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The fact that 'Worcester' is pronounced 'Wusster' is wild. But have you ever seen the five-syllable Old English name it stems from? 'Weogornaċeaster'. It meant "fortified settlement of the Weogoran (a Saxon tribe)". Click to hear a reconstruction of its pronunciation: 29 comments
@wviechtb I think that's why it changed. Come on, the food must've been cold when they reached the end of the word! @ASprinkleofSage @yvanspijk Depends on the American, as they have a Worcester too and it is pronounced the same, so it is an imperfect shibboleth.  @yvanspijk Is there a similar history behind, for example, “Cholmondeley” and “Featherstonehaugh” being pronounced “chumley” and “fanshaw” respectively? @acb Certainly! The spellings reflect earlier stages, while in the spoken language, the names eroded extremely because they were used very frequently. @yvanspijk I read someplace here that the English are spelling booster(injection) as borcester. @fzwaan 🤣🤣 They're right to do so, since it stems from Old English 'Beogornaceaster'.   Depends on the vowels of the speaker's dialect of English. The general pronunciation would be closer to "Wuster" with the last syllable as a falling inflection or a rising one. @simon_lucy The information I found in dictionaries and on pronunciation websites such as Forvo suggests 'Wooster' is the most prevalent pronunciation in both Britain and America: Trust me, I live 9 miles away from Worcester in Worcestershire, no one says wOOster, that would be Bertie Wooster. (though southern English accents would likely use Wuster for that too). The sound on the site is right, but that is Wuster. It's like the difference between BOOster and BUster. The must common American pronunciation I've heard for those that aren't familiar with the word try and say "WAHrcester" or something similar, and Worcestershire defeats them utterly. That's "Wustershuh", naturally :-) @simon_lucy I see. I think the confusion arose because OO can have multiple pronunciations: the one of 'foot', 'wool' etc. and the one of 'goose', 'doom' etc. I used the 'Wooster' spelling, the way the surname that's derived from 'Worcester' is spelled. The vowel sound in English might seem detached from the spelling but it isn't. The pronunciation tends to be consistent for the same word, wool is generally wuhl within the range of the accent but wooly, to have the nature of wool is more extended it kind of falls between uh and oo. But someone from Liverpool would likely pronounce book and cook as BOOk and COOk, though personally I never did. The phoneme 'ʊ' is that short uh and it's unfortunate that the description for English uses words with 'oo' rather than unambiguous words like 'lug', 'but' and 'multiply'. English is hard enough to explain as it is. And it remains that Worcester is a weird word. As it happens I think the Etymology is wrong as well. I think Vertis and ceastre evolved into Wercester. We still have an existing Roman Wall.  Buhk because my Mother was intent on me speaking properly, my younger brother got away with a broader Scouse. File under the tortures that the eldest child undergoes.  @simon_lucy @yvanspijk the “correct” pronunciation is moot because it actually rings out like “war chest ahhh” @yvanspijk See also the classic Old English epic poems portraying the adventures of Jeeves & Weogornaċeaster  @yvanspijk All right, that's enough, borcester - these pronunciations have left me all a-florcester. Related: "High Wycombe has an interesting derivation - the Saxon word 'Wyc' means a small village community, 'Combe' was the Celtic word for a small depression or hollow, while the middle English 'High' has the same meaning as today, hence the literal translation 'Hello, villagers who live in a hole!’.” @yvanspijk Oh hey, I wasn't terribly far off on the OE pronunciation (tho can't do it as smoothly as you did). That one class was a lotta years ago! |
Gregory's Server
@yvanspijk Would be a tedious to ask for the Weogornaċeaster sauce, so Wooster it is!