Thursday Special ~ Tourists
On a beautiful summer’s day, two English tourists were driving through Wales .
At the town of,
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
they stopped for lunch, and one of the tourists asked the waitress,
“Before we order, I wonder if you could settle an argument for us.
Can you pronounce where we are, very, very, very slowly?
The girl leaned over and said,
>
>
>
>
Burrr…. Gurrr…. King…
.
.
.
Thank you David for this weeks story!
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is a small town on the Island of Anglesey, which is located off the northwest coast ofNorth Wales.
gaelikaa said,
February 4, 2010 at 8:15 am
I always get that spelling wrong. I never get the full no. of letters.
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllantysiliogogoch
No. Wrong again. Oh, well!
Nick said,
February 4, 2010 at 9:37 am
Known to the locals I believe as Llanfair PG. For obvious reasons.
steph said,
February 4, 2010 at 10:05 am
It took me a moment to get it
Very good!
Cardi said,
February 4, 2010 at 11:07 am
The one and only BK is in Llandegai - across the water near Bangor … wouldn’t sound the same somehow, I suppose -
Grannymar said,
February 4, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Gaelikaa - I am glad it never came up in a spelling test.
Nick - I don’t blame the locals, imagine writing that on the official forms of today with tiny spaces for addresses.
Steph - That is because you forgot the chips!
Cardi - Nick has gone back to sleep and Magpie is not awake yet… so it is safe to whisper “Them English know nuttin”!
Nick said,
February 4, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Them English don’t know all that much, though they like to think they do.
Grannymar said,
February 4, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Nick - Them English are no different to the Irish or indeed to anyone else in the world!
kenju said,
February 4, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Too funny!!
bikehikebabe said,
February 4, 2010 at 6:03 pm
One reason that I couldn’t learn Swedish, (my daughter lives in Sweden) is that lots of their words are very long & should be sentences. The thought the word conveys IS a whole sentence.
I wish I could give you an example, but like I said, I couldn’t learn them.
Magpie11 said,
February 4, 2010 at 7:03 pm
Aaaah! Awake at last….. At least we English, unlike the Welsh and some other Celts, don’t claim that ours is God’s own language. We know it is! Everyone else is playing catchup! ;-0
Please give a round of applause to my friend Pippa in Newport, Monmouthshire. for the joke.
BTW am reading a book about the History of the English language…fascinating.
Baino said,
February 4, 2010 at 7:58 pm
My mother could let this trip off her tongue but I never managed to get my head around it. I believe it’s the longest Station Name in the UK.
Magpie11 said,
February 4, 2010 at 8:14 pm
At one time it was the longest station name in the world I believe.
There are longer ones in South Africa and India Iam told.
Grannymar said,
February 4, 2010 at 8:23 pm
Judy -
BHB - They join words in german too.
Magtpie - Now now!
Big thanks to Pippa in Newport, Monmouthshire for the joke.
Baino - I never managed to say it either. Ser what Magpie says above about the station names.
Cardi said,
February 4, 2010 at 8:46 pm
Magpie - I honestly didn’t have an unkind thought about …… soooo…
The English language is a vast flea market of words, handed down, borrowed or created over more than 2000 years. And it is still expanding, changing and trading. Our language is not purely English at all - it is a ragbag of diverse words that have come to our island from all around the world. Words enter the language in all sorts of ways: with invaders, migrants, tradesmen; in stories, artworks, technologies and scientific concepts; with those who hold power, and those who try to overthrow the powerful.
In fact, very few Celtic words have lived on in the English language. But many of our place names have Celtic origins, such as London, Dover and Kent, & the rivers Thames & Wye.
Approximately one third of Anglo-Saxon vocabulary survives into modern English, including many of our most basic, everyday words: earth, house, food, sing, night and sleep. By the 7th century Latin speakers refer to this country as Anglia - the land of the Angles - a name that will later develop into England.
Christian missionaries, led by St. Augustine, move through the land, converting the Anglo-Saxons from their Pagan beliefs to a Catholic Christian faith. Throughout Europe, the language of the Church is Latin, and the missionaries inject hundreds of new Latin words into the English language. English is spoken differently in different counties, but four main dialects exist and resemble the English we know today. These dialects are Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon and Kentish.
For a hundred years the Vikings control most of Eastern England.
etc, etc…… God’s own language - don’t really know whose language English is…
Maynard said,
February 4, 2010 at 8:51 pm
There is a lake in Massachusetts called: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg– I just call it– That lake.
Grannymar said,
February 4, 2010 at 9:00 pm
Cardi - We had the war of the roses… now it is time for the war of the teachers! I’ll be in the staff room with the first aid box if you need me!
Paddy Bloggit where are you when we want you? We might need a referee! 
Maynard - You still have a way to go, your lake has only 45 characters whiles the Station in Wales has 58!
Cardi said,
February 4, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Dammit I never started it ….
and it’s not enough of a reason to come out of retirement….
sorry -
on that point it’s past my bed time … zzzzzzzzzzz
Darlene said,
February 4, 2010 at 10:07 pm
On my tour of England we ventured into a town in Wales and it was one of those long Llang—-names. I asked a local pharmacist how to pronounce it. It was ‘Lang-0-than’ and I still remember how to pronounce it but I would never be able to spell it. If I weren’t so lazy I would go look it up in my diary I kept while traveling. I suppose some of you know the town I am referring to.
Grannymar said,
February 4, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Darlene - Wales is full of places that begin with Llan. Cardi is our resident expert, so maybe he will come to our aid.
Cardi said,
February 4, 2010 at 11:18 pm
This name was a tongue-in-cheek invention of the mid 19th century designed to attract much-needed traffic to a declining railway station and freight-yard on the island of Anglesey in North Wales. A tailor from Menai Bridge is credited with the invention
Meanings of individual word elements
Llanfair - Church of St Mary
llan (church) + fair (from “Mair”, Welsh equivalent of the name Mary)
pwyllgwyngyll - pool (or hollow) of the white hazel trees
pwll (pool/hollow) + gwyn (white) + gyll (from “cyll”, hazel)
gogerychwyrndrobwll - near the fierce whirlpool
goger (near) + y (the) + chwyrn (wild) + drobwll (from “trobwll”, whirlpool)
Llandysilio - Church of St Tysilio
llan (church) + dysilio (from “Tysilio” a Welsh saint)
gogogoch - red cave
gogo (cave) + goch (from “coch”, red)
Credit for the above to John Ball
http://www.jlb2005.plus.com/index.html
Maynard said,
February 5, 2010 at 12:30 am
Crap, always one -uping on me. (13 to be exact)
Magpie11 said,
February 5, 2010 at 1:29 pm
That’s right…God’s own language created at Babel…
Seriously, I admit to doing the I’m English and Proud bit…having suffered so long from the “I’m (insert your choice of nation) and Proud and the English are the devil’s spawn” syndrome for so many years.
The beauty of the English language is that it is multi sourced and multi influenced and I’m learning so much from my reading of Crystall’s book.
Cardi’s overview, of necessity, is fairly simplistic…I’m not sure of the influence of Latin at the moment. It appears that the early church used dialects of Old English (mainly Wessex) long after Augustin went the way of all flesh. What I was interested to learn is that Norman French did not have much influence. Weight of numbers it seems.
Old Norse seems to have had a huge influence in the North East… mention of Scotland is rarely made, apparently.
BTW I didn’t start it either!
I don’t know Welsh but I wonder how much influence other languages had on it?
Darlene said,
February 5, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Magpaie II, Latin is the basis of many English words. For example: Aqua is water in Latin and we have acquaduct, aquarium, etc. You will find the root of many English words found in Latin.