What?
Leo Bloom is referring to hurricanes in Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire.
Is he? I assumed it was a reference to H.M.S. Pinafore–perhaps conflated with the “orphan-often” joke from Pirates of Penzance.
I have read that the pronunciation of “despicable” changed as a direct result of Daffy Duck cartoons. Allegedly, the correct pronunciation had the stress on the first syllable. When Daffy Duck used his catchphrase, “You’re despicable”, stressing it on the second syllable, at least part of the joke was supposed to be that he was mispronouncing it. But because these cartoons were being watched by children, who had no reason to even know the word independently of hearing Daffy say it, they didn’t realize his pronunciation was wrong and instead grew up pronouncing it his way. Then their children grew up hearing it that way, and by now, the old pronunciation has disappeared and Daffy Duck’s mispronunciation is now the standard.
Or that’s the story, anyway. I don’t know whether linguists consider it accurate or not. I have my doubts; apart from anything else, those children’s parents would have known how it was supposed to be pronounced, and would have been able to correct the children when they heard them pronouncing it wrong. Even if it the correction didn’t take for all of them, I’d have expected at worst that there would be two variant pronunciations floating around. But if the story is true, then that means that a new pronunciation supplanted the old pronunciation so thoroughly that most people are unaware it was ever pronounced differently, and that within the lifetime of people who are still alive.
If that really is possible, then it goes a long way toward explaining how pronunciations can change so drastically. If a pronunciation can change within a single human lifetime so thoroughly that very few people are even aware that it has changed, then it would be impossible to keep pronunciations static.
This story is so good I don’t want to hear from any linguist who thinks he knows better. Never heard it before though. In my household btw, everyone who uses that word even includes Daffy’s lisping s without thinking. (Tv and film quotes are an essential part of our household culture, obviously).