The evening times., 1898-06-18
..I "a ~ g
BRITISH PROPER NAMES.
Some Peculiaritier in Their Pro-
nunciatfOn. b.
(From the Chicago lNews.) = -

From the Chicago INews9, L ~ :
1t cannot be too strongly insisted tha!
no one knows how to pronounce a British
proper name unless HI" has been acc,Is-
toned to hearing 1t properly pronounced
| by an Englishman or unless he has look
ed II up recently in pronounctng bio
graphical dictionary. Many names COM
mon to England and the United States
serve only TO increase the confusion, for
the Americans. with rare exceptions.
permit the spelling to govern the sound,
as is only too usual with US: while the
Britons seem to regard the letters of
which any name is composed as. some
thing to be avoided in far as they
have any .orthoepical meaning. In other
instances, the Americans accomplish the
same thing by making the spelling con-
form to the speech-Secretary Window.
for example. had for his own name Wynd-
ham: while Nice-Prpsident Hobart name
is pronounced exactly like the name Hub
bart or Hubbard in the old country. The
publication recently of a long table of
peculiarly pronounced proper names
in Who's Who, 1885, reVives interest in
this study OF British eccentricity, though
the list is full OF inacccracies which
knowledge It purports to impart. Glad
stone, il Is rather generally known, has
the name pronounced as If the last syila-
bic were spelled stun" rather than
stone" and this is true of Blackstone.
Blackstone and many more with the same
ending. the two given being also spelled
B,axton and Buxton. Generally speak
ing also. names ending in "oke" are to
be pronounced as if spelled "ook'-
Broke and Brooke Coke and Cooke, Roke
and Rook, being instances of variant
means of conveying the same sounds.
Pore, Poor, More, Moore are of the same
kind.
The endings "ys' and lis" generally
have the simple sound of - or ''z''-as if
the vowel were not there at all. Char
teris, chartres and Charters are the same
name; are Knollys and Knowles.
Sandys and Sands, Wemys and Weems,
Pepys and Pipps, sometimes peeps and
peps. while 'es' shows a variation be-
tween Innes and Innis, dissylIable. and
Sondes and Robartes. where the .'e'' is
silent Err is almost invariably to be
sounded as If arr Berkeley, barkly:
Derby, darby: ker, Kerr. car; Hervey,
harvey; Hertford. hurford: Jervis, jarvis;
tlerke, clark: Merchaunt, marchant, are
few instances of what may be laid down
as a rule with rare exceptions.
''Wode" is wood in Chetwode and
W bttIouSt, anu IOtE Is loot In
Pauncefote. 'Burgh'' is ''boro'' In Jed
burgh. Edinburgh. Yerburgh CyaD. and
Scotch names generally; but the Scotch
z presents more difficulties. being ~
as a rule: DalZell is dee-ul: Menzies,
meenyez, and there are one or two more
which bear testimony to the practical
identity of the black letter y" and ~"
a whole series of names ending with
double letter which are accented on the
last syllable in America are given the first
on the stress abroad. Among these man
be mentioned Barnett, Burnett, Buzzeil.
Frizell. Meynell (mennelD, Parnell. and
many more. This American accentuation
has grown up within the memory of liy-
ing men. Forty years ago the English
and American pronunciations were not AT
variance
The British accent these trfsyllabic
names on the middle syllable: Achonry
(aconry). Arbuthnot tarbuthnuD, Athen-
ry, Bolitho (bo-ly-tho, with the 9Th" as
in them. Breadalbane (bredawlbin).
Cadogan (caduggan). Carmichael, Car
negie Clanrfckarde. Dumaresau doom
errik). Fe-managh (fermanna). Kilmorey
kilmurry). Montgomery (mungumry).
Montresor (montrezur). Rathdonell Tired
egar ttredeegar); while these are accent
ed on the first of their three syllables:
Acheson, Baggallay (bagaly), Beacons-
field (becconzfield). Bellingham (bellin-
jum)-a complete observation-disclosures
tborragon). Bolingbroke (bolinbrook).
Challoner, Devereux (either deveroo or
deverooX), Du Buisson tdewbisson). Dyn-
evor (dinnevor). Feversham 0avver-
shump, Leveson-Gowers aeosun-gore). II
Mainwaring (mannering). Majendie, Mol
yneaux (molinooX), Pennycuick (penni-
cook. Saumerez tsummery). Thesiger
Chessijer) and Westenra (westernray).
Occasionally entire syllables are drop
ped out-and there is no rule whatever
for this-as in Abergavenny (abergenny)
Bicester (bister), Cholmondeley or Chol-
meley (chumly), Claverhouse (clayverse),
Colquhoun (cohoon), Drogheda draw
dah. Hawarden (harden), McGillicuddy
maclicuddy) and Waldegrave (wolgrave).
This is confessedly incomplete. but it
will serve to indicate to the unwary the
nature of the difficulties attaching to a
small branch of the Queens English"