5. Places Ending In "Borough" (Or Variations Thereof)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbQVrqiXQVA&feature=youtu.be Just to hit our volunteer with a double whammy, the example here was Loughborough, which has a tricky beginning and end. The start of this word is spoken as "Luff" and the second part is said as "burruh". Our volunteer had two stabs at the "Lough" part, trying "Low" and "Lau". But she consistently said "Boro" for "Borough", because that's the standard pronunciation in the USA. This particularly pesky suffix is used in plenty of other places in the UK, like Marlborough and Scarborough. Not only that, but variations are common: Middlesbrough shortens the ending whilst Edinburgh truncates it even further. Borough, brough, and burgh all mean a fortified settlement or castle. That's why so many places with these suffixes have castles. Again, saying "Boro" in place of "Burruh" wouldn't create too much confusion in Britain but when this ending is combined with the "Lough" beginning, the resulting word is nothing short of a linguistic landmine. Here's how to say Loughborough the British way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCz9SCxpb4I
Mike Morgan
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Mike has lived in the UK, Japan and the USA. Currently, he is based in Iowa with his wife and 2 young children. After working for many years as a writer and editor for a large corporation, he is now a freelancer. He has been fortunate enough to contribute to many books on Doctor Who over the last 20 years and is now concentrating on original sci-fi & fantasy short stories, with recent sales including Flame Tree, Uffda, and The Martian Wave. Also, look for his contribution on Blake's 7 to "You and Who Else", a charity anthology to be released later this year.
You can find him on Tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/culttvmike
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