Pronunciation of Bury's surname

[johns]

Just wanted to get some more thoughts on this wee issue, as I've exhausted everyone at work and most of my mates.

I personally pronounce his surname like "hurry" NOT "berry"

I also pronounce Bury near Manchester, and Bury St Edmunds the same way. Whether or not it's my Birmingham accent at work or some other factor I don't know.

How do you pronounce "Bury"?

[Wyatt Earp]

Just wanted to get some more thoughts on this wee issue, as I've exhausted everyone at work and most of my mates.

I personally pronounce his surname like "hurry" NOT "berry"

I also pronounce Bury near Manchester, and Bury St Edmunds the same way. Whether or not it's my Birmingham accent at work or some other factor I don't know.

How do you pronounce "Bury"?

Just the other day I was looking through YouTube for Bury stuff. If I recall correctly, William Beadle pronounced it as "berry."

I did see another video in which some people who had worked on a play involving Bury pronounced it to rhyme with "hurry."

If it turns out to be the latter, I will have to change the second line of my tombstone poem (in the creative writing section here) and make his final Whitechapel victim Murray instead of Mary. I hope I do not have to do that.

[ChrisGeorge]

Just wanted to get some more thoughts on this wee issue, as I've exhausted everyone at work and most of my mates.

I personally pronounce his surname like "hurry" NOT "berry"

I also pronounce Bury near Manchester, and Bury St Edmunds the same way. Whether or not it's my Birmingham accent at work or some other factor I don't know.

How do you pronounce "Bury"?

I would pronounce it "berry" and would tend to believe that Bill Beadle, as an author on the suspect, is pronouncing it correctly in rendering it that way.

However there are regional and personal differences or preferences at play in the pronunciations of placenames and surnames as well.

My maternal grandfather who was a soldier during WWI reported that two men that he served with were named "Death" and "Sidebottom." The first man pronounced his name as "De Ath" while the second man preferred that his name be pronounced "Siddy Butt Em." Admittedly the second man's name even when pronounced that way still evokes the posterior.

Best regards

Chris

[007]

Good question. I've always pronounced it to rhyme with "hurry" and "worry" as well. But that's just my natural inclination, not due to any special knowledge of the pronunciation.

[martin wilson]

He was a Black Country lad, it would have been pronounced Berry.
All the best.

[Wyatt Earp]

There is some discussion of Bury family history beginning on page 33 of Beadle's 2009 book. The name was spelled in two different ways, as Bury and as Berry. I would assume that Beadle is basing his pronunciation on this.

[martin wilson]

And unless he was putting it on it would have been;

Will ya?; To Chapman
Yow'll be orl roite fer wot I 'ave tode ya; To Kelly
Yow'll say anythin but yer prairs.; To Stride

All the best.

[sdreid]

I always pronounced it BYOO-ry (with a long u like like butane) in my own mind but that was just a guess I suppose.

[martin wilson]

If Bury spoke broad Black Country,thinking about it,the Kelly statement isn't quite right.
I've would have been pronounced of as in 'of Mice and Men'
So it would have been
'Yow'll be orl roite fer wot of tode ya'
Thats of course if he spoke in a broad Black Country accent, like everywhere else,there are local variants, but certainly today nobody from the BC would say 'I have'
Possibly he spoke with a Brummie (Birmingham) accent, that would be closer to what was witnessed, to Black Country ears the Brummie accent is as distinctly different as a cockneys.
All the best.

[Cogidubnus]

Personally, I try not to pronounce it at all...

All the best

Dave

[Steven Russell]

I'm pretty sure that throughout the UK, the surname Bury is pronounced exactly as Berry would be in whatever accent. However, a friend of mine who hails from near Bury pronounces the name of that town to rhyme with hurry (as rendered in a northern English accent i.e. the vowel sound is like that of "good").

Best wishes,
Steve.

[martin wilson]

Euan Macpherson speculated that to someone who had never heard the Black Country accent before,it might sound foriegn.
Personal experience might support this, my mates fiance was from Manchester and he complained to her once that she had never spoken to his mother in 5 years.
She said 'that's because I have never understood a word she has said for 5 years'.
Take for example 'Where are you going?'
in BC it's 'Weer yow gooin?'
I heard on a bus a while back a girl use 'sid' for 'saw', talking about a friend,
so it was 'I sid im yesterdee' , classic BC spake.
I can't think of a rhyme in standard English that corresponds to the 'a' sound in spake.
All the best.

[c.d.]

I worked with a woman who pronounced it to rhyme with "hurry." But bear in mind that this was here in the U.S. and the woman was kind of a bitch. Although I don't think that had anything to do with the pronunciation.

c.d.

[johns]

What the Wikipedia community think on the subject

Not that it's conclusive, and I don't think pronunciation can be conclusive, but there's a rather interesting (to me at least) discussion going on here at the page about the town Bury>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bury#Etymology

[Mrsperfect]

Berry or Bury?

I guess we have to bow to the hangman's opinion that the prisoner had the same sounding name as his own, (if I remember correctly). That would make it rhyme with 'cherry'

Regards