I wish people would stop pronouncing counties that end with ‘shire’ as if they are extensions of a Hobbit ‘shire’.
Those same people go out of their way to pronounce place names in non English speaking countries correctly,
@JohnPhilpin I assume you mean we should say 'shur' instead of 'shire'? This is something I learned about when I went to Edinburgh University and met loads of English people. Some of them said, 'It's not Lancashire, it's Lancashur,' or similar.
Where I come from, it's Dunbartonshire, exactly like Tolkien intended. So I think you're arguing against dialect, which is… probably not worth it.
Where I come from 'can't' and 'cant' sound the same, and why does the vowel in 'can' change when you negate it anyway?
In fact in Scotland we don't even have the vowel sound in the South of England's 'can't'.
Bit of a bugbear, through bringing up children with London accents.
@devilgate good point - but it’s not just dialect it’s laziness - no attention paid to how it is pronounced locally - I’m looking at you Worcestershire ( sauce ) … but watch the gymnastics over ( say) Kyrgyzstan
I don’t get so upset about scones ( that is dialect) - just place names. If you are not going to bother - then please consistently don’t bother - but if you are - then surely the correct pronunciation is as it is known in that place?
@JohnPhilpin Fair points. Also consider the fact that the speaker might never have heard it pronounced by a local, and have learned it by reading. I can't really complain about people not knowing how to pronounce Milngavie, for example.
@devilgate and of course shrewsbury and towcester confounds even the people that live in those two fine metropolises !!!
@devilgate Towcesterhttps://maps.apple.com/?address=Towcester,%20South%20Northamptonshire,%20England&auid=14725361544068285114&ll=52.131960,-0.988335&lsp=6489&q=Towcester&_ext=Ch8KBQgEEOEBCgQIBRADCgQIBhADCgQIChAKCgQIVRAHEiYp/8QSIFQNSkAxCO0wgbaQ8L85FIyUdx8VSkBBnlA+8ygL779QDA%3D%3D&t=h)