Re: English is a crazy language

Michael Poxon scripsit:
>
> As a matter of interest, there's a village about ten km from me called
> "Little Hautbois", pronounced locally /hobis/. Norfolk has a plethora of
> elided spellings: Happisburgh /heizbr@/, Costessey /kosiy/, Wymondham
> It'd be interesting to see what's happened to
> pronunciations of English place-names used as American ones. For instance,
> do they have a 'Warwick' and if so is it pronounced the same as ours, i.e.,
> /worik/?
The answer is quite variable.  Many places in New England are named
after ones in Old England, and the pron. is often preserved sometimes
even at the expense of the spelling, e.g. Wooster, Massachusetts
< Worcester.  The further west, the more likely to have a spelling pron.

--
John Cowan <jcowan@...>     http://www.reutershealth.com
I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen,    http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
han mathon ne chae, a han noston ne 'wilith.  --Galadriel, _LOTR:FOTR_

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