usually find 'ing', where an ing was a family settlement. Wocca's-ing, and Dorca's-ing give us Woking and Dorking. Where a town (ham) was built on the site of an ing, you find names like Beormund's-ing-ham and the marvellous Snotta's-ing-ham (built on the settlement of the family of Snot). Scrobbsbyrig doesn't follow that pattern.

The second element, -byrig (originally byrȝ) is the familiar -bury, -bry, -burgh,-brough, -borough (and Bury, Brough and Brigg) that medieval scribes couldn't handle because of the letter yogh (it's a braw bricht moonlicht nicht the nicht, etc., - it is said that Edinburgh and The Borders have preserved elements of Anglo-Saxon very well). Byrȝ means 'fortified place'.

[Reaches for badly stained, ermine-trimmed anorak and shuffles off into the quad, making for The Old Duffer.]

[Lat-Literal]

Edward Stourton has the sort of bearing which implies he would be sound on pronunciation.

But was he right today with "pree-see-uns"?

I have never heard prescience pronounced this way before.