An update on the Cirencester problem.

If the Cirencester town council thinks they can shut down the debate over the correct pronunciation of their town name with this, they have another think coming.  I will never give in.

I get far more hits at my Salon weblog from queries as to "Cirencester pronunciation"  than I do my other topics.  Almost every day some poor soul ends up at my site trying to find out the right way to pronounce the name of this beautiful and historic city.  Doesn't that tell you something, people of Cirencester?

I think all foreigners would agree that it is a bit much to expect tourists to accept the correct pronunication of  Leicestershire, Worcestershire, Bicester, Leominster, and Towcester, only to be tripped up by having Cirencester turn out to be pronounced exactly as spelled. I note that Cirencester is listed in Wikipedia as one of the English placenames with a nonintuitive pronunciation. While I'm guessing that the writer was assuming that it was the older pronunciation (Sisseter) that is nonintuive, I maintain that pronouncing the name of this -cester town exactly as it looks is completely counter to the average tourist's hard-won understanding of the whole -cester/running-syllables-together Leicester/Worcestershire/Bicester/Leominster/Towcester school of misleading innocent tourists.  It is therefore unfair.

I'm sorry, but the English simply cannot be allowed to have it both ways..  Since it would not be fair to make the people in those five towns change the pronunciation when there are five of them and only one, Siren-sester, Cirencester should gracefully concede the point and start calling itself Cirnster.  If they will not see reason then the rest of the population must intervene.   

I will accept the pronunciation "Sissester" only if they go back to spelling the name Cisetur or Sisator.  Otherwise, Cirnster is the only pronunciation that makes any sense. 

I have a lot of patience with English placenames because of their historical and cultural associations and long history, but for the people of Cirencester to insist, against all other precedent, on pronouncing the name of the city exactly as it is spelled is going too far and it is time that someone called them on it.  Though Rumcove and my husband Nick, Englishmen both, have flatly and treachorously (as ill befits gallant Britons) refused to support me in this campaign, I have made a decision to "step up," as we say over here, and am taking my stand.  Though I've no one at my back, I intend to lead the charge in favor of keeping the pronunciation of English placenames inconsistent with their spelling. If they are going to be inconsistent, they need to be consistent about it.

I hope English people from other towns and tourists everywhere will support me in this too long deferred drive for consistent inconsistency in the pronunciation of English placenames!

copyright Damozel 2006.