after sex... shire !

[xmanfe1999]

I've just read the questions and answers (is it what you call a thread ?) about the meaning and origin of the suffix sex in Essex, Middlesex etc. What about 'shire' as in Lancashire, Yorkshire ? And please, how is it pronounced ? I've heard 'shayer' and 'sher' (I'm French). Are both pronunciations correct ?Thanks.

[Artful]

I'm sure you'll get a very good reply about the origin of "shire" and my betting is it will come from QuizMonster. But both your phonetic pronunciations are fine.

[THECORBYLOON]

The term shire was once used to describe what is now called a county and the word comes from scir, an Old English term for an administrative unit so Yorkshire would be the Scir (division) of York . As for the pronunciation of "Shire," a lot of folk (mainly the English) pronounce it "Sheer," "Sher" or "Shur". I pronounce it as it is spelt, "Shire."

[THECORBYLOON]

I should have said those pronunciations are used when part of a county's name so Yorksheer or Yorkshur etc. The word "shire" by itself is pronounced "shire" which is why I would say "Yorkshire" and not "Yorkshur" (the English can't roll their r's so really, they ignore the "r" in "shire") 

[Glossopswift]

It's bound to differ from region to region. I originate from South Staffordsha, my wife from Nottinghamsher. As the big man above says, the word on its own is almost always pronounced 'shire', as in hobbits.

[jno]

I wonder if telling a French speaker, in print, that 'shire' is pronounced 'shire' is any more helpful than telling an English speaker that 'pneu' is pronounced 'pneu'... I'm trying to think of some way of expressing it that's meaningful in French, like saying some people pronounce it like the first syllable of 'Chirac'

[littleoldme]

'Shyer', perhaps?

[IndieSinger]

If xmanfe is au fait with the International Phonetic Alphabet (and the Internet rendition thereof), I would suggest that, in Standard English at least, it's pronounced [SaI@(r)].

[Peter Pedant]

Stand alone - its shayer

when tacked onto another word, it is usually shuh

The Scots tend to say shayer whatever.

[THECORBYLOON]

Peter Pedant "SHAYER?" where's the "a" in the word "shire?"

[jno]

IndieSinger, where can I find an internet version of the phonetic alphabet? My keyboard can barely cope with corbyloon's Scottish let alone some of the foreign characters other people seem to post, so keyboard-friendly phonetics would be useful.

[xmanfe1999]

Hi Corbyloon, don't shout !

Of course, there is no "a" in shire, but as some of you have noticed, keyboards are not phonetics friendly and I, anyway (mea culpa), was the first to propose this gross pseudo-phonetic transcription of the word, hoping that everybody would understand it easily.

I could have proposed rhymes (shire as in sapph-ire, or shire as in struc-ture, or shire as in b-eer, whatsoever...). And,  IndieSinger, I'm au fait with phonetics, having been a teacher  for 15 years but one doesn't know every subtlety of a foreign language even after a linguistic love story of almost three decades.

I'd love to find a computer version of the IPA myself, so, if anybody knows a link, you're welcome.

Thank you all, you are a bunch of pedantic loonies (no offense meant, being one myself) and I love it ! If there were more of you, life would be a bit less dull... (ps :please do correct my English if I commit crimes against your beloved language !) Have a nice weekend.

[IndieSinger]

xmanfe1999 - I've been busy trying to find a table of internet-rendered IPA symbols, but I'm failing miserably. Short of typing them all out myself, which I'd rather not have to do, I don't know what to do!

In this specific example of [SaI@(r)]...

S = the elongated s found in she, ship etc.
a = ordinary roman IPA lower-case a
I = ordinary roman IPA upper-case i
@ = schwa
r = ordinary roman lower-case r

I think you're serious about wanting suggestions about correcting your (obviously already fantastic) English. Just a couple of things - we tend not to put a space between the last word of a sentence and its punctuation mark (like the French do). So maybe pull your exclamation marks in a bit (cf. my second sentence in this message). Also, it should really be written "P.S."

[THECORBYLOON]

xmanfe1999 I realise you used the word "shayer" in the original question but it was Peter Pedant's use and his statement that Scots use that pronunciatioon that annoyed me. For a pedant, he should be more careful about what he says.

As has been said by IndieSinger your English is great and any suggestions on how to improve it would be minor I'm sure.

As for calling us loonies, I can't understand where that impression comes from (cough.)