How To Pronounce Stoughton

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by FeralKitty, Aug 5, 2021.

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  1. Stoe'tin

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  2. Stoe'tun or Stoe'tn

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  1. FeralKitty

    FeralKitty Well-Known Member

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    Before we get to Stoughton, let's look at how to pronounce Canton, because it's simpler yet similar.

    It's not Can-tun, it's Cant'n. It almost sounds like the vowel is dropped.

    Now if you say the letter "n" by itself, it sounds like "in" or "inn," but I don't think we say Cant'in in that example.

    So, on to Stoughton.

    As pointed out in the stream, it's not stout-un. It's Stoe-tun, or Stow'tn.

    Now if you say "tn," it sounds like "tin," but I hadn't noticed anyone saying Stow'tin until today on the stream.

    Now, accents vary in Massachusetts, depending on exactly where you're from. Boston could be Bos-tun, or (what I tend to say,) Bah-stun, or Bah-stin.

    So, there's a case for an "uh" slipping to an "ih" sound, but I probably wouldn't advise anyone who's trying to learn how to pronounce Stoughton to emphasize an "i" sound.

    (As an aside, my accent can surprisingly change in the same sentence, even mid-word. If you know the expression, "park the car in Harvard Yard," if I slip, I'll end up saying "Park the car in Harvahd Yahd.")
     
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  2. DTG Matt

    DTG Matt Executive Producer Staff Member

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    My wife is from Concord, I should probably have just asked her :)
     
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  3. FeralKitty

    FeralKitty Well-Known Member

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    :) Small world, my sister's family is from Acton.
     
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  4. cActUsjUiCe

    cActUsjUiCe Developer

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    Stoe'tn seems the closest
     
  5. pacificorca#1435

    pacificorca#1435 Active Member

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    I would agree that Stoe'tn would probably be the best approximation of it. At this point I've said it out loud enough times today that I can't tell what I would say naturally. I think if I were to give directions to someone from another country I would probably pronounce it closer to Stoe-ton for clarity.
     
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  6. jmhdc812

    jmhdc812 Active Member

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    Having grown up in the next town over, it is indeed pronounced “Stoe’tn.” I’m so glad someone was on the stream to correct Matt’s pronunciation as it was driving me nuts. :) What I couldn’t figure out was how he mispronounced Stoughton, but managed to pronounce Worcester correctly, given that it’s the most mispronounced town name by folks not from New England. Knowing now that his wife is from Concord, it all makes perfect sense. Cheers, Matt!!
     
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2021
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  7. Hiro Protagonist

    Hiro Protagonist Well-Known Member

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    You'd hope an English person would pronounce Worcester correctly regardless of where their partner was from...

    Although the question would then be, is Stoughton in the UK (no doubt there is at least one, just about every New England town is naturally named after one in the home country) pronounced the same as the one in MA? And if it is, is the UK one well known or a tiny blip on a map no-one has heard of (unlike Worcester)
     
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2021
  8. jmhdc812

    jmhdc812 Active Member

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    One would think. That said, there are a lot of folks in the US outside of New England who, more often than not, try to pronounce it phonetically. I'm pretty sure that in the UK, they pronounce it "Wooster" whereas in eastern MA, it's generally pronounced "whoostah." As FeralKitty mentioned, there's a lot of variation in Massachusetts accents, depending on what part of the state you're from.

    You're right about there being a Stoughton in the UK though, so perhaps Matt was pronouncing it the way they do there.
    Thanks for Playing! :cool:
     
  9. Hiro Protagonist

    Hiro Protagonist Well-Known Member

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    My understanding is that the MA Worcester and UK Worcester are essentially pronounced the same, just with slightly different sounds due to local accents. The "-cester" name is pretty consistent in the UK (Gloucester - Gloster, Leicester - Lester etc, just don't mention Cirencester...)
     
  10. mancunian#7861

    mancunian#7861 Active Member

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    Well not coming from that area being a Londoner by birth and a southerner for over 35 years, I pronounce ought as awt ... so always thought it was staw ton. Seems I'm the only one. :D
     
  11. DTG Matt

    DTG Matt Executive Producer Staff Member

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    My wife also lived in Worcester for a bit so I've heard her and her mum talking about it including in her mums rich Boston accent - neither have ever said Stoughton :) "Loughton" in the UK is pronounced "Low-tun" for comparison :)
     
  12. Mr JMB

    Mr JMB Well-Known Member

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    Its like Middlesbrough or Edinburgh. American's say Middles-boro or Edin-berg. they are both -bruh. :D
     
  13. 4-COR

    4-COR Well-Known Member

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    There's a Stoughton not far from me in the UK and we pronounce it 'Stow-tun'. Could be different across the pond though.
     
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  14. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    I’m going to pronounce it StuTown. Close enough for me.
     
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  15. fanta1682002

    fanta1682002 Well-Known Member

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    ask an expert matt ceo
     
  16. theorganist

    theorganist Well-Known Member

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    There is a Stoughton in Leicestershire and West Sussex, the ton should be pronounced as it looks. Ton in old English means town, Stough was probably a river I imagine or a derivation of the name of a river or some other landmark.
     
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2021
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  17. FeralKitty

    FeralKitty Well-Known Member

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    Both of those would have tripped me up.
     
  18. trainsimplayer

    trainsimplayer Well-Known Member

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    The Edinburgh one winds me up way too much. My pals always purposefully pronounce it to get me to crack up.

    (This bit is more in general, i.e. not really part of the reply)
    But I think the real question everyone wants an awnser to is, how do you pronounce Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch?
     
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  19. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    You definitely don’t pronounce it the way the ‘helpful’ pronunciation guide on the station sign says so. I won’t link the picture as it makes me shiver inside every time I see it.
     
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  20. FeralKitty

    FeralKitty Well-Known Member

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    I don’t know, but I would love to hear DTG Protagonist say it!
     
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  21. roysto25

    roysto25 Well-Known Member

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  22. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    There's no guarantee that American locals pronounce English-derived placenames 'correctly.' For example, here Westmoreland County is pronounced WestMOREland, not WESTmorlun.
     
  23. jmhdc812

    jmhdc812 Active Member

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    Pfhh!! It's pronounced exactly as it's spelt. How else? Geesh! :D

    Trust me when I tell ya, these days there's no guarantee that Americans pronounce anything correctly!! There are places in the south where I've come close to hiring a translator. :)
     
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  24. Quentin

    Quentin Well-Known Member

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    True, dat. Welsh is a phonetic language (as is Spanish) - if you can spell it, you can say it. You just have to know the different (from English) pronunciation values, mainly the double letters and the vowels.
     
  25. Hiro Protagonist

    Hiro Protagonist Well-Known Member

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    May I be the first here to suggest Stufft'n as a hilariously wrong yet completely reasonable (ie Loughborough) option?

    I think going through all the different possible variations that -ough has in English, there will be the following (with the -ough example from other words):

    Stuff-t'n - rough, tough
    Stoff-t'n (like off) - cough, trough
    Stoe-t'n (like the toe on your foot) - dough, though
    Stow-t'n (like cow) - plough, drought
    Store-t'n - thought
    Stoo-t'n - through
     
    Last edited: Aug 7, 2021
  26. martschuffing

    martschuffing Well-Known Member

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    So Stoughton isn't pronounced like, Stourbridge as in something tasting sour? :D
     
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  27. theorganist

    theorganist Well-Known Member

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    Down the road from me is the village of Stourton and that is often pronounced Storeton! Yet Stourbridge is never pronounced Storebridge! Although I think in the middle ages it was called Sturbridge!
     
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  28. martschuffing

    martschuffing Well-Known Member

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    Blackcountry folk pronounces it differently to us Brummies, they even pronounce road as rowud and Can't as cor and down as dowen. Ah the richness of regional accents.
     
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  29. raretrack

    raretrack Well-Known Member

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    According to my OS places database there are three places in Great Britain called Stoughton: one each in West Sussex, Leicestershire and Surrey.
     
  30. Tom Fresco

    Tom Fresco Well-Known Member

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    Already looking forward to the how to pronounce Radebeul-Kötzschenbroda Thread for BRD :P

    I pronounced Stoughton like Matt did in the announcement streams. (I dont have a clue on how to write it so that the pronounciation comes across.)

    But Pronounciation of english names/citys is truely something else:
     
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  31. mancunian#7861

    mancunian#7861 Active Member

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    I remember when I lived in Eastbourne and a short way across the coast towards Brighton is a place spelt Seaford. I used to pronounce it with the emphasis on the first syllable - SEA ford .... but the locals apparently *detest* that ... they say it's seaFORD. At the end of the day does it really matter as long as you get there?! :D
     
  32. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    Except where they say -burrah ;)
     
  33. Crosstie

    Crosstie Well-Known Member

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    I had a teacher once who had a really hard time with English place names. Trafalgar was one of her "favorites" along with any places ending in "shire" (which most of us pronounce "shyer").
     
  34. raretrack

    raretrack Well-Known Member

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    Ironic as Trafalgar is a Spanish place name of Arabic origin!

    Yeah, the pronunciation of 'shire' is a good example. When in Scotland you usually hear 'shyer', but here in Southern England it's almost always 'sheer'.
     
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  35. dhekelian

    dhekelian Well-Known Member

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    I remember as a kid hearing Americans trying to pronounce the Town Bicester, they would break it down to 'Bi-ces- ter' where it should be 'Biss-ter' . I love listening to Brummies talk, they tend to 'sing' with some of their words . I also remember a couple of Welsh girls pronouncing 'Slough'. They would say 'Sloff' instead of well 'Slough' lol. And I'm the first to admit I am useless when it comes to pronouncing words myself. Stoughton would be 'Stowton' to me.
     
  36. Quentin

    Quentin Well-Known Member

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    Place name pronunciations can change quite rapidly, particularly if there's been an influx of outsiders. Two of the towns near me are Beaconsfield and Chesham. The former is pronounced Beck- by 90% of the people who live there, but those over 60, who've lived there all their lives, pronounce it Beak-. Similarly Chesham is pronounced with a 'sh' sound by most, but original inhabitants say Chess-ham (town on the River Chess). Nobody (not even locals) can agree whether Shrewsbury has an 'e' or an 'o' sound.
     
  37. dhekelian

    dhekelian Well-Known Member

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    There seems to be a few places, certainly in England, that suffer from this. There is a town not far from me called 'Didcot' and a few centuries ago it was 'Didcote' but older people in the area pronounced it 'Didcut' and people outside the town pronounced it 'Didcut' also, even when the town was spoken on TV it was 'Didcut' used to do my head in. I lived there for a while and went to school there but everyone said 'Did-COT'. I think the 'Didcut' has its roots when the town used to be in Berkshire. Berkshire is another one people get wrong, lol.
     
  38. Hiro Protagonist

    Hiro Protagonist Well-Known Member

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    One thing that does need to be taken in to consideration is, just how do we know exactly how things were pronounced before audio recordings were invented? Sure there would have been a bit of word-of-mouth or "back-when-I-was-young-we-didn't-have-those-new-fandangled-phonomographamawatsits-sonnyjim", but at some point you have to assume that (just like Latin), no-one knows for certain what old English etc sounded like. Combine that with people reading old texts (which may or may not have been written in the original alphabet) but pronouncing things like how they would if they were literally transcribed letter for letter in modern English ("ye olde shoppe" is meant to be "the old shop", not "yee oldie shoppie" for instance)
     
  39. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    Victorian dialect researchers made ample use of phonetic alphabets, which were invented in the early 1800s. We actually have a pretty good record of how place-names and local dialect words were pronounced in the 19th century.

    Before that one gets into philology or historical linguistics, the study of sound-shifts over time. This is a remarkably accurate science, because sound-shifts are astonishingly regular. This is how we know how, for instance, Shakespeare's plays were pronounced in his day (rather West Country to modern ears).

    (Orthography, the "Yee Oldie Tea Shoppie" stuff, is a somewhat different study. As soon as you realize that the "Y" was actually the Old English letter "thorn" (pr. TH), and that silent final Es are nothing new in English, then it falls into place)

    Pop quiz: why is the surname Menzies pronounced "Mingus?"
     
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  40. Hiro Protagonist

    Hiro Protagonist Well-Known Member

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    Because the "z" wasn't a z, it was a yogh (I just recently re-watched The Imitation Game so this is fresh in my mind). Dalziel was another one I heard growing up (watching Dalziel and Pascoe), actually DEE-el

    This is really only still prevalent in Scotland though, most other places around the world have adopted the 'z' pronunciation
     
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2021
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  41. Rudolf

    Rudolf Well-Known Member

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    I never understood what the English speaking community did with the Latin alphabet.
     
  42. theorganist

    theorganist Well-Known Member

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    Blame the Anglo-Saxons and the fall of the Roman empire certainly for the end of its use in Britain. It was still being used in churches until relatively recently.
     
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  43. Rudolf

    Rudolf Well-Known Member

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    I would not dare to blame anyone, but it is just remarkable.
     
  44. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    Full marks! You win a cookie.
     
  45. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    Far less than, say, the French-speaking community.

    When the Anglo-Saxons became Christianized naturally their monks and scribes adopted the Latin alphabet together with the language. However, England had a vernacular literary culture earlier than in most places, and written Old English, a language which had certain sounds not found in Latin, looked back to its native "runic" or futhorc alphabet to fill in the gaps. Hence the preservation of the futhorc letters thorn, eth, yogh and wynn until well into the Middle English period. These all disappeared more or less with the rise of printing, since most early typesets in England were imported from Germany or Italy.
     
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2021
  46. roysto25

    roysto25 Well-Known Member

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    A slightly different problem in pronunciation occurs in Welsh - there is no easy way to know whether a noun is male or female in welsh, which creates issues because the language is a mutated language - i.e. the word spelling and/or pronunciation changes depending on a series of rules, one of which is the gender of the word (6 mutations!). So welsh words are typically learnt together with the gender-dependent definitive article, so you know the gender.
     
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  47. raretrack

    raretrack Well-Known Member

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    Or how about this: a written 'z' that's pronounced as 'ts' or 'tch'!
     
  48. dhekelian

    dhekelian Well-Known Member

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    Hiro Protagonist, we do indeed have a very good idea what Old English would sound like. It is still spoken and taught for one but Friesland in the Netherlands has a dialect very closely matched to Old English, so close they can understand each other in conversation which would sense as Friesland was on the route for Angles and Saxons onto England (Aenglaland).
     

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