For the international folk who might not know, “Cholmondeley” is pronounced “Chumly”
I honestly can’t tell if this is true or some British chaps having fun at our expense.
I’m leaning towards it being true solely because I know how Worcester is pronounced.
Ha, honest truth!
About 30 minutes away is the similarly-named Cholmondeston (Chum-stn).
These two places are in Cheshire. There’s also the always confusing Wynbunbury (Winbry), and the birthplace of Lewis Carroll, Daresbury (Darsbry).
You have a city named after a venereal disease and it’s pronounced Cum Stain? Get the fuck outta here!
It just pisses me off that people forced me to learn english grammar in school like it was a set of rules laid out to logically structure language when grammar classes should just have involved taking the class on a group crime trip through language city roughing up words and sticking em good with silent useless letters, switching out the endings of words with ones that clearly don’t fit, climbing up onto road signs over highways and causing chaos by painting over the old sign directions with new ones written in riddles and installing street parking signs everywhere that all contradict each other like the rules of grammar do.
The only way for citizens to live a relatively normal life in this city is to frantically try to keep up with memorizing the arbitrarily changing rules of their universe and just give up all hope in unifying things under a rational even vaguely consistent system.
That’s not even the worst. The one that pisses my off is how “St Johns” is pronounced “Sinjin”. Wtf it’s not hard to pronounce in the first place, why the fuck is it said like that?!
Based on absolutely nothing, my guess would be from the French pronunciation with a bit of a vowel-shift.
I thought Charles Lutwidge Dodgeson, and Alice Liddell lived in Sunderland. There are monuments to Alice all over the town according to an historical book by Neil Gaiman. Did he just move there as an adult?
It’s spelled “Worcestershire”.
Worcester is a city in the county of Worcestershire
I hate you with the burning passion of a thousand exploding suns!
i kid
Taking the piss. It rhymes with cardamom Chardonnay.
The Brits saw the French silent letters and said “oi, hold me tea.”
Of course it is…
As a kiwi, that does my head in…
It’s worse even than the new orleans “naahlins” thing
Southerner here, it’s “norlins” but lots of us also call it “Nola”
Nola is an acronym, not a pronunciation thing. New Orleans, Louisiana, or NO LA for short.
Oh I know, really just suggesting it as an alternative so our kiwi friends brain would stop breaking
It makes perfect sense when you realize Americans try to speak by making as few sounds as possible.
What we lack in quantity (or quality!), we make up for in volume
I’m from the UK and I didn’t know that
If you’re getting old like me, you might remember Harry Enfield’s Mr Cholmondley-Warner sketches. (And if you’re not, definitely look them up!)
Yeh I remember those sketches. I think it’s a case of never having seen it written down
And how might we pronounce Marchioness?
Ah, right.
“Mar-shuh’ness”. It’s a bit trickier to transliterate how to say the back part. It’s like the perfume company, Chanel - it’s that same “Shuh’ne” sound.
So like, a lady martian. Got it.
It’s the feminine version of “marquis” apparently. If anyone else was wondering what the fuck a marchioness was
You say that as if any of us know what a marquis is.
It’s a member of the 24th-century paramilitary organization-terrorist group of the same name of course! Notable members will include Laren, Torres, Chakotay, and even one of the Riker twins.
I stopped actually reading your post when I realized I just wanted to make the Star Trek joke but then I realized I was actually in fact reading the Star Trek joke.
I just watched a YouTube video today about Ben Sisko and his fighting the Marquis and how my current views have made me dislike him and his actions. He had overtaken Picard as my favorite but I think I’m back to Picard being my number one favorite captain.
Sisko is the only one who ever just punched Q in the face.
Quite a rude thing to do to the man who just saved the Federation, don’t you think?
They’re all suspiciously good looking, that is how you know they’re secret rebels for a lost cause.
I think it’s that thing on a movie theater
No, it’s a tent you set up in field to hold wedding receptions under.
From Wikipedia:
A marquess (UK: /ˈmɑː®kwɪs/;[1] French: marquis [maʁki])[2][a] is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman with the rank of a marquess or the wife (or widow) of a marquess is a marchioness or marquise. These titles are also used to translate equivalent Asian styles, as in Imperial China and Imperial Japan.
In Great Britain and historically in Ireland, a marquess ranks below a duke and above an earl. A woman with the rank of a marquess, or the wife of a marquess, is a marchioness /ˌmɑːrʃəˈnɛs/.[3] The dignity, rank, or position of the title is a marquisate or marquessate.
I only know because of Final Fantasy Tactics.
So I know they’re vampires already.
A
buick*- Mercury
- Mercury
It’s the masc of marchioness, keep up
It’s a fairly common title, so you should know what it is if you were born West of Turkey.
Ah, you see I was born east of Turkey where titles mean nothing despite being part of the Commonwealth.
My condolences and congratulations on not being born in the US.
Bud, the US literally outlawed aristocratic titles. And good riddance to them. The only time a US citizen sees a word like ‘marquis’ is in a world history class in college.
Which shows how poor your public education is. The monarchy was disbanded in Brazil in the year 1889; We still learn about it in grade school history.
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Marquis? No, that’s a set of large, lit-up letters. You’re thinking of a Marshal.
Marquee is a signboard with light up letters, my liege.
Cholmondeley can be treated with antibiotics, just tell your doctor if you feel a burning sensation.
You’re thinking oh chlamydia. She’s more like the plant organelle turning sunlight into sugar.
You’re thinking of the chloroplast, this lady is the Marchioness of the stuff you use to knock people out.
That’s chloroform, the woman in the picture is associated with a threadlike structure that holds a molecule of DNA.
You’re thinking of a chromosome. The woman pictured is a popular fire-type starter pokemon.
No, that’s Charmeleon. She’s the marshmallow of separating chemicals for analysis in a moving phase.
No, that’s chromatography. She’s the March Hare-ess of when people work together in the spirit of friendship and community.
The talk show host pointed out that Cholmondeley is actually pronounced “Chumley” and made the bizarre pronunciation a running joke. “Now there have been rumors an affair between William and the Marching Band of Chicanery since 2019,” he said, mocking her title.
-Stephen Colbert trolls Prince William’s alleged affair with Rose Hanbury
There’s no Fookin’ way in the King’s English this is the real way to pronounce this!?!
Can you imagine trying to act serious when you’re in any way involved with the Marionette of Chumpmonkey?
Imagine having an affair but your mistress is the Marchmadness of Chumbucket.
I can’t help but imagine that mistress as a sports mascot in some giant absurd costume.
Haha. It is clear you’re not British or at least familiar with British pronunciations of some words and place names. Mispronounce “Leicester” or “Portsmouth” and you will bring down the entire wrath of England. These pronunciations are relic of Old English and pre-Modern Era English, or bastardised when the Norman-French came.
And who are we to complain when everyday English words are already bizarre? “Salmon” is meant to be pronounced “sa’muhn”. It’s a relic of Norman-French. “gh” in some words are silent like “bought” and “nought”. And sometimes “ou” is pronounced as “aú” like in “bough”. Why are these letters there when they are silent?! The latter words are descendant of Old English.
These huge variations in pronounciations is what makes many non-native English speakers confused and struggling.
Mispronounce “Leicester” or “Portsmouth” and you will bring down the entire wrath of England
Joke’s on them, I have no tea, spices, land, archaeological relics or cheap labor to be plundered!
These huge variations in pronounciations is what makes many non-native English speakers confused and struggling.
The way the words are written and their actual phonetic sound being absurdly different (plus vowels completely changing their sound “at random”) doesn’t help either. Same applies to french and their dumb mute final letters and accents in the wrong places. “Tróis” = “trrru aaaahhh”
French is what happens when a drunk Galician and a Roman-Italian try to teach a Viking how to speak Latin.
Ok, now describe Romanian. Same thing except a Rus instead of a Viking?
Nah, Romanian is what happens when two Romans and a few Rus get together for a wild party that lasts a week. By the end, nobody remembers how to speak their native language anymore, so they decide to make do with whatever mess is left. Also, for some reason, a Hungarian guy keeps speaking Hungarian.
You are cheap labor, and they didn’t care who they made an indentured servant not that long ago…
I’m learning French but I feel that French pronunciations are more intuitive and straightforward.
Now that you mentioned accent, I think that is why French pronunciations for me is intuitive because there are accents in place guiding speakers on how to pronounce the letter and syllables. English writing, for some reason, do not use accents at all.
Isnt it weird how we pronounce ‘salmon’ as ‘salmon’ but we pronounce ‘salmonella’ as ‘salmonella’?
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There’s no Fookin’ way in the King’s English this is the real way to pronounce this!?!
Worcestershire. Pronounced wooster-sure. I do believe The King’s English takes the piss whenever possible.
See also: Through…
Oooh! And Norfolk. That one is pronounced Nah-fuck, at least in Virginia, US. Not certain how the original town is said, I assume it’s similar, but the accent may have drifted in the last 400 years or so since the new one was founded.
One of my favorite things to do in life is to pronounce words wrong to British coworkers like Worcestershire. I’ll enunciate that exactly as written every time even after corrected cause you lot may have invented English but you’ve let the tea go to your heads for too long.
Every time I see these silly words and learn the alleged proper pronunciation I will endeavor to pronounce them exactly wrong as is tradition. Or I’ll make a deal, I’ll pronounce them right if I can yeet tea into the nearest harbor with the British person watching as is also the tradition of my country.
I’m American
Come to Massachusetts.
- Worcester
- Leicester
- Leominster
- Gloucester
The -ham in Framingham is pronounced differently than in Dedham.
We have an Eastham, an Easthampton, and an Easton.
We have both -boro’s and -borough’s. In fact, North Attleborough borders Attleboro.
Next to Attleboro is Norton. Norton is southwest of South Easton.
fuck it’s not that hard: Wuster, Lester, Gloster, and fuckin’ Leo-minstrel-wassis-name.
Close.
Woostah, lestah, lemminstah, glostah.
Framingham is phonetic (framing ham). Dedham is DED-um.
Ya jabroni.
Nor-fuck in the UK, so sort of close I guess.
. Pronounced wooster-sure.
close, it’s wuh-ster-sure.
That one is pronounced Nah-fuck, at least in Virginia, US.
I’ve lived in Virginia almost my entire life, and most everyone pronounces it “nor-fok”
Norfolk in England is a county, and it’s pronounced the same way.
It’s home to some crazy spellings too.
Garboldisham pronounced Garbisham, and Wymondham pronounced Windham. The thing on top of your house is the ruf, and you drive your tractors on the rud.
I live just a few miles north of Cholmondeley, and regularly drive past it. Yes, it’s pronounced to rhyme with the chopped, bloody meat and fish guts you throw into water to attract sharks.
I love that it’s pronounced Chumley.
HOW IS THIS STILL A THING IN 2024
Excuse me, Benedict Cumberbatch, will you pass the worcheshire sauce?
Hey, don’t make fun of Bandersnatch Cumberbund; he’s my favorite wizard.
Worcestershire* though to be fair, I have to Google the correct spelling, and I have used the sauce weekly for almost 4 decades.
Reminds me of Art Vandelay
Pfft, you won’t find me introducing her to anyone. Aristocrats would never breathe the same air as me.
Is this also who William was potentially having an affair with?
I don’t blame him
IKR? Who could say no to that hat.
I like her hat, unfortunate photo, though.
Is that William’s Camilla?
