Glamis

[Robert Kelly]

the only hard--edged memory I can offer is of a well-educated, extremely
intelligent young man from Rotherhithe (in London) who was astonished to
know his neighborhood had once been pronounced Redruff/Rodruff.  I _think_
I've heard Lancastrians themelves say Ul-ver-ston ... but it's likely as
you say, the folks on the telly from London with their New High Rada
accent, indifferent to (or too hurried to find out) local pronunciations.

RK

On Fri, 8 Oct 1999, Peter McGraw wrote:

> Interesting!  You don't specify who uses the spelling pronunciations.
> Is it only BBC announcers (who might be from elsewhere and not happen
> to have heard the "authentic" pronunciation), or are the locals
> actually adopting them?
>
> On Thu, 7 Oct 1999 22:07:40 -0400 Robert Kelly <kelly at BARD.EDU> wrote:
>
> > the only pronunciation (other than the spelling-pronunciation you mention)
> > I've heard is /gla:mz/, one syllable.  I've heard it often, from Scots and
> > older English folk.  But nowadays you hear Fotheringay just as spelled,
> > and Shrewsbury with the vowel of Tuesday on the BBC where one grew up
> > trying to get the 'authentic' pronunciation right as /fungei/ and
> > /Sro:zbri/.  Interesting, if nobody uses the pronunciation, how authentic
> > is it?  I gather Ulverston is as spelled nowadays, whereas fifteen years
> > ago people round the town said /u:st at n/.  So probably the
> > spelling-pronunciations will take over. Is it a sinister side effect of
> > grammatology....?
> >
> >
> > RK
> >
> >
> > On Thu, 7 Oct 1999, William H. Smith wrote:
> >
> > > Does anyone know the "correct" (i.e. Scottish) pronunciation of
> > "Glamis" (as > in _Macbeth_)?  My sense is [glaemIs], but I have no
> > idea why; the spelling > indicates [glemIs].  If my sense is correct,
> > why is it? > On a similar subject, what about the lax stressed vowel in
> > words like > "finish"?  Was it laxed because when borrowed the stress
> > was on the second > syllable (French "finisse") and thus laxed, and
> > later anglicized? >
>
> ----------------------
> Peter A. McGraw
> Linfield College
> McMinnville, Oregon
> pmcgraw at linfield.edu
>