Pronounciation of 'Lawrie'

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

We've had a family debate recently and it occurred to me that people here were more likely than most to have thought about the answer.

How to pronounce 'Lawrence' - or 'Laurence'? I've always figured the first syllable to be a short 'o' sound, so the name with either spelling rhymes with 'Florence'.
Which means that the short form, Lawrie/Laurie would be pronounced 'lorry'.

Others claim that the first syllable actually has the 'aw' sound, or even if it doesn't, that 'Lawrie' is actually said as 'law-ree', and the only other traditional short form is 'Larry'. Surely these people are mad and wrong?!

Turned out that though we all liked 'Lawrence', no-one could stand the idea that the baby in question would get called 'lorry'/Laws/Larry/law-ree/Loz.
He's been named Rowan instead. :)

Comments

[bluebellbicycle.livejournal.com]

I would say law (as in the legal 'law) with ree (rhyming with tea). Like Laura but with a y at the end *g*

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

Same here (UK, if it matters). That holds for everybody I have known whose name, either given or surname, has been either Lawrence or Laurence: the first syllable has always been like "law".

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty certain Lawrie Marlow at least pronounces her name 'lorry' with a short o when she isn't pronouncing it Sophia, because in The Thuggery Affair one of the Thugs says '... if her name's Lorry...' when mentioning that she's gone off with Rigid.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Hm - I'd read that the other way, as the Thug pronouncing her name differently to her way, or why spell it differently?

Perhaps it's a class/regional thing?

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Possibly.

[chiasmata]

Because they'd not heard of Lawrie as a name, and thought it genuinely was Lorry?

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. I'd take that as proof pos. it's pronounced Lorry.

[owl]

I assumed they were saying it differently too. Don't certain northern accents have a merger of or/awr?

[ailbhe]

I always pronounced it the same as "Laurie".

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Which is how? Lorry or law-ree - or something else?

[ailbhe]

It's a longer vowel than lorry and a shorter one than law.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Do na Sasanaigh even have that vowel? (This uncertainty brought to you by fits of Irish laughter over my having rhymed 'law' with 'corridor'. OK, it is funny. It wasn't meant to be.)

[(Anonymous)]

Yes - more like Loh-ree, said a bit more slowly than
Lorry.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Lorry. Definitely.

Laurence and Lawrence are both pronounced 'Lorrence' to rhyme with Florence, so then of course you would shorten it to Lorrie.

I have to say that the only other AF fan I have met in RL pronounced it Law-rie, which completely took me aback, though I think I covered quite well. dogstar101?

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

Lorrence / Lorry for me. I'd never imagined the full name could be pronounced Law-rence, but then I come form the North of England, land of short vowels. Laurence Dallaglio was definitely Lorr, not Law.

[(Anonymous)]

When Tim first meets the twins in Autumn Term she says "Tim, Nick and Lawrie,...Tom, Dick and Harry". Since Harry has a short a sound, it seems likely that Lawrie also has a short o - Lorry, (or perhaps it's even Larry, though that's not how I think of it) or the 2 sets of names wouldn't sound so alike.

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

Never even occurred to me it might be pronounced anything other than Law-rie.

Though I feel the need to note, in view of some of the other names and words being bandied about above, above that I come from a part of the world where the name 'Florence' is pronounced 'Flurrence' and is exclusively a male name, and that in not too distant parts 'lorry' is pronounced 'lurry'.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Florence is a male name?!? What part of the world is that? *curious*

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

South-west Ireland. Always as I said pronounced 'Flurrence' and now very old-fashioned - I don't suppose there's one under seventy. You might have come across Flurry Knox, who is a male character in Somerville and Ross's Irish RM novels.

[owl]

I pronounce it with an 'aw'.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I have an elderly male relative called Laurence, shortened to Laurie, and we've always said it Lorrence / Lorry.

How would it be said by people like the Marlows though, IOW in RP? How did Sir Laurence Olivier say his name? Or are the names Laurence and Lawrence said differently?

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Olivier was Lorrence with a bit of luvvie drawl. But he was always known as Larry, not Laurie.

I'd pronounce Laurence and Lawrence the same, but this is being disputed. The family member with the most Northern accent (short a making "bath" not "baath") is actually the one insisting on an 'aw' sound in Laurie, which surprised me.

This has gone on for weeks, so I'm immensely relieved that there's only one way to pronounce Rowan...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Rowan is a nice choice. The only one I've known was a guy, and he never shortened it.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

so I'm immensely relieved that there's only one way to pronounce Rowan...

Not for people who've only ever seen it written and never heard it...

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Shush! The baby's been all registered now and everything!

Enough people have heard of Rowan Atkinson at least, not to mention the Archbishop of Canterbury, that I doubt it'll be much of a problem, at least in Britain. Or the tree.

only one way to pronounce Rowan?

[miss-lilley.livejournal.com]

Er... in Scotland and I think some bits of Northern England it's pronounced Row-an to rhyme with 'brow' not 'crow'.

Re: only one way to pronounce Rowan?

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Yes, it has since been pointed out to me that Rowan Street in Glasgow and someone's friend's sister are both Row-like-cow.

Fortunately we didn't know about the potential confusion or the poor baby might still have no name!

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Lying in bed last night I was thinking of all the famous Laurence/Lawrence's I know.

Lawrence (mainly as a surname): D.H.Lawrence, T.E.Lawrence, Stephen Lawrence.

Laurence: Laurence Olivier, Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen, Laurence Dallaglio.

I honestly don't think I've ever heard any of these names pronounced anything other than Lorrence (with obviously the expected regional accented variations of such).

[minniemoll.livejournal.com]

Another vote for Lorrence/Lorry here. From another Northerner.

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

Lorrence/Lorry, and I'm from London, by way of Sydney.

How do I join so I can post a subject?

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry, The Kumquat, to barge in on your post, but I can't figure out how to contact anyone. I'd like to join in (AF fan from waaay back) and I can't work out how. Can anyone help? I don't want to create my own journal or anything - just want to post in the Trennels bit.

noises off. (that's the name I'll use if I have any luck joining up!

Re: How do I join so I can post a subject?

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

To post on LJ, you need to create your own journal name, even if you never post anything in the journal. It's free, so just click on 'Create journal' on the LJ homepage. Then come back to this one and there's an option 'Join this community'. Then you can hit 'post to this community', or just 'post to journal' and then select this comm under 'Post to...'.

Re: How do I join so I can post a subject?

[ex-lizzzar998.livejournal.com]

As The Thuggery's dialect is clearly not RP, it does not make sense to me that they would necessarily pronounce the same as the Marlows. I think the "lorry" indicates a lack of clear pronunciation/ability to follow RP completely. If Af wanted to indicate that they were pronouncing in Marlow fashion, why not just write Lawrie normally? Maybe this does seem a bit snobby, but AF is clearly interested in class and dialect differences generally, and particularly in The Thuggery Affair. I'm pretty sure that Lawrie (in the Marlow's kind of accent, anyway) would be pronounced approxiately like lorry but with a clearer emphasis on the "aw" sound eg Law-ree (as far as I remember, this is also approximately how it is said in Oklahoma !) . The emphasis would be on the first syllable and not the last. As to how much the "aw" is sounded, it may vary person to person, but I'd say halfway between the "aw" in raw or saw and a short "o" sound.

Re: How do I join so I can post a subject?

[ex-lizzzar998.livejournal.com]

Actually, the name is probably pronounced differently depending on the person, and there isn't anything wrong with this, although I still think that a Law-ree type pronunciation is more likely for the Marlows, possibly because that's how I've said it to myself. But maybe I should try to think of something else to do before I become obsessed with Lawrie pronunciation...

[sheep-noises.livejournal.com]

Thanks kumquat :)

I've always pronounced it "Lorry/Lorrence" too. I wonder if the Law-rie pronunciation might be American?

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

Definitely Lorry! I agree with chiasmata, it's spelt that way for the Thuggery not because they pronounce it differently but because they're unfamiliar with the name.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I've always said lo-ree, with the "lo" slightly shorter and edging more schwah-wards than "low-the-opposite-of-high." (I should point out hastily that I'm from the US, specifically from Seattle, an area that isn't fussy about distinguishing vowels: I say "Mary," "marry," and "merry" all the same way.) But I also say Florence with a longish O: certainly not with an O as short as that in "hot." (The comparison with Laura also doesn't work for me: I know of at least three different pronunciations of Laura.)

How are "lorries" pronounced? as in big trucks? I thought they were more like law-ree (at any rate Cat Stevens had a song with "lorry loads" in it where he pronounced it "law-ree" -- but perhaps he's thrown me off).

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I just heard today, in an e-mail, that a friend of a friend is calling their baby boy Lawry. I have no idea how they say it though.

[lizarfau.livejournal.com]

Another Lorry/Lorrence vote from me.

Not sure why AF spelt it differently when pronounced by one of the Thugs. I've only read that book once and didn't like it much, but am wondering whether he said "if her name's Lorry" if he'd heard it pronounced or if he'd seen it written down. If he'd heard it pronounced, then by whom? If written down, then perhaps he did pronounce it differently to the Marlows.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Maybe he thought it was a nickname, though I don't think it would be a very flattering one.

[alliekiwi.livejournal.com]

I'm another person to say 'Lorry'. I didn't even think there was another way to say it!

[promethea100.livejournal.com]

Me too - in my Scottish accent, both ways you are describing sound exactly the same. I have now sat at my computer mouthing them, like a fool. Rowan, however, is 'Row-in' to me (rhymes with now'n then).

[prepneot.livejournal.com]

I've always thought it was Law-ree and Lorrance. I'm Australian.

I do like the nickname "Lal"

[ivohenry.livejournal.com]

Talking of nicknames, how should we pronounce Gilly? I think it's only in Run Away Home that Giles gets called this, and then only by Mrs M and Rowan. It ought to be Jilly, but this sounds a bit girly - I always think of it as Ghilly. This book is also the only one where Rowan is Rowley.

Giles

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

It's presumably pronounced Jiles, so I would further presume Jilly. The name wouldn't sound girly to Mrs M and Rowan as they've grown up with it, and you can get used to anything.

As for Rowley, I think that's just Giles' name for her. And RAH is the only book where he talks directly to Rowan - the only other book he appears in is Autumn Term, and I don't think he has any scenes with Rowan there.

[ex-lizzzar998.livejournal.com]

In the interests of being honest, I just consulted my Sharp electronic dictionary (recommended - based on the one-volume Oxford) and, somewhat to my surprise, it said that the word lorry (as in a big truck) is "perhaps from the given name Laurie", so short o pronunciation is perhaps not that unusual. I still personally think that the syllable emphasis is likely to be usually a bit different in the name though.

[(Anonymous)]

OED says this about lorry -

[Of obscure etymology; cf. dial. lurry to pull, drag.]

[jesssoph.livejournal.com]

Kind of "Lorree" rather than "lorry" is how it's always sounded to me. And I always said Gilly with a hard G i.e. Ghilly not Jilly.

The whole discussion reminds me of Helene Hanff describing Joyce Grenfell on the phone: "Reg-GEE!" and of Nora Doel calling Helene "Helen".

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

It reminds me of Jean Harlow pronouncing Margot Asquith, "Mar-gott". To which Ms. Asquith replied, "The T is silent - as in Harlow".