Nelson & His World

Down here in South Wiltshire the old home of the Earls Nelson is known as "Trafflegar House". The current owners are quite adamant about this pronounciation.

Ray

Sorry to go off-topic, but Ray have you ever been into the House?

My brother went there once for some sort of business meeting with the then owner. It must have been 15 or more years ago. He gave me a description of the rooms that he went into. I can't recall the chap's name but I think he was Scandinavian. Maybe Swedish.

MB

P.S. Yes, I was right, just found his name on the main Trafalgar House website. Mr. Gunnar Bengtsson. Same chap that owns/owned the Nelson-themed hotels in Stockholm.

Looks as if he sold it to the present owner.

Si we've come full circle! My first post notes that Earl Nelson, who inhabited the house until after WW2, used the TRAFFLE-guh pronounciation, accent on the first syllable. So subsequent purchasers of the house clearly followed his lead!

MArk: re: going off-topic. It's a bit like school - the most interesting lessons were the ones when the teacher went off the point and wandered down meandering cultural by-ways, with class in tow.

That would surely depend on which part of England one was from?
For example a 'Yorkshire' version would differ in the extreme from a 'Portsmouth' version!
In those days i imagine accents would of been 'severe'!
Nelson's personal version would of had to be accepted perhaps?

David.

A fascinating thread. How a native Andalusian or an Arabic speaker might pronounce "Trafalgar" may not, howver, be truly relevant. Think of Paris, for example. The French say it one way, the British another, and the Italians say "Parigi" with the accent on the penult. The pronunciation used by the current Lord Nelson (accent on antepenult) sounds elegant and very proper-aristocratic-British to my American ear (and I'm New York American, which leads many Britons to wince) but might result in a London taxi driver taking him.... where? (and just imagine "square" pronounced with a New York accent)

There is a website, http://www.forvo.com, on which one can hear most any word in any language spoken by native speakers. It is an excellent resource. One of you might post how Lord Nelson might have said "Trafalgar"! Or perhaps Ray could ask the current Earl Nelson to record it on Forvo.

And here is the song, sung by Henry Turnpenny a very long time ago.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rswNerD ... e=youtu.be Here is another link: http://youtu.be/rswNerDQaHc

'Twas in Trafalgar's bay
We saw the Frenchman lay,
Each heart was bounding then.
We scorned the foreign yoke,
For our Ships were British Oak,
And hearts of oak our men!
Our Nelson mark'd them on the wave,
Three cheers our gallant Seamen gave,
Nor thought of home or beauty.
Along the line this signal ran,
England expects that ev'ry man
This day will do his duty!

At last the fatal wound,
Which spread dismay around,
The Hero's breast received;
"Heav'n fights on our side,
The day's our own," he cried!
"Now long enough I've lived!
In honour's cause my life was past,
In honour's cause I fell at last,
For England, home and beauty."
Thus ending life as he began,
England confessed that ev'ry man,
That day had done his duty

I just saw that this very Zonophone disc is for sale on Ebay - the marks around the center hole match what you see on the video: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mr-HENRY-TURNPE ... 5410b08115

And here is a more modern recording (from 1908), sung by Ernest Pike - very different. This includes all the words.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x28duw ... pike_music