Re: Pronunciation of Station Names

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

Michael Walker <walker@hotkey.net.au> wrote:

>Everybody I have spoken to call it Lay-lor (VIC). My family on my
>mother's side grew up in Reservoir (REZ-er-vor although some call it
>REZ-er-vwa) and in my old job, I have spoken to many people on the phone
>who live there who pronounced it the same way.

I agree (from meagre knowledge) that the station and suburb are commonly
lay-lor.   However the federal electorate is definitely pronounced law-ler, and
I suspect that this is historically correct.

Both were presumably named after the person of that name prominent
in Australian history (I won't show my ignorance by attempting to describe
the history.)

One might conjecture that the electorate name has been preserved by
successive generations of politicians being exposed to the tradition,
while people at large would not hear it in its original rather "obscure"
form and would therefore adopt the more obvious pronunciation.

The other case mentioned above - i.e. REZ-er-vor for Reservoir - is
arguably in a similar category. Likewise Abattoir is often called Ab-at-or. The
"wah" pronunciation comes from the french origins of the words, and
if people aren't taught french, they're scarcely likely to guess.

Eddie Oliver