Round Sheffield most people call it Henderson’s.
There’s no hard and fast rule with anything about English pronunciation.
Near me, and more subtle a difference than many of the place names discussed in the thread, there’s a town named Cosham (pronounced kɒsəm) and a little further away, a village named Bosham (pronounced bɒzəm)
Although interestingly, there are people in Cosham who insist on trying to popularise the pronunciation Cɒzəm - I think perhaps because Bosham is a quaint little seaside village amongst tree-lined fields, whereas Cosham is a rather grimy town on the fringe of a city.
In a sense, they are only different by accident of the dialect and process in which their spelling was fixed. ~chester, ~cester and ~caster all typically mean the same thing - that the town was the site of a Roman or earlier military fort.
I’m not sure if you’re joking but just in case, it’s “Grennich” in CT also.
Strangest case I’ve ever heard of (and I’ve heard this mentioned a couple of times, independently, over the years), is the British surname Enroughty, pronounced:
Darby
And in Texas, a twisted wire with little points sticking out of (commonly used as fencing material) is called “bar-war” (both syllables rhyme more-or-less with “car” or “tar”), or maybe more like “bahr-wahr” or “bawr-wawr”
There does seem to be some vague pattern to it, though. Looks like “-cester” type cities typically get shortened to “-ster.” So, if it were “Mancester,” I might expect a pronunciation approaching “Manster.” While “-chester” seems to get the full phonetic value. Now, I assume there probably will be counterexamples to this observation, but it’s served me well with guessing at British pronunciations of placenames.
There are some exceptions to that statement.
Actually believe it or not I got Greenwich, Ct. mixed up with Ellie Greenwich, the songwriter. Don’t know how that happened.
Opening for The Chalmondaly Chums at the pally this weekend, Superfluous Schwa…
But seriously, I absolutely hate the way Americans borrow names from other countries, and then screw up the pronunciation. Greenwich Township (Green’ Witch) NJ, Moscow (Mos’-coh) Idaho, Chili (Chai’-lai) NY, Rio (Rye’-oh) Wisconsin, and I believe the Seattle area has a Des Moines with the S’s stressed (Dezz’-Moynzz).
Granted, the English word “Moscow” comes from German “Moskau,” but the “real” pronunciation is “Moskva,” which is neither of the English pronunciations, so I can’t see it as a screw up, as such.
Stone is commonly split with tools known as feathers and wedges. Haugh or How is a common name for a particular place (or farmhouse) in the UK. I would guess that Feather Stone Haugh would be a place where stone is split. Or possibly a place with a farm or house made out of stone that was feathered ie split.
And those nasty stinging ants are called fahrnts.
fire ants
After only ever reading the name in history books, I was watching a documentary on British castles and was gobsmacked to learn that “Beauchamps” is pronounced “Beechum”.
The US pronunciation may come from Moskau, but in the Anglosphere it’s Moscoh and in France is Moscou (pron. Moscoo). The Spanish call it Moscu, the Italians Mosca.
Take your pick.
That is a fascinating piece of history.
yeah, sort of, but care is required, because they’re only really the way they are because of (often quite local) decisions, habits and changes of pronunciation and spelling - all of which would have been quite fluid until historically fairly recently - and quite insular a few centuries ago, when people didn’t travel often or far, so the residents of Towcester (‘Toaster’) had no real concern about what the residents of Cirencester (pronounced mostly Siren-sester, but occasionally ‘Sy-ster’) were calling their home.
I checked a number ~cester/~chester places in the Domesday Book (pronounced ‘Doomsday’) - by and large, they are written as ~cestre (e.g. Tovecestre for Towcester and Cirecestre for Cirencester, but also Cicestre for Chichester, and Wincestre for Winchester.
Places with names ending ~caster are generally written ~castre in the Domesday book, so it looks like that differentiation was already settled back then, but the ~cester/~chester difference, not so much.
Got it! As well as Endicott, Marblehead, and Athol…
The P is silent …as in tub… or bath.
Mos-ko and Mos-cow are both equally acceptable pronunciations in English. Mos-cow used to be dominant and now Mos-ko is more common, but both work.