Americans Cannot Get Over How To Pronounce British Town Names

Footage of an American reading out the names of English towns has highlighted just how confusing British pronunciations can be.

There are a lot of places in the US that share names with towns and cities in England, for example New York, Manchester, New Hampshire and, perhaps most obviously, New England.

Just because we share some names doesn't mean we share our understanding of pronunciations though, and in fact one American got so frustrated about the pronunciations of some English towns that they decided to vent about it in a TikTok video.

Check it out below:

In the clip, TikToker @toh.music wastes no time in berating the English as he pleads with Brits to 'make the sound of the city make sense with the spelling', arguing: 'British town names are so f*cking confusing for no reason.'

Bypassing all the names that do make sense, like London, Liverpool or Leeds, the frustrated TikToker launches into various examples, starting with Birmingham.

Though the spelling-to-pronunciation link starts of strong with 'birming', I have to admit it does go downhill a bit when we get to 'ham'. Take those three letters by themselves and you'd have the meat, rhyming with 'pram'. Add them on to the end of 'biming', though, and they lose this sound altogether.

The TikToker explains: 'You never pronounce the 'ham'. It's not 'BirmingHAM', it's 'Birmingum'.

Admittedly, an American might not be the best person to tell an English person how to pronounce English words, the frustration over Birmingham might come from the fact that there is also a Birmingham in Alabama. I'm not entirely sure how they pronounce the town name there, but I assume it must emphasise the 'ham', or else the TikToker would be more understanding.

After venting about Birmingham and Nottingham, they then turn their attention to Leicester – pronounced 'Lester', rather than 'lie-ses-ter', Gateacre ('gat-ack-er'), Reading (red-ding), Leominster (lem-ster) and Frome (froome).

The TikToker accused Brits of 'really making it hard for anyone who's foreign' with the confusing pronunciations, but America isn't entirely innocent in this as it definitely has its fair share of place names that aren't pronounced as you might expect.

Take Arkansas, for example. It's practically next to Kansas on the map, but is it pronounced 'ar-kansas'? No. No it is not. Arkansas is actually pronounced 'ark-in-saw', which, if you ask me, might be even worse than Leicester. We also have Boise (boy-zee) in Idaho and Iaeger in West Virginia which, according to USA Today, is pronounced 'yay-ger'.

It's clear there are a lot of confusing pronunciations out there, so I think the moral of the story is: if you're unsure about how a place is pronounced, either look it up, or be prepared to embarrass yourself.

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Topics: Life, TikTok

Emily Brown

Emily Brown is UNILAD Editorial Lead at LADbible Group. She first began delivering news when she was just 11 years old - with a paper route - before graduating with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University. Emily joined UNILAD in 2018 to cover breaking news, trending stories and longer form features. She went on to become Community Desk Lead, commissioning and writing human interest stories from across the globe, before moving to the role of Editorial Lead. Emily now works alongside the UNILAD Editor to ensure the page delivers accurate, interesting and high quality content.