trivia

[electricland]

Apropos of same, I had always vaguely assumed (passing the exit on the highway) that Bermondsey was pronounced BURR-mund-zee. My uncle, however, says ber-MUN-see.

I don't know where one would go to check this out.

Comments

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a stray passing Brit of the south-eastern persuasion, we tend to to place emphasis on the first syllable of a word rather than on the second, so it is precisely as you surmise.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Yes, I was always told that the stress falls on the antepenultimate syllable, and was going with that. (Although given the many, many strange pronunciations for English proper names out there -- Featherstonehaugh, Berkeley, St. John, Mousehole, Ruthven, Strachan all come to mind -- I'm not sure I'm going to accept this ruling 100%. OK, so one or two of those may be Scottish.) But we have some weird place-names in this country, and you never can altogether tell. Witness:

Gananoque
Port Coquitlam
Etobicoke
Kapuskasing
Sioux Ste. Marie
Spadina (has 2 different pronunciations, just for fun!)

and sometimes people just pronounce things weirdly, 'cause.

[monkeycommando.livejournal.com]

Spoken, I've only ever heard the stress on the second syllable (and I been there).

With the exception of spa-DEE-na (original pronunciation I'm told) the other places are native-derived.

Ganonoque should be pronounced, I'd wager, gunna-NAWK-ee, but because it's first printed interation was French, anglophones see the "que" and say something like

GAN-a NOK WAY.

(See "keh-bek" vs. "KWA-bek"

[electricland.livejournal.com]

...yes...?