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

"Milngavie"

That ones fairly well known now though isn't it?

I'll have to ask my mate Pete who's from Glagow, if he thinks I sound like a Gasgie hard man when I say it, rather than just a twerpy Angle.

>I'd give anything to be able to roll my Rs in the Scottish manner. To pronounce words like 'Park' as 'park', and not 'pahk' in the English manner.<

Cripes, this was the bane of my life growing up in an English school with my 'strange' r rolling thing going on.

I'd have given anything to lose it back then. Not even sure if I still do it now though.

Auchtermuchty is even better Ictoan - if a bit more obvious

hubby says IRRRRRRRvinn, he can do the 'r'rolling thing, I spit when I try that so I pronounce it like Ervin

And I'd never know a single thing to say/ If I had to flatten all my vowels/ And throw the R away...

my surname is a french one, if i was told right it means"of light.
-
as in "the flower of light.
-
baptismal name,"son of lucy"
-
family motto in my tag, english and latin. jim

but there is the ever reliable A19773499 Orcus

Ah, yes. That menions Ecclefechan.

That reminds me of the story of the new teacher at a Dumfriesshire school who gave a boy detention when he told her he was 'Waiting for the 'Fechan bus.'

In Ireland, Mc and Mac are pronounced exactly the same. They are just two different spellings of the same thing. The phone book doesn't even distinguish between them in alphabetical order, treating them both as mac.

It's highly variable. It's going to depend on dialect and ideolect.

In Western Isles, spelling can vary between Mc and Mac even within a family.

I pronounce it 'uhrvin' and also 'mull-guy'

hows about Penicuik then? or Tighnabruich ?

mini

Well in Irish, Tighnabruich would be pronounced:

tee-nuh-bru-ich with a slender ch like the one in the German word ich (not the broad one in the German or Scottish word ach).

In Nova Scotia the distinction between Mcs and Macs is clear, traditional and very prejudicial. The Scottish protestant Macks have long maintained a superior attitude over the 'johnny-come-lately' Irish catholic micks.

Many of the earliest settlers were from Highland regiments who were granted lands for their service in King George's armies. The Irish were considered poor refugees of a later date.

The phone book still keeps them quite separate and until quite recently the public school system also provided separate schools.

The Irish were lumped together with the French catholics (who had been here much longer than anyone but the aboriginals) where they were all beaten by nuns with pointers and rulers.

The Scots were put in with normal white English protestants and social climbed their way to positions of power including several Canadian Prime Ministers and other nation builders.

Curiously, adding to the Mick and Mack confusion, the local aboriginals were called Micmacs. This became a handy dismissive and was a complete insult to the natives who actually called themselves something sounding more like 'Me-agga-mucgs'.


~jwf~

Tin-ah-bru-uch with the ch being the same ch sound as is in loch.

mini

My boyfriend's family are named Wallace, from William Wallace who lead the Scottish War of Independence.

Auchtermuchty, Ecclefechen, Tighnabruaich; the three reasons my Mum insisted we moved away from Scotland when I was six, having lived there for just over five years. I could pronounce these fabulous towns' names fluently, but was getting to a point where she couldn't understand me herself.

I'm married to a Smith (silversmith, I'm told), the most common name in the country...
My maiden name is Meirzon (Meh-eer-zon), Romanian for son of Me'ir. Jews had to take on surnames for means of identification in European. They derived usually from occupations or genaeology (like in my maiden name's case).
Gorman is also a Jewish name, but not sure what it means. Sounds eastern european to me.

>>Jews had to take on surnames for means of identification in European.

Everybody in Europe had to take on surnames for means of identification. Surnames were not common in most places in Europe until fairly recently.

When German Jews were first registered in Germany, many were given deliberately silly names by the local officials.

My surname is Norse, and comes from a hamlet near Hull. Presumably it was founded or renamed after some leader as part of the Danelaw.