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Amusing Misunderstandings About Place-Names (Nothing To Do With The Olympics)

Always liked Ae in Dumfries and Galloway. Village and forest.
 
Presumably the -geh pronunciation is the result of the old letter yogh causing confusion, as in Menzies/Mingus.
 
Trevp666 said:
'They' probably thought that Scotland in the 60s was full of hordes of bagpipe-playing haggis roaming the hillsides, in black and white, pointing at aeroplanes I expect.
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Isn't it? How disappointing.
 
I've long wanted to go to Scotland on the promise of that!

That, and a bucket-load of good scotch whisky.
 
I thought I had posted this before in a thread very like this one. Perhaps not . . .

I was trolling around Prestwich one afternoon, when a car drew up alongside me. An American - or Canadian - family were lost in North Manchester. Could I direct them to the airport? I had to break it to them that they needed to drive about twenty miles due South to get to Manchester Airport.

No, insisted the driver, they wanted Prestwich airport!

"You are just one letter, one country, two hundred and seventeen miles and a drive of nearly four hours out!" I declared, showing off, as you do, when you are telling the story . . . :evillaugh:
 
Somersetian place names seem particularly prone to spelling and pronunciation misunderstandings:

Frome - is pronounced 'froom' as in zoom
Glastonbury - Glaston-bree
Tintinhull -Tint-null
Wells - we always check that the speaker means Wells, or do they mean Wales. And then because there's a hamlet named 'Wales' in south Somerset we check that they mean "Welsh Wales" or "Somerset Wales" https://mapcarta.com/N703593495
Bridgwater has no 'e'! It really doesn't :)

Archaeologist & presenter turned GB News renta-beardy-man Neil Oliver told the story in The Story of the British Isles in 100 Places of an American couple wanting to sail to the Scottish island of "10-N.A." . Much confusion reigned with the boatmen until someone realised the Island of Iona on a tourist map had been spelled in capital letters...
 
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AnonyJ said:
Somersetian place names seem particularly prone to spelling and pronunciation misunderstandings:

Frome - is pronounced 'froom' as in zoom
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If you come from Gloucestershire, the river Frome is pronounced as both 'Froom,' and 'Frome!'
 
Sid said:
If you come from Gloucestershire, the river Frome is pronounced as both 'Froom,' and 'Frome!'
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Like Shrewsbury. It's either Shroos-bury or Shrows-bury.
 
Chichester on the UK south coast. Most pronounce it incorrectly as Chich-chester
 
Next village on from the small town near where I live, is called Nawton. About fifteen miles due south, outside our nearest larger town is Malton, with a suburb/separate village called Norton. Both pronounced exactly the same. Locals say 'Malton Norton' or 'Nawton Beadlam' (the two small villages very close together) to distinguish between the two, but visitors will ask the way to Norton/Nawton and then look puzzled when we ask 'is that Malton Norton or Nawton Beadlam?' because they don't know. Many a confused tourist has ended up fifteen miles away from where they want to be...
 
catseye said:
I had family who lived on the Isle of Sheppey when I was young and my brother and I would go and stay with them for part of the summer holidays. Friends (and even teachers at school, it must be said) always asked after our holidays and how they went and how things were done differently there.... until we put them right that Sheppey is in the Medway and not far from Southend. They thought it was in Scotland.
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Reminds me of the scene in Yes Prime Minister, where Sir Humphrey thinks the Scottish town of Lossiemouth is actually the name of a brand of dog food. :chuckle:
 
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