(no subject)
Brian Whyer (Fri, 11 Apr 2003 09:07:28 PDT)
Thanks Hamish. I have lived most of my life within 2 miles of Cliveden
and am forever correcting visitors pronunciation from long i to short,
when they want to go there.
Note it is this one
http://www.windsor.gov.uk/attractions/cliveden.htm
not this one
http://www.cliveden.org/
where my guess is they pronounce it differently. Maybe someone in
Pennsylvania can tell us.
Brian Whyer, zone 8'ish, Buckinghamshire, UK
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 on
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'.
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'.