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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 273
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 273 |
Leicestershire as said here in NZ would have 3 syllables and, or course, no "r"s.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
My friend formerly of Birmingham (UK) would have said the locals would say it something like Lst-sh, I think. Apparently Brumsians are a-vowel-ic.
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 273
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 273 |
I have a friend born in Leicester, and he says the name of the town exactly the way we do - Lest(schwa). I've never asked him to pronounce the county's name.
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Okay. Please walk me through Worchestershire again.
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
> walk me through Worchestershire again
It's a big place - how long have we got?
woos-tah-sh'r
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
I struggled with names ending in -cester when I first got here. For weeks we listened to radio announcers talk about some place called "Toaster" and another place called "Bister". Finally I bestirred myself to look at a map and came up with "Towcester" and "Bicester". Aha, the penny dropped. Where -cester is preceded by one syllable, you get Towcester = Toaster and Bicester = Bister, and likewise Worcester, Leicester and the rest. Where there are two syllables preceding the -cester, such as in Cirencester, the -cester is pronounced more or less as spelled = "Cyrensester".
Irchester, on the other hand, has the "h" which guarantees a full pronunciation of the last two syllables regardless of what precedes it.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Irchester, on the other hand, has the "h" which guarantees a full pronunciation of the last two syllables regardless of what precedes it. Don't you mean irregardless, re: Irchester?  Does -cester mean anything in particular? That is, in the same way that -ton so often signifies Something-Town?
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
You're on it, Jackie! According to the Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary; Hall (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1960), -cester comes from cęster = castle, fort, town.
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
Yeahbut(c) there are variations: caster, | | | Lancaster
cester, | OE, W (<L) | Camp | Doncaster
chester, | | Fortification | Gloucester
caer | | | Caister
| Caerdydd,
| Carleon
-cester, -ster is a suffix
caer- is a prefix
The "-ster" sometimes simplified to "-ter", e.g. Exeter, Uttoxeter
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
What!? you mean they weren't consistant in use or spelling? and sometimes used a whole latin word as a suffix, and sometimes used just the latin suffix as suffix, and sometimes didn't even use the whole suffix?
where were all the prescriptive scholar? why didn't they set up rules for how to use suffixes?
yeah gads!
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