This has been bugging me...

Desert Orchid

Desert Orchid

Senior Jockey
Joined
Aug 2, 2005
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First Tanya Stevenson...

Now Harry Findlay....

(Not sure if I've got the surname spellings correct.)

Since when did Newbury and Newcastle change their names to Noobury and Noocastle? (Or, even Noobre and Noocasso.)

There's a guy at work who's as Glaswegian as me and he also says Noobury and Noocastle.

Where did this pronunciation come from?

It's probably just me but it really annoys the bejaysus out of me.
 
It's the Cockney pronunciation, innit? Nothing noo there. It grates with me as well.

I would always expect the word "new" to be pronounced exactly as Brian Sewell would say it.
 
That ol' Essex accent of Tanya's doesn't help her much when it comes to pronouncing things - for starters, when assessing markets she calls them the 'bedding' shows.

The Queen's English ain't that hard.
 
The weirdest inflexions belong, surely, to Darrell Williams (ATR): "Goodeeeve ning, and welcometothe showwww... he's a ny sorse, out at WoolverHAMton tooon ight... "

Findlay is a geezer, but his Mum talks with a broad Scottish accent (which city or region, I can't tell, although a Scot would know). So it's Noobry, Amilton, Bri'n, Woosta, Barf, Sorsbry, G'woo, Grea' Yarm'ff, Dundawk, awight?
 
I fink gets right up my nostrils, surely these people need to be able to talk-speak properly, its like these has been soccer players who make comments on current matches, fecking disgusting standards to pass on to the up and coming kids, me tinks............
 
I'm all for diversity of accents. I just can't fathom the 'oo' from 'ew' in those courses. It's almost as if they'd be embarrassed to pronounce that syllable right.
 
But that's regionalism for you, or ya, or ye, Dessie. Go to Norfolk and hear the way some of the language's vowels get mangled, or what about Bristolians, with their famous 'good ideals' when they mean 'good ideas'? It's not embarrassment, it's just the way some Londoners talk.

But received pronunciation has taken a battering over the past few years, with the use of 'con/trOHversy' instead of the usual 'contro/versy', 'commewnal' instead of 'commun/al' and the godawful 'innervitive'. And this from the Beeb, which ought to know better. And when did 'mike' for microphone become 'mic'? Was this abbreviation to assist non-native speakers? There seem to be insidious little changes being made all the time, and I wonder who's making them, and why.

If I hear 'aitch' pronounced 'haitch' once more by a public broadcaster, I'm likely to 'ave hat them with a hair-to-ground mistle. (That being another fury-inducer: what happened to 'miss/iles'?)
 
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When did "huge" become "shooge"? Along with "noo" for "new", it just seems to be a laziness in enunciation.

The one that always makes me laugh is when someone is dying to pronounce "theatre" the American way "theater", but cannot quite summon up the guts to do so, ending up with with a strange-sounding little hybrid.

A few years ago the BBC went through a (short-lived) phase of making their presenters and newsreaders pronounce gala as "gayla". This didn't last long, thank Heaven, particularly in view of the current thinking that the word "gala" descends from "gallows" used in the context of a good day out.
 
krizon said:
But that's regionalism for you, or ya, or ye, Dessie. Go to Norfolk and hear the way some of the language's vowels get mangled, or what about Bristolians, with their famous 'good ideals' when they mean 'good ideas'? It's not embarrassment, it's just the way some Londoners talk.

But received pronunciation has taken a battering over the past few years, with the use of 'con/trOHversy' instead of the usual 'contro/versy', 'commewnal' instead of 'commun/al' and the godawful 'innervitive'. And this from the Beeb, which ought to know better. And when did 'mike' for microphone become 'mic'? Was this abbreviation to assist non-native speakers? There seem to be insidious little changes being made all the time, and I wonder who's making them, and why.

If I hear 'aitch' pronounced 'haitch' once more by a public broadcaster, I'm likely to 'ave hat them with a hair-to-ground mistle. (That being another fury-inducer: what happened to 'miss/iles'?)
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But is it regionalism?

I love all sorts of accents, and I love to hear people talk naturally in their own accent. But when you've got people who are as regionally as far apart as Tarnyer/'Arry and my mate all saying 'Noobry', it makes me wonder.

And I'd quite forgotten how much haitch does my 'ead in.
 
Almost as bad as the faux-so-correct 'Hampsheere, Yorksheere' etc ...
Hampshuh, Yorkshuh: spells weirdly, but that's exactly how they were pronounced before Who Wants To Be A Millionaire made its mark on the language.

The BBC too have given up on pronunciation, in the popular TV programs, I think.
 
Except Walsy has managed to spell haitch 'hatich' - the Japanese version, I believe...

Oh, yes, all those 'sheers'! Ghastly nonsense. And Redker. Where's that, then? Last time I looked, it was Redcar, but not when Nick Luck pronounces it. I remember 'gayla' for gala, too - that's the way the Amerikanskis pronounce it, but then, they burglarize properties, and I'm waiting for the day when that little delight turns up on the Beeb's Crimewatch!
 
Curiously enough, I remember when I was young my father insisting 'sheer' was the correct pronunciation of the suffix 'shire'. Must check that one out.
 
English English speakers wouldn't pronounce it 'sheer', though. Perhaps that's another example of a regional inflection, i.e., Scottish? As mrussell says, it should sound like Devon/shuh, York/shuh, although the more snooty will opt for the Shahs: Steffid/shah, Lenka/shah, and Hemp/shah!
 
Mu trusty dic says the suffix is pronounced 'she' with a smile symbol above the 'e', which is pronounced like the 'e' in 'taken'. Which is how I pronounced it anyway, regardless of my old man.
 
It's haitch in Ireland, because we know how to pronounce it properly.

And it's Yorksher, pronounced the same way as Indyer and Argentiner and other such places that seem to exist in the south east of England.

And there's an r in Derby
 
It's not haitch. (Becoming apoplectic, smashing fingers down on keyboard.) Look up 'aitch' in any dictionary, and that's the pronunciation for 'H'. Phor Evans' sake!

Walsy - gosh, does your p.c. have a spoil chicker? From your previous descriptions of it, I thought it was coal-fired!
 
krizon said:
English English speakers wouldn't pronounce it 'sheer', though. Perhaps that's another example of a regional inflection, i.e., Scottish? As mrussell says, it should sound like Devon/shuh, York/shuh, although the more snooty will opt for the Shahs: Steffid/shah, Lenka/shah, and Hemp/shah!
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Can't understand why anyone would want to pronounce the suffix "shire" other than the way it's written. Nobody talks about "car heer" or "feer escapes". And to pronounce it shuh or shah is even worse. What's wrong with "shire" for god's sake? Just slovenly enunciation if you ask me.
 
t's not haitch. (Becoming apoplectic, smashing fingers down on keyboard.) Look up 'aitch' in any dictionary, and that's the pronunciation for 'H'. Phor Evans' sake!
Click to expand...

That's an English pronunciation intended for people who can't pronounce their haitches properly.
 
and the age old Sean Bean debate - how can the two parts of his name be pronounced so differently????!!!

(of course, in our house it gets pronounced PHOARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR and thats it....!!)
 
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