Whether you’ve lived in the same city all your life or have just moved to a new town, there are bound to still be places you don’t know how to properly pronounce. If in doubt, there’s usually a few ways to find out how to correctly say place names – like, for instance, by listening to train announcers.
You’d like to think that train announcers know how to pronounce the places they’re announcing, but apparently they don’t. In fact, a train operator in northern England recently re-recorded a batch of station announcements following backlash from local residents.
The stations in question are in Lancashire and Cumbria – and, in total, 34 place names were re-recorded. Among them were Kirkham and Wesham, Euxton Balshaw Lane, Hall i' th' Wood and Mossley Hill. The latter was apparently mispronounced ‘Mose-ley’ instead of ‘Moss-ley’. Blasphemy!
According to train operator Northern Rail, its station announcements were updated earlier this year but faced backlash for still getting many of them wrong. Thankfully, the mistakes were rectified shortly after, thanks to the help of ‘really passionate’ locals, according to station announcer Laura Palmer, who re-recorded the names.
The 34 station names re-recorded were.
Accrington
Ardwick
Ashburys
Aspatria
Barnsley
Barrow-in-Furness
Bentham
Burneside
Cark-in-Cartmel
Chesterfield
Dodworth
Doncaster
Dore & Totley
Elsecar
Euxton Balshaw Lane
Gathurst
Hall i' th' Wood
Handforth
Heighington
Hessle
Ilkeston
Kirkham and Wesham
Langwathby
Lazonby & Kirkoswald
Lostock Gralam
Mossley Hill
Redcar
Roose
Slaithwaite
South Elmsall
Sowerby Bridge
Thurnscoe
Todmorden
Wombwell
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