thought i'd add some color to this one. in the Philadelphia area there are
many welsch towns, such as Bryn Mawr (brin-mar), Bala Cynwood (bala kinwood),
and the hardest is the Schuylkill (school kill) River.
go west to Pittsburgh and you get indian names - the Monongahela River
(pronounced more or less as spelled, probably because its the english
enunciation translated into letters.
this is almost as interesting as talking about cars <grin>!
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Hunt
To: saidel@camden.rutgers.edu ; mgs@autox.team.net
Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 3:52 AM
Subject: Re: [Mgs] Common Language
The clue is in what you wrote - one is spelt 'chester' and the other
'cester'
and the two *are* treated differently, Dorchester, Barchester and others
are
pronounced as they are spelt as well, Bicester is not, even though are both
are said to come from the Roman. It's probably not universal,
Chester-le-Street for example is pronounced Chesleystreet with soft 's' in
both cases. Many American place names particularly on the Eastern seaboard
came from the UK, and UK place names came from the Celtic, Anglo-Saxons
i.e.
Germanic, Vikings i.e. Scandinavia, Romans i.e. latin, Normans i.e. French
and
so on.
PaulH.
----- Original Message -----
Sorry I missed the beginning of this thread. In Boston,
Dorchester is pronounce 'Dor-Chest-er' but Worcester 'Wister'. I
lived in the Boston area for 30 years and never understood it. Another
30 years later and I still don't understand it.
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