Norfolk Place Names
Posted: Sat 24 January, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Travel, Weirdness 2 Comments »One of the things that’s pretty much guaranteed to drive you crackers when moving to Norfolk (and I’m sure the same is true of many other counties – it’s just that with being here, I notice the Norfolk ones more) is the sheer randomness of the pronunciation of some of the town names.
For example, how would you pronounce Wymondham ? I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be Windham. (win-dom)
Other examples I’ve recently fallen foul of include :
- Happisburgh – hays-bur
- Tacolneston – tackle-ston
- Stiffkey – stookey
- Garboldisham – garble-sham
There’s plenty of others too, and locals invariably look at you like you’re some kind of weirdo when you pronounce the places like they’re spelt.
Then there’s Postwick – Pozzick, the Thwaite near Bungay (Bun-ghee, not -gay) is Twaite although other Thwaites are pronounced as spelt, and innumerable others. All makes for harmless entertainment for the locals though, doesn’t it? After all Norwich isn’t pronounced Nor-witch, so we follow where we’re led.
Fear not – we’ve unearthed this helpful guide:
http://tinyurl.com/amljko