h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is such a delightfully whimsical article - all that talk of rockpools and Enid Blyton made me want to dash off and indulge in lashings of ginger beer! I've actually stayed at Trearddur Bay (not that impressive really as I'm sure many other people have too, but I am from the opposite side of the planet, so I guess that means I should get points for travelling such a long way to get there. Or something!) and found it to be a very pleasant place indeed. I recall imbibing at the local inn; trudging along the beach; looking suitably windswept; and spending inordinate amounts of time trying to figure out how the "dd" could possibly be pronounced "th" (I gave up).

Nice work JZGYK!! Well done

Pleased you liked it. I was indeed in what my uncle Tom would describe as a "whimsimological" mood at the time

There are other places where dd is a source of confusion, notably Beddgelert, a town famously named after a dead dog.

Someone actually named their DOG "Beddgelert"??? Bad enough that it should be the name of a town, but a dog?? That's just cruel!!

I actually had a lot of fun when I was in Wales because it was a great source of amusement to my host to hear my attempts at pronouncing the place names, particularly with my Australian twang. I've needed speech therapy since my return!

No,no, no!The DOG's called GELERT! (And you're thinking, 'and that's supposed to make sense?') The 'bedd' bit comes in beacuse it's the dog's grave. Yep- Bedd is the lovely little welsh word for grave. I'd have thought you'd say it like 'Beh' on the front, and stick your tounge just under your top teeth and say 'Uh' through em. Get a sound like a demented bee and you're there!

I spent ages wandering round Barmouth following signposts to a place called "llwybr crehoeddus" or some such, before I finally realised that this is Welsh for "public footpath"

Oh that's ok then - Gelert is a far more accepatble name for a dog!!

I always thought that the Welsh version of Wheel of Fortune would be a bit strange because there just aren't enough opportunities to "buy a vowel", you know? Mind you, once the contestant has said L and Y most of the puzzle would be revealed anyway!!

A, E, I, O, U, W, Y are all vowels in Welsh so we have 7. There is a higher proportion of vowels in Welsh words than in English, for example.

As for why DD is pronounced TH - it just is. In English why is TH pronounced TH and not CH, PL or KN? - it's just the way it is.
In fact English TH represents 2 sounds; the TH as in Think or Thistle and the TH as in The or This'll Do. In Welsh, TH represents the first softer sound and DD represents the second.