Take that, Eyjafjallajökull.
My mother was very impressed with him: Liam, she notes, is an Irish name. She can do itâŠI canât.
That had to be the weather guy having some fun. There was the tiniest eyebrow right at the end.
I read somewhere that the man is Welsh, but I canât find it now.
Thatâs pretty much the test. You have to say the name in front of a panel, and if they approve you get a passport and a bag of cockles.
And even more impressive, he did it with a lithp.
SoâŠMr. Weatherman, thatâs very impressive. Letâs see you try some Algonquin:
Lake [CharÂgoggÂaÂgoggÂmanÂchauggÂaÂgoggÂchauÂbunÂaÂgungÂaÂmaugg][1]
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Chaubunagungamaugg.
Jusr rolls off the tongue for people in Webster, Massachusetts.
Just FYI, your cat seems to have walked across the keyboard during that last comment.
All you need is a bit of practice.
Hereâs a strangely catchy way to do so:
Reminds me of the old Onion article, Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia; Cities of Sjlbvdnzv, Grzny to Be First Recipients
.
Except it appears a truck convoy of fresh-picked consonants overturned in Wales, and now theyâre breeding out of control.
This is a common misconception about Welsh. In fact, in Welsh, âmâ, âkâ, âllâ and âchâ are all considered vowels.
Aw heck. Itâs just not possible to have fun with Other Peopleâs Languages any more, is it? I blame it on the French and their fourteen-letter, two-syllable town names.
Hell, I struggle to pronounce âAngleseyâ
He doesnât pronounce the voiceless lateral fricative ll, er, laterally. That is, from one side of the mouth or the other but rather down the middle. Iâve been told that you pick one side and you stick with it for the rest of your life.
My guess is, heâs not Welsh. Or at least a native welsh speaker.
Are these Welsh names singular words, or are they like the German âlong wordsâ which are effectively just a sentence with no spaces?
It means something like âSt. Maryâs Church in the hollow of white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the red cave.â
I think they made it up so theyâd have the railway station with the longest name, to help tourism.
Thatâs easy. Ynys MĂŽn
The village with the long name is a ridiculous compound name that was made up by the railway company to get people to visit. It worked.
But what do the locals call the place when theyâre in a hurry? Out here in El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ăngeles del RĂo de PorciĂșncula, we tend to shorten it to just âL.A.â
'Cause ainât nobody got time for that.
Llanfair PG, I think.
