I’m doing an audiobook project and one of the lines in the work I’m reading is:
“I was born at Swanmoor, Hants, England…”
I’m aware that “Hants” is an abbreviation for “Hampshire,” but how would one read that line? Would you read it as it is written (that is, “I was born at Swanmoor, Hants, England”) or would you read it substituting the full name for the abbreviation (which would be, “I was born at Swanmoor, Hampshire, England”)?
And if it is the latter, how would one pronounce “Hampshire”? Is it “Hampshy-er,” or “Hampsheer”?
Note that while the narrator may have been born in England, he moved to Canada at a very early age. The book is thus set in Canada, and requires a southern Ontario accent, very similar to that of the American Midwest. Which I have, so I’m okay there.
But I have no idea what to do about pronouncing “Hants.” Can any English Dopers help?
I’m not English but I can tell you that a work colleague of mine, who is English, reads such addresses aloud by saying the county name in full, even though it’s abbreviated in the text. Much the same way that I would see the letters NSW, but read them aloud as New South Wales.
My county of Nottinghamshire is sometimes shortened to “Notts” and I have it heard it pronounced that way many times, both by “ordinary” people and on TV and Radio.
On the subject of broadcasting , the BBC have a local radio station (Three Counties) which covers Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. as you can see from its website the shortened form is used in its name, and in its broadcast announcements.
If I had to pronounce Hants. I would rhyme the word with pants. I articulate Hampshire as Hampsher. Because of local accents this may vary. Maybe someone from that county will check in.
In the case of the county in which I live, Glos or Gloucs seem to be popular postal abbreviations for Gloucestershire. I can’t ever recall anyone saying either abbreviation aloud. Probably it is done but not usually.
I live close to the Oxfordshire and Warwickshire county borders but I have never heard anyone say "I come from Chipping Norton in Oxon." or "I live in Halford in Warwicks.
Again, there may be local differences in some counties but I can’t remember hearing the expression I come from Salop. (Shropshire). Of course, this could be explained by me not having met many people from Shropshire.
If one is reading out one’s address (on the phone for example) such abbreviations may be so employed. This cross-refers to the postal abbreviation mentioned in my previous post.
Some counties are always pronounced in full (eg Oxfordshire, Shropshire) and some can be abbreviated in speech (eg Hertfordshire, Nottinghamshire) but the full form is more common.
There are exceptions - for instance Notts County Football Club is always called “Notts County”, never “Nottinghamshire County”.
I thought I’d chip in, if only to say that I’m originally from Hampshire, and went to school in Swanmore.
I would always avoid actually saying ‘Hants’ unless I was reading an address really fast for some reason and didn’t have time to convert it into longhand. And Hampshire is usually pronounced ‘Hampsher’, unless you are a true yokel; in my experience Hampshire farmers sound quite West Country, so you might drop the ‘h’, and maybe add a burr to the ‘shire’ - 'amp-z/shy-er. Apologies for the amateur phonetic spelling…
Ok, I’ll chip in too. I would say Hants (rhyming with ‘pants’). However, I’d say Hamp-Sheer. I also used to live in Gloucestershire, always known as Glos when reading postal addresses…
I moved from Hampsire to Oxfordshire (or Hants to Oxon) when I was a kid, and though I pronounced my former home “Hamp-shur”, my new Oxon schoolchums pronounced it “Hamp-sheer”. As in the nickname I was given for a while, “Hampsheer Git”.
Wouldn’t your character be using a Canadian pronunciation? You said “at an early age” but you didn’t say how early. If the character moved to Canada as an infant, I don’t see him using British pronunciation.