Column: Clinton Rogers on the mispronunciation of names

A survey of 2,000 adults found that many stumble over quite common words like Worcestershire (apparently locals say it is definitely 'Wors-tes-shur') and gnocchi (I have no idea!).

In the list of 20 words were also quinoa, chipotle and aesthetic.

Top of the list was Acai.

Don’t ask - I have no idea even what it is.

But it all set me thinking about my fun days managing BBC Somerset Sound, as it was more than 30 years ago, and presenting the breakfast show.

When we recruited new broadcast staff, especially if they came from outside the area, a lot of time was spent making sure they knew that Frome was pronounced as in broom, not home.

Crewkerne was a tricky one – it seemed to me that the correct pronunciation depended on which local you asked.

When we had visiting staff from London, they seemed to be rather amused by some of our town and village names.

The one that tickled their fancy more than any was Henlade, near Taunton.

Oh, they did laugh … until I pointed out they had names like Elephant and Castle.

It’s always fascinating to study the origin of town/village names.

From research that I have done, Henlade seems to come from the Old English for a clearing or sloping valley (lade) and a person’s name (Hana).

If you know otherwise please tell me.

Radio audiences could be quite unforgiving if you pronounced names incorrectly.

That said, there were always rows on how to pronounce controversy.

If you said con-trov-er-see, people would complain and if you said contra-versy, you’d also get irate listeners ringing in.

Thank goodness we had a BBC pronunciation unit to turn to.

But my most embarrassing personal mispronunciation came when I was asked to step in at late notice to present a night-time rock show on BBC Radio Bristol called 'Six O’clock Rock'.

The wonderfully knowledgeable regular presenter, Al Read, had gone sick and the producer thought I’d be a good stand-in, given that I was a bit of an amateur musician.

I tried to convince her that as far as I was concerned "rock" was The Beatles.

The kind of music Al played was alien to me.

"Not a problem," said the producer.

"I will write cards for you to introduce every song."

What could possibly go wrong?

All was going well until the last 10 minutes of the show.

The cards were a gift – so much information on them I sounded quite knowledgeable.

Then I had to introduce a track by a band called ZZ Top.

So off I went:

"Here’s the latest offering from Zed Zed Top."

No-one told me it was Zee Zee.

Credibility of show and presenter destroyed in less than 10 seconds.

Oddly enough they never asked me back.