inverness

[ctbuchanan]

I grew up in the small town of Norfolk, Connecticut which we always pronounced Norr-fuk. It was routinely the coldest town in the state in the winter because it was up in the Berkshires (Berkshears). We always knew when the weatherperson on the local station was new because they would pronounce it Nor-foulk.

And as for the habit of dropping 'r's in New England, that is only an eastern (coastal) New England thing. On the west side of the Connecticut river every 'r' is enunciated strongly. I have often read that the western half of Connecticut is an area with literally no accent of any kind.

Sorry I missed this thread when it first started.

[MacKenzie]

I grew up in the small town of Norfolk, Connecticut which we always pronounced Norr-fuk.

Interesting. Growing up in the Tidewater area of Virginia, Norfolk, Va. was pronounced "Naw-fuk" or "Nor Fork", the latter sounding like two distinct words.

[ctbuchanan]

Interesting. Growing up in the Tidewater area of Virginia, Norfolk, Va. was pronounced "Naw-fuk" or "Nor Fork", the latter sounding like two distinct words.

My brother was stationed there in the Navy (go figure) and we always heard it as the Nor-Fork.

Dialects are strange.

[RectaPete]

Interesting. Growing up in the Tidewater area of Virginia, Norfolk, Va. was pronounced "Naw-fuk" or "Nor Fork", the latter sounding like two distinct words.

"Nor-fork" just sounds strange to my English ear. It's "Nor-fuk" just about everywhere in the UK. Likewise, Birmingham is not "Birming-HAM" as most Americans say, but "Birming-UM". Stories about an American tourist asking where "LIE-cess-turr" is appear to be an urban legend...

[The Q]

Perhaps I should let people know of this site,

http://www.norfolkdialect.com/

Unfortunately I don't know of a similar site for Inverness, but there are plenty for the Gaelic.

[Catharps]

Port Fourchon Louisiana is the central hub of logistics for the domestic offshore oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico. There are routinely around 250 vessels working the port and no VTS (vessel traffic service- so no pilots or check in points or centralized control- and thank god for that!) All vessels communicate on VHF 13, as do most of the docks.

The local Creole-French accent and sentence structure, combined with industry slang and idioms, made my life interesting for a while! 8 years later I occasionally still have to take a moment to process what I hear to Yankee.