Whenever I had to say "Worcestershire" I've always just kinds of mumbled something like "worsheshtsherhsher sauce." It turns out that that is the
wrong way to say it. Go figure.
One day I sat down and looked at the label of our Lea & Perrins and tried to sound it out. Is is wor-chester-shire? Wor-sess-ter-shire? I really had no idea.
Finally I looked it up online and this is how you say it:
WOOS-ter-sher
Crazy, huh? Just imagine saying "rooster" like a person with a speech impediment (I think it's called a derhotacism when you can't pronounce the letter r). Rooster, sure! Wooster, sure!
I think I will still sound
like an idiot very amature if I tried to say this in real life. I have
never heard anyone pronounce it this way. Now I will feel very self-conscious every time I ask for Worcestershire sauce. I have doomed myself to a life of permanent anxiety. Maybe I'll just live without it from now on.
4 comments:
I say it WORS-te-sher. So not right. Kind of like Lancester. Or any -shires in England. They're always awkward to say.
Yes, I have heard it pronounced WOOS-te-sher. Practice a few times and you'll sound like a pro!
Yeah well, you know, we practically eat it every night, so it'll be so hard to give up.
Your point about never hearing anyone say it that way highlights why a written pronunciation guide sometimes isn’t enough. Listening first, then repeating the whole word without looking at its spelling, can make practice easier. I run American Pronunciation Guide; here’s our Worcestershire pronunciation reference for anyone still puzzling over the sauce label:
https://ipronounce.io/pronounce/worcestershire–gZ4oATyOEB0
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