I’m reading about Constable’s paintings of the Stour River valley, and I realized I don’t know how the river’s name is pronounced. What is the preferred regional pronunciation for it-- “STOE-er” (like “row,” as in what you do to a boat), “STOW-er” (like “row,” but as in a violent argument), “STORE,” “STIR,” something else?
I’d take a stab at it, but I always seem to guess the wrong one.
According to our resident Stourbridge resident - the river is pronounced “STAW-er”. The town, Stourbridge however, is pronounced “STAR-bridge”.
As a Brit I would pronounce it stower as in flower, but you might be better waiting for somebody more local to give you their opinion.
The particular river you are refering to ( located in Suffolk ) is pronounced store Other rivers of the same name , in other parts of the UK, might have different pronunciations.
The Stour’s on the Suffolk-Essex border - and up here to the north of it, it’s “Stoo-er”.
Agreed: the Constable one is “store”. However, my wife’s from Birmingham and lived in Stourbridge, and assures me the West Midlands one is pronounced “stower” (as in “flower”), though with the town some RP speakers do call it “Staabridge”.
I should have clarified that Constable’s Stour is the Suffolk one. I like to know the regional pronunciation of place names, even though, judging by the variety of pronunciations (for the variety of Stour places!), I probably wouldn’t have looked like a total idiot if I had chosen the wrong one.
Thanks everyone!
If you want to pronounce Constable Country names correctly, you’ll need these:
Dedham = “Dead’m”
Langham = “Lang’m”
Bergholt = “Ber-g’lt”
Another example of differences in pronounciation is the name Witham which is a town in Essex and a river in Lincolnshire. The town is pronounced wit-am and the river with-am
I was born, and spent the first 20 years of my life, in Constable’s Stour River Valley, and have only ever heard it pronounced to rhyme with “flower”.
Mind you, the Suffolk accent can vary a great deal so it may be pronounced differently elsewhere in the county (I’m from Sudbury). 
S’true, s’lot diffin 'n Woobridge 
Izzut? Oi dunno, never bin to Woodbridge. 
Gorilla, you ever heard the Halstead accent? Strangest thing I’ve ever heard - they eat “oinguns” instead of onions, and “goo tarlet” instead of powdering their noses.
Both Anglia and the BBC always pronounce it store. Mind you ,they are both based in Norfolk. It might make a difference .
Halstead? Sounds exotic, must visit some time 
And I thought there was nothing of interest between here and Stansted…
And yes, there’s some shocking pronunciations to be heard by those canary-lovers on Look East…oh dear, is it showing that I don’t occupy my time very well?
In my History Of The English Language text book, it goes on for a chapter about how people in the North East pronounce things " similiar to the British," which is sort of silly, since there are dialects in the UK… I wonder now, though, if the author was basing it all on one area he’d been to, since I read the thread title and thought " how else would you pronounce that but to rhyme with flower?" Too bad I have no idea which major cities (if any) are in the West Midlands.
Er… Birmingham - Britain’s 2nd City.
Plus Coventry , Wolverhampton and the collection of smaller towns called the Black Country . BTW , this name has no racial connotations , it just refers to the history of heavy industry in the area.
I was going to mention them, but don’t know how they stand on the “major” city front - yes, I know that they’re cities, but in terms of size, they’re significantly smaller than say Manchester, which is another city I’d count as a “major” British city.
…as we all are happy for you to tell yourselves
As a native of Coventry we always used to look down on the Brummies , especially on things to do with industry. There was a feeling in Coventry that we did things much better , and with greater precision . For instance we used to call a hammer a “Birmingham screwdriver” .