10 UK Place Names Americans Can't Pronounce Correctly

6. Places Ending In "Shire"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Hz6TGwr_A&feature=youtu.be Another common suffix that gets a little tangled crossing the Atlantic is "-shire", as in Monmouthshire, Gloucestershire, Staffordshire, etc. As with the "-ham" ending, the idiosyncratically British way of saying it is to swallow part of the suffix. Here, it's the "e" at the very end that's being cast adrift and, for an encore, the vowel sound gets altered too. The combined effect is to make the "-shire" more like "-shurr". With this place name, the volunteer guessed it correctly on the first attempt, but then second-guessed herself and made the classic error of saying "shire" as if the word were being used by itself rather than as a suffix. Of course, when the word is used by itself, as in "Shire Hall", the pronunciation matches the spelling. The English language is so consistent. As an aside, the word "shire" comes from the Old English term "scir", which described an area under official charge. Since the term is used interchangeably with "county" these days, the meaning is still concerned with how a region is governed. Here's the correct British way of saying Monmouthshire, although the US version would still be comprehensible to most English people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aWrv7C_6wc