All You Brits!

[NickNack]

HELP!! I was watching "Four Weddings and a Funeral" yesterday and the movie triggered a nagging question.

Why is the name SAINT (ST.) JOHH pronounced "sin-jin", or something like that? There's a hysterical seen in the movie where the priest performing the wedding can't bring himself to say 'sin-jin' and when he does say St. John (the character's name was Bernard St. John Delaney) he is corrected.

Just curious. First thought about this when I heard it pronounced that way in an old James Bond flick but never asked anyone.

Thanks in advance for the culture lesson.

[SandraDee]

I think its just one of those 'quirks' that we're known for Nicky. I've always wondered wht St.John is pronounced that way. We're a strange lot u know!

[QUINNY]

I don't know the answer, but even that's not as bad as some others.
for instance I beleive that 'Cholmondley' is pronounced 'Chumlee' and of course the classic that gets us Brits chortling whenever an American tries to pronounce it
'Worcestershire' which is pronounced somewhere between 'wooster' and 'wuster'(sorry don't quite know how to annotate the phonetics).
Of course there's always Magdelen College, Oxford, pronounced 'Mawdlin'.

[SandraDee]

Yes, there are some strange pronunciations in English.
Since I posted the last reply I was talking about this topic to my partner who's very knowledgeable about history & languages (clever dick!) & he says that this pronunciation of st.john is derived from the French way of saying it because alot of english is derived from French originally. This probably happened around the 11th century when the French ruled the British Isles, & the English language as we know it was in it's infancy; before the french invasion the natives of the British Isles spoke Anglo-Saxon which differed considerably to the English we know now.

Hope that answers your question Nicky!
_________________
IF THERE'S A CURE FOR THIS I DON'T WANT IT.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Steely Dan on 2002-10-07 14:33 ]</font>

[QUINNY]

Getting back to ST. JOHN I think I'm right in saying that it's only pronounced 'sin jan' if it's a christian name, or as the first surname of a double barrelled name.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: QUINNY on 2002-10-07 14:53 ]</font>

[NickNack]

Thanks Steely and Quinny. Mystery solved for me. The "French derivation" scenario sounds very plausible. I can almost hear it in my head being slurred over the centuries from "St. Jean" (san-jon) to 'sin-jin'. And we've got our own set of quirks for sure. Some caused by regional accents and others just English being slaughtered.

In Northeast America, "park your car over here" becomes "paaark your caaar ova heah". Just stretching those words to death. My teachers said our language gets ruined because we're in a hurry. "What are you going to do" takes too long so we say, "What'cha gonna do". Hell, we even print it that way sometimes. (Check out Stephanie Mills' hit.)

Thanks for enlightening me. I was thinking it might have some religious connection, respect for the name or something, so I was way off base. Glad I asked.