I burnt my Boots
so there's no going back now.
Luckily I wasn't inside them at the time. It was a stupid accident. I'd stood them on top of the solid-fuel boiler to dry them after getting soaked to the soles digging out tree stumps. The old chipboard I was burning made the flue pipe get hotter than normal, and by the time I had noticed the smell, the right boot was a charred mess.
I was going to say the right hand boot, until I realised how clumsy it would have sounded, but then I tried changing it to the right foot boot, and that sounded even worse. So, regardless of which part of the body should or shouldn't be used when talking about footwear, I was now unable to working in muddy fields. Even worse, I wasn't going to be able to go fishing on Christmas Eve with my brother.
In the end, I went to the country stores and found a boot sale in progress. I got a pair of lace up working boots and a pair of rubber boots for less than I had paid for my old cremated leather walking boots. I christened the rubber boots with a trip to the river and caught some more pike on the fly. My brother, who ties the absurd creations that we dangle in the Stour to tempt the fish to play, has named them. I caught my fish on a Dame Edna Everedge, while he caught his on a Dame Barbara Cartland. We have yet to try the Dame Shirley Bassey, the pink and mauve lures seemed to work well enough in the chilly winter waters.
If you're still wondering why I said there was no going back at the head of this post, it's because I live with a Geordie, and often find myself saying things with a Geordie accent. "He burnt his boats" would, said by a Geordie, come out as "He burnt his boots".
Geordies, pronounced Ji-aw-dees, are the people born within a certain distance of a part of Newcastle, a large city in Northumberland. It, the county, sprawls on the Northeast coast of England close to Scotland, and is a home to several other dialects as well. Most Geordies have disparaging names for these, such as "Makhams", but I have not been able to understand the reasons why, let along the dialects themselves. The rules of pronunciation are haphazard, and have to be learnt by rote.
When I first visited Northumberland, I was driving around the area of Hadrians Wall, and told Little Petal (trying and as usual failing to use the maps properly,) that we were on the road to Hawick. I pronounced it "Horwick", as in Hawthorne the tree, or Lord Haw-haw the traitor, or even Horlicks the perversion.
No, I was told, it's pronounced "Hoick". Aha, I thought, drop the middle portion.
"So should Newcastle really be pronounced 'Nestle'?" I wondered. I began naming things according to my new-found whim. The atmosphere inside the car became dour, like the scenery outside.
I drove around the border counties, desperately scanning signposts and village name signs, hoping that one of these places we arrived at would be called "Bottom of the Locks". I would then be able to drive into the place and announce, triumphantly, "This is Bollocks". But there was no such place anywhere, so bollocks anyway.
Luckily I wasn't inside them at the time. It was a stupid accident. I'd stood them on top of the solid-fuel boiler to dry them after getting soaked to the soles digging out tree stumps. The old chipboard I was burning made the flue pipe get hotter than normal, and by the time I had noticed the smell, the right boot was a charred mess.
I was going to say the right hand boot, until I realised how clumsy it would have sounded, but then I tried changing it to the right foot boot, and that sounded even worse. So, regardless of which part of the body should or shouldn't be used when talking about footwear, I was now unable to working in muddy fields. Even worse, I wasn't going to be able to go fishing on Christmas Eve with my brother.
In the end, I went to the country stores and found a boot sale in progress. I got a pair of lace up working boots and a pair of rubber boots for less than I had paid for my old cremated leather walking boots. I christened the rubber boots with a trip to the river and caught some more pike on the fly. My brother, who ties the absurd creations that we dangle in the Stour to tempt the fish to play, has named them. I caught my fish on a Dame Edna Everedge, while he caught his on a Dame Barbara Cartland. We have yet to try the Dame Shirley Bassey, the pink and mauve lures seemed to work well enough in the chilly winter waters.
If you're still wondering why I said there was no going back at the head of this post, it's because I live with a Geordie, and often find myself saying things with a Geordie accent. "He burnt his boats" would, said by a Geordie, come out as "He burnt his boots".
Geordies, pronounced Ji-aw-dees, are the people born within a certain distance of a part of Newcastle, a large city in Northumberland. It, the county, sprawls on the Northeast coast of England close to Scotland, and is a home to several other dialects as well. Most Geordies have disparaging names for these, such as "Makhams", but I have not been able to understand the reasons why, let along the dialects themselves. The rules of pronunciation are haphazard, and have to be learnt by rote.
When I first visited Northumberland, I was driving around the area of Hadrians Wall, and told Little Petal (trying and as usual failing to use the maps properly,) that we were on the road to Hawick. I pronounced it "Horwick", as in Hawthorne the tree, or Lord Haw-haw the traitor, or even Horlicks the perversion.
No, I was told, it's pronounced "Hoick". Aha, I thought, drop the middle portion.
"So should Newcastle really be pronounced 'Nestle'?" I wondered. I began naming things according to my new-found whim. The atmosphere inside the car became dour, like the scenery outside.
I drove around the border counties, desperately scanning signposts and village name signs, hoping that one of these places we arrived at would be called "Bottom of the Locks". I would then be able to drive into the place and announce, triumphantly, "This is Bollocks". But there was no such place anywhere, so bollocks anyway.
posted by Sopwith-Camel | 9:07 am
2 Comments:
Names are always springing traps for the unwary. I remember this every time I am stopped by an American tourist and asked for directions to "Lie-cester Square" (Leicester Square, pronounced "Lester" for whatever reason).
The worst, for English tongues are surely Welsh and Scottish place names. There is no point in hazarding a guess: just point at the name on the map and then nod and smile when your informant mutters something that in no way resembles the spelling.
But I have to admit that there are names even in London, in darkest Islington itself, whose pronunciation I am unsure of.
However literate we may believe ourselves to be, names are always there to teach us proper humility!
London's names could be due to a combination of the Victorian enthusiasm for bringing back parts of the empire with moderate literacy amongst the clerks in the council, but a lot of the problem is the strange set of rules in the language itself.
My favourite by far is Looga-Boroogah, which the Australians are supposed to have used to describe Loughborough. It even sounds right.
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