Here I am in Worcester, MA. Nice town, but one thing drives me UP the friggin’ wall EVERY time I visit this burg:
HOW DO YOU GET “WUS-TER” OUT OF “WOR-CEST-ER???” Why do you chowds pronouce the cities name this way??? Who’s idea was it?
Are you just too lazy to pronounce it the RIGHT way?
I can understand Des Moines being pronouced Day- Moyne. After all that’s French. And Illinois being pronounced Ill-in-oy and Arkansas Arkan-saw are also probably offshoots of that gutter dialect.
Worce - ster. Remember, a lot of things in that area still retain their ties to Old England where the spelling of a word often has no relationship to how it is pronounced.
I suppose you have to remember also that when places such as Worcester (England) were arose, hardly anyone could read or write.
How would you pronounce Cholmondley then ?
Answers on a postcard to…
Cher3, you are probably right but why would the pronunciation shift away from the original “chester” (derived from the Latin “castra”) that so many British cities retained?
Yes, I think Cher3 is right. The Brisith pronunciation makes the “Wor-ces-ter” we would expect turn into “Wor-'ster”, and then the oft-imitated accent of Eastern Massachusetts drops the Rs. In fact, a more accurate spelling may be “woo-stAH.”
oops- I meant British, of course. But as for your assumption of the other confusing state names, the mailbag did a column on this at <http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/markansa.html> And the Lea and Perris’ sauce is Worcestershire. Notice the Rs are there but the wor-ster is intact.
I grew up half way between Boston and Worcester and say it Woos-tar, I think the accent must be on the first syllable because the tar is really t"schwa"r.
In El Paso, Texas I’m asked if I’m from England. It took me a while to get the three syllable:ChelseA from my two syllable: Chelsea.
The British suffer from a pathological inability to call anything by it’s proper name. Thus for example, the built-up part at the front of a ship, usually spelled forecastle, get’s called “focs’l”.
That’s wierd that you would bring that up. Our local news station had a spot on that exact thing tonight!
In Colorado Springs, there are several streets, and towns that people are always messing up. But as a purest in language, haha, my mom was a college english professor.
There’s Buena Vista. According to the report, the locals say “Beena Vista” or some screwed up thing like that as opposed to the correct way “Boowayna Veesta” (grew up around a lot of hispanics, no need to mangle the language)
Then there’s Pueblo. Old timers say “PeeAblo” instead of “PooAblo” Same thing, gads, my fellow white folk know how to screw up a beautiful language!
French, a GUTTER DIALECT!?!? Please tell me this was a feeble attempt at a joke. Secondly, as far as I know, Illinois and Arkansas have nothing to do whatsoever with French. Both names are probably of Native American origin.
Ah, we all know what pigs the French are. Pigs root in gutters, therefore, French is a gutter language. And it sounds funny.
–Tim
We are the children of the Eighties. We are not the first “lost generation” nor today’s lost generation; in fact, we think we know just where we stand - or are discovering it as we speak.
Growing up around New London, Connecticut, we had a wonderful river called the Thames. It is pronounced just as it written, th as in there, the rest as in James. Easy enough for a second grader to do a report on. No Temms for us, thank you.
Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places
if you look at it right…
