Many years ago I worked as a young assistant to a gentleman of the old school. One day I was in his office presenting my latest results with what we would now call a spreadsheet, but then called a schedule
The man kept going Sh! Sh! Sh! causing me to stop with an enquiring look, whereupon he gave a wave of his hand & said Carry on!
On about the third occurrence I had to ask him to explain
The word, he said, is not skedule
When I told my husband about this he advised me to tell him the one about Generals Eisenhower & Montgomery
Monty could not stand Ike’s pronunciation in their discussions of the timetable for the D Day landings
- I think you will find, General, that the word is pronounced shed-ule, not sked-ule
- Oh, that’s OK, General, replied Ike. It’s just that you & I did not go to the same shool
Well, I couldn’t. Not just because I would be too scared, but because any fule knowe that sch is soft before an e or an i, but hard before a, o or u
All this is just by way of introducing the fact that I am going to comment on someone else’s pronunciation
No less a person than Professor David Cannadine presented a Radio 4 Archive Hour on Saturday about the relations between the monarchy & the BBC
He astonished me by more than once, pronouncing the name of Lord Altrincham with a ch as in cheese, rather than a k sound. And this from a historian who has made a special subject of the aristocracy
I wonder how he pronounces the Cheshire town of that name?
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