Reminds me of the English family on holiday in Wales. They did their best to pronounce the place names correctly, but one place they visited had them stumped. They went to a café for lunch, and when the waitress came, they asked her, "How should we pronounce the name of this place?". She looked at them as if they were a halfpenny short of a shilling, and said, slowly and deliberately, "MACDONALD'S".
Some plants are not fortunate enough to have 'English' colloquial names ; when I worked at Whitestone Nurseries in N.Yorkshire in the 1980's we dealt with species of cacti with names like Uebelmannia buiningii , Austrocephalocereus dolichospermaticus ,and the delightfully Jurassic sounding S.African succulents Pterodiscus ngamicus and Raphionacme hirsuta !! Neobuxbaumia euphorbioides was a favourite of mine .
I completely get the whole unique names thing (although as a failed Latin student many moons ago I regret that Esperanto never made it onto the world stage) but I often feel for those illiterate gardeners and farm workers from previous centuries. I sometimes feel their pain as I am sure many of the 'literate' gentry just didn't write things down proper and then insisted only they could be correct as, look, its written down. I see the same issues on Indian restaurant menus.
I have reached a point where its necessary to write things down, just wish I didn't have to do it letter by letter and then change it a year later. And don't get me started on apostrophes
"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it." Sir Terry Pratchett
whereas in Cornwall they go the other way. Most local place names were transliterated by the English into what they thought the locals were saying but which had probably not been written down before the 18th Century. So 'Doublebois', which some tourists tend to make sound rather French, is actually just 'double boys'.
Have any of you read 'mother tongue' by Bill Bryson? He has a chapter on the habit of the British to live out entire syllables
“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first”
As someone with communication difficulties I tend not to worry about whether I have pronounced the word right - rather have I used the right worm with the yoghurt pot yellow.
But I am going to post solely to pip this back up the forum 'latest' list for anyone who has missed the merriment earlier.
Posts
To revert to place names, I'll add 2 from Northumberland; Ulgham (pronounced Uffam) and Cambois (Cammus).
Reminds me of the English family on holiday in Wales. They did their best to pronounce the place names correctly, but one place they visited had them stumped. They went to a café for lunch, and when the waitress came, they asked her, "How should we pronounce the name of this place?". She looked at them as if they were a halfpenny short of a shilling, and said, slowly and deliberately, "MACDONALD'S".
Some plants are not fortunate enough to have 'English' colloquial names ; when I worked at Whitestone Nurseries in N.Yorkshire in the 1980's we dealt with species of cacti with names like Uebelmannia buiningii , Austrocephalocereus dolichospermaticus ,and the delightfully Jurassic sounding S.African succulents Pterodiscus ngamicus and Raphionacme hirsuta !! Neobuxbaumia euphorbioides was a favourite of mine .
These are 'proper names' indeed !!!!
I feel uneasy about the suffix "hirsuta", I think it might not be as proper as you propose.
I completely get the whole unique names thing (although as a failed Latin student many moons ago I regret that Esperanto never made it onto the world stage) but I often feel for those illiterate gardeners and farm workers from previous centuries. I sometimes feel their pain as I am sure many of the 'literate' gentry just didn't write things down proper and then insisted only they could be correct as, look, its written down. I see the same issues on Indian restaurant menus.
I have reached a point where its necessary to write things down, just wish I didn't have to do it letter by letter and then change it a year later. And don't get me started on apostrophes
In Norfolk there is a village called 'Hautbois' ... how is that pronounced?
Thats right ... you've got it ... it's pronounced
'Obbis ...
For a start I live in Norn Iron as you know. It goes downhill from there...
Belvoir = Beaver
Bureau = Broo (my local and pronounced this way ironically as the unemployment bureau was called "the broo" back in the day).
Derrylin = Durln (or something)
Fintona = Fintna
Doagh = Can't even spell it but it's definitely not Doke and certainly not Doe!!!!
Broughshane = see "not Doke".
For all other placenames simply leave out the vowels.
...or sometimes the consonants... 
whereas in Cornwall they go the other way. Most local place names were transliterated by the English into what they thought the locals were saying but which had probably not been written down before the 18th Century. So 'Doublebois', which some tourists tend to make sound rather French, is actually just 'double boys'.
Have any of you read 'mother tongue' by Bill Bryson? He has a chapter on the habit of the British to live out entire syllables
I have nothing to add to this thread.
As someone with communication difficulties I tend not to worry about whether I have pronounced the word right - rather have I used the right worm with the yoghurt pot yellow.
But I am going to post solely to pip this back up the forum 'latest' list for anyone who has missed the merriment earlier.
Keep up the mischief chums.
Doesn't matter to me whether people pronounce words right on not, we all know deep down what a person means, I wouldn't like a pedant for a friend.
on Cornish places......Rough Tor on Bodmin Moor, ..router as in the tool.