Name calling

Loretta reports:

Since Susan and I write books dealing with England and the English, we’re constantly reminded that English is a foreign language.  And a minefield.  Among other things, there’s pronunciation.  Now I grew up knowing something about tricky words because I was born in Worcester, which most people pronounce incorrectly—including, I was stunned to discover, one actual English person actually speaking on the phone to me from England.  It’s pronounced Wooh (like the sound in wool or full)-ster—except by a large segment of its populace, who pronounce it Wis-tah.  You can hear it with an English accent here.

One of my Regency dreamboats, Granville Leveson-Gore, was another name tease.  It’s Loo-son-Gaw according to Black’s Title and Forms of Address and Lewson-Gorr according to the 1936 Whitaker’s Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage.  But if you're talking about Gower Street, it’s pronounced the way it looks.

A marquis in England, one soon learns, is a mar-kwiss or a mar-kwess but not a mar-kee.

Belvoir Castle is Bee-ver Castle, and here it is in British English.

[Illustration:  Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire, England from Morris's Country Seats (1880)]

In researching my latest book, Last Night’s Scandal, I learned that Alnwick, Northumberland, loses a few consonants in pronunciation.  It’s An-ik. 

Lady Cowper, one of Almack’s patronesses was Lady Couper according to Manners and Rules of Good Society.  But Black’s Titles and Forms of Address offers both Koo-per and Kow-per.

Another name familiar to Regency aficionados is King George IV’s mistress Lady Conyngham.  She was Lady Kun-ingam.

Meanwhile, Cholmondeley shrinks down to Chum-li  (Click on the symbol to hear it here.) Cockburn is Co-burn, and Colquhoun is Ko-hoon.

Lord Elgin—of the famous Marbles—is said with a hard “g.” 

Knollys is Knoles. 
Mainwaring is Man-nering. 
Marjoribanks is March-banks. 
Ponsonby is Pun-sunbi. 
Pontefract is usually Pum-fret but sometimes said as spelled.
Ruthven is Riv-ven or Ri-then.
Slaithwaite is Slo-it, except when it’s said as spelled.
Urquhart is Erk-ert.
Villiers is Vil-lers.
Waldegrave is Wawl-grave.

This is definitely audience participation, so feel free to add your favorite doesn't-sound-like-what-it-looks-like names.

Top left is a detail of a full-length portrait of Granville-Leveson Gower by Sir Thomas Lawrence.  It hangs in the Yale Center for British Art, along with an astounding collection of other beautiful paintings.

Sir Thomas Lawrence's portrait--at bottom right--of Lady Conyngham is dated 1821-24, when she was the Marchioness Conyngham.