From the song "it's a long way to Tipperary"

It's a long way to Tipperary, it's a long way to go;
It's a long way to Tipperary, to the sweetest girl I know;
Good-bye Piccadilly, farewell Leicester Square, (???????????????)
It's a long, long way to Tipperary, but my heart's right there.

lester

gracias!

Unless you're from Leicester, MA - in which case, it would be Lestah !

I learned in Grade 9 Latin (1964) that English names ending in -chester or -cester were all derived from "castrum", Latin neuter singular noun, meaning "camp" (military).

Examples: Chichester, Chester, Doncaster, Lancaster, Cirencester and (I suppose) Leicester......Isn't there even a Bicester, pron. Bister?

There is indeed.

And in French, nouns ending in "tion" are feminine: Latin derivative also.

There once was a pigeon in Leicester
Chicks gone, now an empty neicester
So to pass the hours
It gave tourists showers
And for food would relentlessly peicester

Well done! (Remember when we used to say that instead of "good job"?)

It is also used in a Jethro Tull song.
Jeffery goes to Leicester square.

ttt

I can't resist.

BTW, Salisbury is locally called Sarum and Hampshire for postal purposes is abbreviated to Hants.

There was a young curate of Salisbury

Whose manners were quite Halisbury-Scalisbury

He wandered round Hampshire

Without any pampshire

Till the Vicar compelled him to Warisbury

Good job, Sylvia.

And to really confuse you:

Frome in Somerset is pronounced as Froom

Gillingham in Dorset is pronounced with a hard G as in Gilligan, whereas Gillingham in Kent is pronounced as Jillingham.

And Hunstanton in Norfolk is known as Hunston by the locals!

And how about Beauchamp? Greenwich?
Gloucestershire? (I heard an American in the tube asking about going to Glow - ces - ter - shire street).

Lestah, MASS is right between Spencah and Woostah!

by the locals in UK towns -

Leicester - "less-toh"

Worcester - "Wuss-ter"

Cirencester - used to be "sirenster" now "siren-cester"

and Exeter

Castrum was usually used in the plural - "castra" - so that's how you get the "er" sound at the end.


BTW - missed out Manchester!

How about "Belvoir"?????

Beauchamp....funny story....in the mid 1960's, there was a major league baseball player named Jim Beauchmp pronounced the way they do in England (Beechum).....so the first time I ever visited London as a student in 1971, we came to the street and the guide asked I bet nobody knows how to pronounce the name of the street (Beauchamp)...when I got it right, using the baseball player's name, she said I was the first Yank who ever got that right!

Of course, the other great mystery of English (as opposed to American) is the pronounciation of the word lieutenant....of course in English English (and believe it or not Canadian English) it's leftenant....we Yanks say lootenant...I always wondered where the pronounciation came from.....it was explained to me at one time the letter "u" really never existed in the past.....it is a modified "v" so the real word is lievtenant which would jive with the way it is pronounced. Just another way we American love to be contrary (like calling the last letter of the alphabet zee when everybody else calls it zed yada yada yada!)

Gloucester is Gloster
Cholmondelly is Chumley
Greenwich is Grenitch

And in NYC Houston is house-ton (not hus-ton as in Texas). (And Greenwich is Grenitch here too - tourists saying Green-witch Village drive me mad).