The last of our merry-go-round elements is PEN. This means “head/top/end” and is very often found in the names of headlands. In the west of Cornwall it often turns up as PEDN, because of the process known as pre-occlusion. Locally, PEN is pronounced pən when unstressed. So, for example, the place where I live is often pronounced pənˈzaːns by proper Cornish folk, rather than penˈzæns, which is what up-country folk call it.

I forgot to mention in the previous post that PORTH behaves similarly when unstressed. So, for example, Porthcurnow (“cove of horns/pinnacles”) is locally pronounced pəθˈkɜrnɒʊ.

Consider if you will the name Polgigga (pɒlˈdʒɪɡə). This place is not very far from the place in the picture above. The name is recorded in 1327 as Pensiger, meaning “head of the Siger (stream name)”. This is not an isolated case. I have just done a quick count in Weatherhill’s A Concise Dictionary of Cornish Place-names (Evertype: Cathair na Mart, 2009) and found six examples of names beginning POL which originally began with PEN.

I haven’t yet found any examples where PEN has been replaced by PORTH, or indeed where either POL or PORTH have been replaced by PEN, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if there are a few lurking somewhere.

TOL, by the way, means “hole”, so Tol-Pedn-Penwith means “hole of the headland of Penwith”. There is a very deep blow-hole in the headland.

Porth Joke. Credit: Charles Winpenny, Cornwall Cam

However, the basic meaning of this element appears to be “entrance”. It is true that it is often used to mean “cove” or “harbour” and thus overlaps with the meaning of POL. That it doesn’t always have one of those meanings is demonstrated by the the name Bosporthennis (pron: bəzˈprenɪs). This place is not far from here and is in the centre of the peninsula, quite a long way from the sea. The name means “dwelling at the entrance to Ninnes“. Ninnes derives from an ennis, which means either “the island” or “the isolated place”.

The problem with PORTH is that it quite often has changed into POL, and vice versa. Polperro, which I left hanging at the end of the last posting is an example. This name was recorded in 1303 as Porthpira. The second element is either a personal name or the name of a stream. Just to scramble your braincells a little more Polperro is situated on the River Pol.

Another example of the PORTH – POL confusion is the place in the picture. Porth Joke has an alternative local name Polly Joke. There is disagreement about the meaning of the second element. Some say it means “jackdaw”, others say it means “rich in plants”.

An example of the change from POL to PORTH is the wonderfully named Porth Kidney. This is situated not far from here near St. Ives. The name was recorded in 1580 as Polkymyas. The second element means “permission (to land goods)”.

So now you see why I titled this and the previous posting Place-name Merry-Go-Round. And I haven’t finished yet.

I think it’s about time for another foray into Cornish place-names.

We’ll start with the element POL. This according to Padel means: pit, pool, stream, cove or creek. Quite a choice. He remarks drily: “It is often difficult to decide which of the various meanings is present in a particular place-name.”

There are quite a few POL names in these parts. Less than a mile away from here there is a dwelling called Pol Teggan (“beautiful POL”, I think) and about the same distance away is a vineyard called Polgoon (“POL on the moor”). A little further afield there is Polpry (usually glossed as “clay pit”) which has the rather unexpected pronunciation pɒlˈpraɪ. And much further away in north Cornwall there is my favourite, Polyphant (“toad pool”).

Perhaps the best-known POL name is Polperro, which is a very picturesque tourist destination. But more on this name in a later post.

Polperro. Credit: Mick Knapton. Used under this licence.

From an article in a weekend newspaper: “a third of the women surveyed thought that their husbands were better cooks than they were”. That’s a nice ambiguous sentence, isn’t it? And it’s one that can be disambiguated in speech. But how?

From a cooking blog:

One of my favorite pasta dishes is tortelloni (the square ones, Romagna style) filled with Swiss chard and ricotta. My fondness for the dish was evident from the time I was a small boy and my grandmother made them for me while my parents were away. After polishing off a generous adult portion, I proceeded to collapse on the table, terrifying my grandmother who promptly called the doctor. After examining me, the doctor pronounced me “happy and asleep”.

For me the word street, like many other words beginning with the letters <str>, is pronounced with the cluster sṯɹ at the beginning. Over the years I have noticed more and more people pronouncing these words with the cluster ʃtʃɹ. I don’t know exactly how long this has been going on, but it seems to be quite a time. I have a relative who consistently uses this pronunciation and he turns 40 this year.

As far as I know, no-one has suggested a name for the process, so I would like to suggest STREET assimilation. I don’t know if anyone has done a serious study of the phenomenon. If not it seems like a worthwhile project to me.

STREET assimilation does not only affect words beginning <str>, but also those beginning <stj>, giving pronunciations like ʃtʃ(j)uːdnt and ʃtʃ(j)uːpɪd.

There are lots of things I don’t know about this feature. Here are some of them:

• Is it more common for male speakers than for females?
• Does it occur in one part of the UK more than others?
• Does it happen in other parts of the English-speaking world?
• Does it occur word-internally in words such as distress, and when followed by an unstressed vowel in words such as pastry ?
• Does it ever occur across word boundaries in phrases like this train or even missed you?

Photo credit: Marek Szczepanek. Used under this licence.

A gang of four or five goldfinches have become daily visitors to the garden here. I don’t think I had seen one until a couple of years ago. The secret of attracting them is a bird-feeder full of niger (aka nyjer) seeds.

I wish I could say I took the photo. I have tried, but the little blighters won’t stay still.

I think The Vowel Machine was the first JavaScript program I ever wrote. That was back in 1999. I managed to rescue it when my BTInternet webspace was closed down. I have spruced it up a bit and relaunched it.

You can find it here and there is also a link to it in the side-bar. I hope it is useful to some of you.

John was an excellent phonetician with expert knowledge of a wide range of languages, including German, Russian and Turkish. He was also very active in the field of forensic phonetics and co-authored a book on the subject which was published in 1990.

John’s great passion was music. He was an accomplished musicologist and performer and for many years a leading member of the Balkan Music ensemble Dunav.

As a teacher and a colleague John was unfailingly kind and considerate and I have many pleasant memories of working with him and talking to him almost on a daily basis for many years.

I’ll be changing the questions from time to time, so check back occasionally.