porthmadog is actually pronounced <BR>porth-mad'ck.

Patrick, sorry but I'm being dense about your sandwich joke.<BR>Is &quot;berm-sey&quot; wrong? Was I misinformed?

Marchorsebox;<BR>Unfortunately I don't live in London.<BR>I live in Ohio. I've just read all that<BR>I can find on Great Britain since I was<BR>little. How wonderful that you live in<BR>such a beautiful area of the city as <BR>well as the world. I envy you.

Yep! sorry Bermondsey is just Bermondsey plan and simple.

Sorry, Elaine, I shouldn't be facetious. Londoners can be very sloppy with words they speak all the time, like placenames, but Bermondsey wouldn't get quite as elided as 'Bermsey' unless you were speaking with your mouth full...the middle syllable will be in there somewhere, even if it isn't stressed.

Would Charingworth be Ch-ahr-ingworth or would it be Ch-air-ingworth?<BR><BR>Thanks

I can't believe no one has yet considered the mispronunciation of the Thames river! Or Pall Mall for that matter!

Just to clarify: Porthmadog is pronounced porth-MAD-ogg. The r is roled. As (almost) always in Welsh each letter is enunciated, Welsh being (mostly) phonetic. th is actually counted as one letter in Welsh and is always pronounced as the th in 'think' and never as the th in 'thy'. <BR>I'm Welsh and find many English place names extremely strange! I tend to pronounce such place names as they are written (e.g. &quot;Leicester&quot; = &quot;Layssester&quot;) just because I know it irritates people ;)

Great thread!<BR>When I was in Australia, I thought I sounded really silly trying to say place names with an Australian accent - BRIS-bin, KEAHNS - while saying everything else with my American accent, so I just gave up and said BRIS-bane and Cairrrrns. : )