Pronouncing Place Names gone wrong..

[farmer]

Had to reply Trystan, you will probably move or delete this.
On holiday in Manchester (Yes - frequently) asked a local where I got the bus to Bury Market.  "Burry", he says, don't know that" - "oh yes, Berry, just over there".
Got to the bus stop, now being very careful, asked a guy is this the stop for Berry?  "Berry, Berry" he says, "oh you mean Burry"?
Know the market well, great place, good grub, great family days out.

[trystan]

Peter,

Glad you got here anyhow. I'm not a native of Bury though, but I pronounce it "Berry". Hoped you enjoyed the market!

Trystan

[Hackstaple]

Peter - the second guy you spoke to was a stranger in town! It is, and always has been "berry". Not difficult, one does not "burry" people in a cemetery.
At one time when the BBC was the only broadcaster and was dedicated to correct English [with "received pronunciation] these confusions did not exist - the Beeb told you that Worcester was pronounced Wooster. If you said it any other way you were considered ignorant or perverse.
Today that is passed and a large number of people are broadcasting without a sound knowledge of the language. The other day, on a news service, I heard Norwich pronounced  "Nor-which" whilst, as any sane person knows it is really "Norridge". That has nothing to do with regional accents - it is pure ignorance.
I will pass over the astounding grammatical errors made and even the announcers who manage to get "of course" into every sentence. I will ignore those who are innumerate and do not know a billion from a million [like Tony Blair].
I cannot easily pass the absurd as in a broadcast showing the Boscastle floods. Whole buildings were being swept away and the harbour was awash with vehicles. The lady newsreader [ad-lib] said "Thousands of Pounds worth of damage have been caused". That is the term for the cost of a tree falling on your roof!
All of this is of little relevance as my generation will shortly pass away and few after that will give a tinker's d*mn. Modernized education will have had its way.
Rantfully yours,
Hack

[acorngen]

The same occurs for Derby.  Some pronounce it DARBY whilst others DURBY.  Now I have never heard the horse race pronounced the latter way.

Rob

[kmo]

I still remember the radio announcer who pronounced Builth, as Bwilth

[Sisterjane]

Debate has raged for centuries around here about the  pronunciation of a small villiage in Huddersfield called Slaithwaite (where they film the T.V serirs "Where the heart is ")It has three versions.
Slaithwaite--------Slathwaite.........and  Slawit and as any true Yorkshireman knows its Slawit.
Joe

PS before someone points it out id best just say that some people think Slawit is   ! near   hUDDERSFIELD NOT IN IT !

[kerryb]

I still think the most absurd one I ever heard was at Victoria Station in London, I was waiting for the train to Eastbourne which passes through a small town called Polegate.  The announcer called it Pol-e-ga-te. 

I still remember the bemused and confused faces around the Station as we tried to work out if the train we were about to board was actually going where we hoped! 

kerryb

[indiapaleale]

While watching a cooking show on the telly here in the US, I was tickled when the chef said,

" Now add a few drops of Wor-cester-shire sauce"!!!!

[Berlin-Bob]

As we have all suffered from transcription errors, I thought you might like this story I read in the Readers Digest,
many years ago:

A teacher, who prided herself on pronouncing foreign names correctly, was doing a roll-call for a new class.
On reading Bluesky in her list, she said "Is Mister Blu-esky present ?" 
No answer. 
Question repeated, still no answer.
Then a man stood up and said "My name is Blue Sky, I'm an Indian !"


ps: I did say, "many years ago"  Nowadays he would probably say I am a native American !" 
or have the PCs got a new word for it now ?