Now, hold on friend! The surname Clive was pronounced as "cliff" by Clive
of India and probably so by Lady Clive who married a near descendant of
his.
This pronunciation still exists in the place name "Cliveden" - the place

the Thames where the Cliveden set used to meet. Go to Cliveden now
(National Trust property, gardens open to the public, house with limited
access as it is used as a hotel) and hear the locals! In these examples,
the modern word cliff derives from clive in turn coming from the
Anglo-Saxon word for, would you believe it, 'cliff'. So perhaps it is the
letter 'v' sound that is wrong as well as a short 'i'.

Menzies is pronounced as "Mingiss", with the "ng" being a diphthong in
Scots' dialect as it is in any English word ending in "-ing". The 'iss' is
very short with the emphasis on the first syllable. Try saying "being" or
"thongs" or "meaningful"; the 'n' and 'g' are not pronounced separately

it is not just a combination of the two letters. This is very close to the
'n' with a squiggle over it that Alberto was referring to recently and
which in American English became corrupted to 'ny' as in canyon. To an
untrained ear it may sound as "Minniss" with two short letters 'i'.
I believe Robert Menzies, former Prime Minister of Australia pronounced it
as spelt, English style, but then they do things differently down there.

One further thought. If you do a spell check in Outlook 97, the word
'clive' is not in its dictionary. The first suggested replacement is
'cliff'.

If you want a puzzle, how many ways can you pronounce "Nerine"? This will
be TOW at end of April. Have your homework ready by then!!

Regards Hamish
(to the Irish I would be Seamus - O'hamish is the vocative form - to most
of you I would be James, to Alberto, I would be Jaime, in Latin, Jacobus,
etc.....)

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