Comments on: Uttoxeter

By: John Maidment

John Maidment — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:19:00 +0000

Little did Wuttoc (aka Wittoc) know what consternation he would cause when he built his house upon that heath.

By: Graham

Graham — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:42:37 +0000

Eric – Yes it does match the other pairs, because although “full” is FOOT, in this dialect, there is no opposition between FOOT and STRUT, so the minimal pair is still between the short undifferentiated vowel and the long vowel of “fall”.

By: Eric Armstrong

Eric Armstrong — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:55:07 +0000

Graham said:
“This means that there are minimal pairs between but and bought, pun and pawn, full and fall” — am I missing something, or are you falling into your “fatigued” state here too: “full” isn’t STRUT, it’s FOOT, so it doesn’t match your other pairs, does it? However, I’m perhaps a bit in the dark as a Canadian who has really had almost no real-life experience with Midlands speech, apart from one year in London in the 80’s.

By: Graham

Graham — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:36:22 +0000

Michael – the full entry for Uttoxeter in the 1983 PDBN (the one I edited) has juːˈtɒksɪtə first, then ʌˈtɒksɪtə, followed by ˈʌksɪtə and the note “There are other less common variants”. I tried to place the different pronunciations for any place name in order of frequency heard, or else that considered ‘correct’ by most local people. I suspect that the frequency of the variants may well vary through time, just as Coulsdon (in 1983 in Greater London) has varied between /ˈkəʊlzdən/ and /ˈkuːlzdən/. Sometimes more people tell you one thing, sometimes the other. A bit like Shrewsbury as well. It’s a bit like the story of the economists: ask two what they think about the current state of affairs, and you get at least three opinions. If you want perversity in pronunciation, what about Happisburgh in Norfolk (pronounced /ˈheɪzbərə/)?

By: Michael Lamb

Michael Lamb — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:21:24 +0000

John, I did try to strike you with the utterness of that perversity on the Abergavenny thread!

Graham, when you said “coming from the Potteries, I was always aware that Uttoxeter could be /ˈʌtʃɪtə/ locally, but I and my family (trying to be posh?) went along with the BBC in saying /juːˈtɒksɪtə/” I took that to be a demolition of my idea that it was ˈʊtʃɪtə locally, and replied that that must have been from further up North.

It now seems that you meant Uttoxeter could be /ˈʌtʃɪtə/ locally for those not trying to be quite so posh as your family! And the sound files of the two local versions that I reported you can hear on the internet no doubt mean that the poshification struggle naught availeth.

But my idea that it was ˈʊtʃɪtə locally remains demolished, in view of your caution against transcribing the vowel in question as /ʊ/ for all northern accents/dialects.

So southerner that I am, I shall persist in my resolve to say /ˈʌtʃɪtə/. I don’t want to be thought one of the “parodists of these accents/dialects using the southern English /ʊ/”!

But I think my idea that juːˈtɒksɪtə is an abomination remains undemolished, and John now seems to agree with it. Has that really become BBC practice, replacing the eminently sensible /ʌˈtɒksɪtə/ that he reported for 1983?

By: John Maidment

John Maidment — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:01:58 +0000

Ah, Graham. I know it well. I call it the /ɡɑ:smæsk/ syndrome.

It has just struck me how utterly (hehe) perverse the pronunciation /ju:tɒksɪtə/ is, given the spelling.