Just when I thought I had it straight, I came across yet another pronunciation last night for Magdalene (one of the colleges at Cambridge). That reminded me that I’m still not sure how to pronounce one of the other Cambridge colleges - Caius (as in Gonville and Caius College).
Possibilities I’ve seen and heard for Magdalene (college) are:
magdalene (i.e. as it looks, with the penultimate ‘e’ being long)
magdulun
maudlin
mordlin
Possibilities for Caius (as in Gonville and Caius) are:
There was a young student at Caius
Who whizzed down the slopes on his skaius;
But a Fellow of Magdalene
Said "I prefer dagdalene -
“I’ve got where I am by degraius!”
There was a young fellow named Cholmondeley,
Whose bride was so mellow and colmondeley
That the best man, Colquhoun,
An inane young bolqufoun,
Could only stand still and stare dolmondeley.
Of course. The whole point of these non-obvious pronunciations is to distinguish between those who know how the names of these two colleges are pronounced, and those who don’t. A whole host of stereotyped conclusions can be drawn from this distinction.
Actually, I believe the bride was Siobhan Menzies from Happisburgh, not to be confused with her sister, Islay Featherstonehaugh who went to Oxford, at Balliol College.
There was a young fellow from Wymondham
Who grew some tomatoes and tymondham;
When he started to scoff
He found they’d gone off
So he said something peevish and bymondham.
