May 1, 2008
by Graham
1 Comment
In the late 1980s and 1990s, Oxford University Press published three books of names: The Oxford Dictionary of Surnames (Patrick Hanks and Flavia Hodges, 1988); A Dictionary of First Names (Hanks and Hodges, 1990); and A Dictionary of English Place-Names … Continue reading
March 28, 2008
by Graham
4 Comments
Athel Cornish-Bowden in Marseille asks about the final -s in some French place names, and French versions of non-French place names (e.g. Douvres, Londres, Cornouailles). The final -s in these names is often the final remnant of the Old French … Continue reading
March 24, 2008
by Graham
11 Comments
In fact, French names cause all sorts of problems for English speakers, not least of where to put the stress. French, of course, has no lexical stress, but it would be impossible for an English speaker to avoid stressing at … Continue reading
December 6, 2007
by Graham
0 comments
Both my son and my daughter have reported that when giving their name, it has been repeated back to them as “Quinton” rather than “Pointon”, and this has twice happened to me recently. Neither name is particularly common. What we … Continue reading
November 28, 2007
by Graham
1 Comment
Lilli Lee asks if we can still order Peking Duck, or whether we now have to ask for Beijing Duck. Some names are fixed, and regardless of other changes in the language, they remain. Strangely, this has happened three times … Continue reading
November 26, 2007
by Graham
13 Comments
A letter in the Independent newspaper last week (Wednesday 21 November), from Shirin Tata of London, explained the spelling and pronunciation of Peking as ‘a close approximation to the Cantonese name for the city (“puck-ing” with a hard “p”)’. This … Continue reading
October 23, 2007
by Graham
0 comments
Abdul is right in his comment on “Kofi Annan and Edward Stourton”: the news readers can’t deal with the sounds and phonotactics of other languages – and the Pronunciation Research Unit doesn’t expect them to. As he points out, the … Continue reading
October 22, 2007
by Graham
3 Comments
When Mr Annan was appointed as Secretary General of the United Nations, we in the BBC’s Pronunciation Research Unit were sent a tape of his inauguration, in the course of which he had to pronounce his own name. He clearly … Continue reading
July 23, 2007
by Graham
6 Comments
What is it about Spanish names that sports commentators can never get them right? For the past four days, not a single BBC sports reporter or commentator has pronounced Sergio García’s first name correctly (let’s leave aside for the moment … Continue reading
July 10, 2007
by Graham
0 comments
In the days before most people were literate, there were only two ways to pronounce a foreign place name – you either pronounced it more or less how the locals pronounced it, or you ignored their name and gave the … Continue reading