Re: Pronunciation of Station Names

[Eddie.Oliver@efs.mq.edu.au (Eddie Oliver)]

A few comments:

1.  I have lived in Sydney all my life, and near Telopea for much of it. Before this debate
arose, I had NEVER even heard Tel - o - PEE - a, let alone thought of it as a regular
pronunciation. It is Tel -OH- pee -a.

2.  Someone pointed out the tendency towards stress on the last syllable in NSW.
I think there is a definite evolution occurring here. When I was young, people said
things like MORR - i - set,  THORN - lee,  COW - ann for Morisset, Thornleigh,
Cowan respectively..  About 20 years ago, there
was a trend towards equalising the stress, with roughly equal stress on the first
and last syllables.  In the last ten years, the trend has gone even further towards
maximum stress on the last syllable.

I personally find Morr- is-SET and Thorn - LEE  quite offensive, but it's a sign
of the times.

3. Someone said Awaba is a -WORB -a, and someone else said a-WOB-a.  The
railway place is a-WOB-a,  but perversely the street in Mosman (part of a group
named after country locations) is pronounced as a-WORB-a.

4. One of the worst cases is Telarah.  90% of people call it tel-AR-ah, which I regard
as correct, but there are a number of diehards including even some local drivers
who say TELL-a-rah.  This is one which will probably never become uniform.

5.  And for the worst case, I suggest Corobimilla (first loop south of Narrandera).
Locals tend to say COB-ra-milla, which is perverse because it actually reverses
the "r" and "b".  However CORR-a-bim-ILL-a and corr-a-BIM-illa are also heard.

6. Another case of non-uniform pronunciations is words ending in "wa", e.g.
Merriwa. One gets both a strong "war" pronunciation of the last syllable - MERR-ee-WAR -
and a very abbreviated version where the "wa" is little more than 'w" as in the very initial
sound in "war" -  MERR-i-w.

Question from me: where is the stress in "Warracknabeal?"

Eddie Oliver