How does one pronounce "Dorchester"?

jamesg1213

SteveStrummerUK
 
 Cirencester 
 
 

Possibly the first time my birthplace has been mentioned on these here fori.
 
We always referred to it as 'Soyrun'.

craigb

bitflipper
Oddly, it's the normally enunciation-lazy Americans who retain all the letters and the normally more-precise Brits who run them all together and/or drop them entirely.

 
I found it interesting that the Americans tend to speak correctly and that those over in the UK are the ones who changed sometime after the Americans got their independence.  In other words, we speak like they used to.  The change started in the UK when some wanted to exaggerate the class differences, but soon the new way of speaking was being done by just about everyone.  I'll have to see if I can find the article about this, it was very interesting.
 

sharke
The British way of spelling is very much Anglo-French. Words like colour were originally spelled color and originated of course from the Latin, in this case color or colorare.  The French influence came about, unsurprisingly, from the Norman conquest of Britain. The Renaissance saw a revival of the Latin spellings in Britain, and things were pretty much confused until spelling became standardized - in Britain via the dictionary of Samuel Johnson, and in the US by the dictionary of Noah Webster, who believed that words should be shortened where possible. 
 
--- Professor Sharke. 

paulo

sharke
The British way of spelling is very much Anglo-French. Words like colour were originally spelled color and originated of course from the Latin, in this case color or colorare.  The French influence came about, unsurprisingly, from the Norman conquest of Britain. The Renaissance saw a revival of the Latin spellings in Britain, and things were pretty much confused until spelling became standardized - in Britain via the dictionary of Samuel Johnson, and in the US by the dictionary of Noah Webster, who believed that words should be shortened where possible. 
 
--- Professor Sharke. 

Wye aye man, that's reet interesting that ya know all that language bollocks man. Ah Divven't realise that you was all educated an that, like.

bitflipper
It depends on whether you're in Massachusetts or Great Britain, two places that have many placenames in common, but often with radically different pronunciations.  Oddly, it's the normally enunciation-lazy Americans who retain all the letters and the normally more-precise Brits who run them all together and/or drop them entirely.
 
I used to live in a town named Bicester, near Oxford. It was pronounced "bister". I didn't even attempt to say any town names out loud when I visited Wales.

craigb
How do you say "Relegation" in Newcastle and Sunderland?  
 
The Black Cats did well against Everton to keep their chances of avoiding it!