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The elision of the 'e' in -cester placenames so that the 'c' and 's' have a single sound is reasonably common e.g. Leicester, Gloucester, Worcester, Towcester,
by tompko 2y ago
The elision of the 'e' in -cester placenames so that the 'c' and 's' have a single sound is reasonably common e.g. Leicester, Gloucester, Worcester, Towcester, Bicester. So English natives should have a reasonable chance of getting the pronunciation of a previously unseen example correct.
- pirates 2y agoI have heard even Manchester sometimes spoken that way as well, depending on who you’re talking to.
- JdeBP 2y agoIt's not even unreasonable. -caster, -chester, and -cester are related suffixes.
- arrowsmith 2y agoAll descending from the Latin "castrum", which means "fort". So if a placename has one of those suffixes, chances are high that it was a Roman settlement.
- NeoTar 2y agoGodmanchester in Cambridgeshire, although now pronunced by most people as 'God-Man-Chest-Er', used to be pronounced (and may still be by some locals) as Gumster.
- darrenf 2y agoAnd then along comes Cirencester.
- kwhitefoot 2y agoSissiter according to the locals in the old days, Siren when I was growing up in nearby Swindon.
- rob74 2y agoAnd that's why "Worcester Sauce" is the second most mispronounced culinary term in Germany (after "Stracciatella") * [*] - according to my made-up-on-the spot stats
- tonymillion 2y agoAlso doesn’t help that it’s actual name is “Worcestershire sauce” which is even more difficult to say.
- brnt 2y agoNow I must know: how do Germans pronounce stracciatella?
- gloria_mundi 2y agoSome switch around the "s" and "sh" sounds, so it is pronounced roughly like "shtratsiatella". "st" at the beginning of a word is pronounced as "sht" in German.