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[Simon Matthews]

Mark,

who told you that English was written phonetically? They were wrong.
Perhaps centuries ago, but not now.

Regarding place names, the "cester" part is usually pronounced as one
syllable ("ster") -- there are other examples, such as "Leicester".
Other names that have a convention on pronunciation that doesn't match
the spelling include: "Edinburgh" (burgh = borough), Warwick (the "w"
is silent in all "-wick" names), etc..

Unless you want an argument, don't  ask about the pronunciation of
Shrewsbury -- even the locals can't agree about this.

Simon

On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 9:05 PM, Mark J Bradakis <mark at bradakis.com> wrote:
> I'm amused that 'worcestershire' is often pronounced as simply 'woos-ter'
> but 'Jaguar' has about thirteen syllables, give or take.
>
> A common language, indeed!