I’m from the U.K. and the two bits of advice I can give you if you visit, you will get things wrong so DON’T worry, nobody is going to be offended, and if you don’t know just ask. Be yourself and have a good sense of humour. Love the channel and much respect.

I'm a retired trucker and I used to dread having to ask a local for directions! The other maddening thing in our country is local dialects tend to have their own words and grammar, so you're not always going to understand what they tell you anyway.

0:29 Leominster is 'LEMSTER', Bicester is 'BISTER', Godmanchester is 'GUMSTER', Loughborough is 'LUFFBURRA', Keighley is 'KEETHLEE'. More examples - Ulgham is 'UFFAM', Happisburgh is 'HAYZBURRA', Milngavie is 'MULGUY', and Woolfardisworthy is 'WOOLZERY'.

I know it's not normally done, but I'd suggest that you watch Jay Foreman's sponsor ads. They're hilarious.

If you want to see Vikings in the UK make sure to go to Jorvik in York

I live in Aberystwyth, although the name does mean the mouth of the Ystwyth, the river running through the town is actually called the Rheidol, the Ystwyth is just outside the town. It would appear that some time in the past, a mapmaker got the two rivers mixed up.

If you're going to London and need directions to Leicester Square, make sure you say LESTER, not LEE-SESTER. And yes, Towcester is indeed Toaster.

The last time I saw Mark Cooper Jones he was a comedian/geography teacher, love that I get to see more of him. Also yes our humour is very dry and very sarcastic

British place-names are indeed pronounced in unexpected ways, and still catch us all out sometimes. It used to be worse! Before the majority of people could write, local pronunciations wandered far from the originals. London was 'Lunnon', and Birmingham was 'Brummagem'; after the eighteenth century, when most people were literate, there has been a steady return to ancient spellings. So Cirencester, for example, within living memory, was 'Sisiter' or 'Sister', but is now pronounced as spelt. Some towns are going through a change. I was brought up to pronounce Shrewsbury as 'Shroesbury', but now many say 'Shroosbury'. A fun thing when visiting some remote part of England is to find out how people pronounce where you're visiting!

In my home town of Birmingham (UK) there is an area called Smethwick. Foreigners pronounce it. Smeth - wick non locals in the city say Smeth -ick Locals say Sm-e - rick...!! 🤦🏻

I live near Cirencester, (Sirensester) but it was traditionally pronounced Ciceter (Siseter), but now the locals say they are off to Siren.

Education always teaches us how much we don't know - which is a bad feeling but a good effect, ^oo^

In most places the "ham" ending is pronounce "um". Birmingum, Buckingum, Sandrimgnum, etc. Not the place called Ham though, that is pronounced "ham" as in "sandwich" which I pronounce "samwich", except when I go to Sandwich, which is near Ham in Kent, and which I pronounce "sand witch".

Years ago, when map makers went around the country drawing up maps they would ask the local lord, vicar, school teacher or lawyer what a place name was and how it was spelled. Being educated men, they could read and write, they told them their version of the pronunciation and spelling. However, the local farm worker or builder or carter may have his own local pronunciation which stuck with local people. Hence the difference.

Love your reaction! So true about pronunciation in the UK. I am a Canadian living in the UK and live in a town near Brighton on the East Coast called Lewes. You pro ounce it as Lewis with an I. The British sense of humour is so funny. React to 8 out of 10 cats what's my line, Lee Mack, Billy Connoly. There are so many comedians and comedy shows.

I live in Swindon in the UK, it was originally Swine Down which was a market town for selling pigs

-borough (Like Middlesborough) and -burgh (as in Edinburgh) are pronounced the same. Except when they aren't. People from up in the North East would say Middlesbruh and Edinbruh but your pronunciation can vary a lot depending on which part of the country you're in. The main takeaway is that although the 2 endings are spelled differently, they're pronounced the same. People further south may add the extra "o" back in to Middlesborough (so Middlesborugh, more like it's written). However if you talk to people up here you may here then just call Middlesborough "Bura" spelled "Boro".

This makes me think of my A level English language lessons LOL - only my tutor used to, not only break loads of words down and tell you where each part came from i.e. Greek, Roman, Celtic etc. he would also change his accents constantly when talking about different parts of the country and where language is different and why and how to pronounce the vowels in different counties - it was a LOT to take in, and honestly I gave up half way through the course LOL

My town is called CORBY . From the Viking KORI BY ( Kori's village)

We tend to learn the name of places, before we learn to spell them.

The short version of this, itself pretty cool, is that almost all the place names are much older than the English language itself. Modern English pretty much starts with Shakespeare, who wrote most of his plays 120 years after the start of "modern times" as defined by historians (accession of Henry VII).

I live in Frome and never knew it was the most mispronounced place name you learn something new every day

Iv lived in England all my life & even I get confussed.. especially listening to these guys lol.. they talk so fast x

a tip I always have for visitors is to have the place you want to go in writing. Especially outside of England, even though there's enough places there that are horrible to pronounce. I'm from Wales and there's distinct sounds from the celtic/gaelic languages that just don't occur in English.... and I've personally embarrassed myself because I've not understood people asking for directions.... whatever they've asked verbally often doesn't match what I'm thinking and I end up asking if they have it written down. That's the best way to go, and also a brilliant way to practise

There quite a lot of US names that are difficult to pronounce. Boise, Aquebogue, Camarillo and Des Moines just to name a few.

2 local ones to me are... Slaithwaite, which has at least 2 common local pronuncistions a) Slawitt b) Slathwait Skelmanthorpe - referred to as Shatt.

About every 8 miles in the UK you’ll hear an accent change, and sometimes a local dialect thrown in for good measure. I grew up speaking with a Geordie accent but spoke Pitmatic. You can usually tell the area someone came from, and if local, whereabouts within that location.

The county of Norfolk has the following gems: Happisburgh, Wymondham, Costessey, Garboldisham, where whole syllables disappear in pronunciation; Cley, and Stiffkey, which is occasionally pronounced "Stewkey".

That is not a way into Grimsby I should know as I live in Grimsby, these two photo shopped Grimsby on to a sign. Grim the Viking was a fisherman Grimsby became the biggest fishing port in Britain and is also the biggest fish processing centre in Britain 🇬🇧. There use to be a statue of Grim in front of Grimsby Institute until it was vandalised. There is a Danish and Norwegian consulate on Grimsby docks, there are many Scandinavians living here.

The name of my home town was recorded in the Domesday book as Podechaisie. Modern version - Pudsey ('Put-si', or when we had a town crier before being swallowed up by Leeds in 1974, 'Pad-zee'.) Pudsey Bear, the Children in Need mascot, is named after the town, it's inventor hailing from there.

Hope that you enjoy your visit to London. Britain is so ancient to what you are accustomed to in the United States which is realatively new . In Scotland some communities including my own still speak Gaelic pronounced. Galik , the Welsh speak Welsh another Celtic Language that is at least 3,000 years old so our traditions and culture goes back as far as we know to the Bronze age. The Irish also speak Gaelic and the Scottish Gaelic speakers can understand them whereas the Welsh language cannot be understood to non Welsh people who are a breakaway Celtic tribe also . We also have Bronze age forts still standing and Roman artefacts, I suppose we Brits are used to things being really old and we know our culture is too. Have a great time 👍🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧

Lol, Frome is literally half an hour away from me. There’s a village close to me called Lacock (Laycock). Someone I know had some family from the US visit once and they pronounced it, La Cock 😂

If you are coming to the UK and don't go out of London you will miss somr of the best reasons for coming to Great Britain. Firstly, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as England are searate countries, each witheir own history as well as a shared British history. The linguistic differences reflect the place names and a lot are about local geography as well as history such as the one about Grimsby in the video. In Liverpool (where I am from) their is an area called Kirkdale which translates to Church in the valley from old german. It is pronounced as it reads "kerkdayle" Seven miles away the town of Kirkby is pronounced "kerby" or "care-bee" Kirkby was changed when the Normans gave it a different name Cherchebe. If you think that's confusing wait until you get to Wales. There are plenty of places an hours drive from Liverpool in North Wales where there are no English vowels in the the name. Rhyl and Cwm are two good examples and the area known as Clwyd. I'll let you guess the pronounciation of these Celtic places.

Map Men is a brilliant channel for fun learning. (hint... people who watch reaction vids like it)

I love the video and your reaction to it. Great job. As for your question, they do it to annoy visitors, LOL.

Finally, yes, there's a reason behind the name for every single place, and we Brits get the feel of any place's history by its name, more usually its spelling. Then much later, all these names were transported to the US.

I got coach to London (before Covid. National Express coach from St Leonards on Sea to London no longer exists. Apparently). I say, want to get off at Eltham. The Geordie driver (seem always to be Geordie's - and they were lovely mostly) insisted pronounciation was Elfham - i.e. soft 'th'. After he insisted twice it was 'Elfham.' I said 'it's pronounced ELTHAM man. I was brought up there I should know! Sorry to woffle. Been one of those days when you want to take a long walk off a short pier - and we do have a pier, so this could be the day! I think I am asking for some nasty comments from the 'trolls' about how it would be doing us all a favour. Thank you for your vid. Enjoyed it.

They are extremely British, and yes this is British Humour ... Check out their channel ... BTW Godmanchester is pronounced Gum-ster ... Note one of the place names of their map is Ynysybwl ... a place my grandparents came from which has no vowels ... so I am biased ...

Love this ❤

I love your channel keep up the great stuff!!

I lived as a child on a road in Yorkshire between Bradley in the valley and Fixby on the hill. The name "Bradley" is Anglo-Saxon and "Fixby" is Viking Interestingly even 1000 years after the vikings left the richer people in the area lived in Fixby and the poorer folks lived in Bradley. If you want to see a place with Viking history in Britain I would suggest York Originally a Roman city, then taken over by the Anglo-Saxons then becoming the capital of the Danelaw. There is lots of archaeology from Viking times and a museum specialising in the Viking period.

That is the point. They changed the pronunciation without changing the spelling. So the names are the same and written the same but , pronounced differently. It’s even worse in Ireland. Although larger places will have the names in English and Irish.

I live in a small town in Buckinghamshire called Olney. Even the people who live here can’t agree how it’s pronounced. About half say Oll-knee, and half say Oh-knee. I’m in the Oh-knee (rhymes with pony) camp. The map men should have included this. I don’t know why the pronunciation is so confusing, but it might be because the Vikings (Danes) invaded just to the river Ouse that goes though Olney as does the edge of Dane law.

Leigh, is Lee, in Lancashire and Lie, in Kent.

My grandfather once mentioned a tourist who asked him how to get to Ilfracombe - "Ill-frackom-bee".....

Not gonna lie, clicked on your video because you are one beautiful man. Haha... With that said, I genuinely enjoyed your reaction to Map Men. Jay Forman is one of the best KZfaqrs IMO and the Map Men episodes are all brilliantly informative and hilarious to watch. You should deffo check out his series called Unfinished London too.

Nothing like that simple. Wymondham occurs at least twice - Norfolk and Leicestershire. In Norfolk it is pronounced Wind-um. In Leics. it is pronounced as it is spelt - Why-mund-ham. Locals also often call Loughborough, Luger-ber-rooger, which is pretty much the spelling. Mildenhall also occurs at least twice - Suffolk and Wiltshire. It s pronounced exactly as spelt in Suffolk, but is known as My-null in Wilts.

I love the Alnwick (pronounced Annick) one so much, because a nearby town is called Alnmouth, and is pronounced 'Allenmuth'. And they're both named after the same river, the Aln, which is pronounced Aln... Though they're also both quite near to Featherstonehaugh, (pronounced 'Fanshaw', obviously).

Good job , every day is a school day 🙂🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

For what it's worth...they were partially wrong about place names ending in "ford". In settlements that have (or had) a river running through them, "ford" is a shortened version of "fjord", Norse for "crossing" - those places were named by Viking invaders. Eg "Stamford" = "Stone Crossing".

I live in the West Midlands and a place exists in Walsall called Caldmore ( pronounced Karma )

Two to get your head around are CHOMONDELEY pronounced CHUMLY and FEATHERSTONEHAUGH pronounced FANSHAW,even I as an Englishman was dumbfounded when I realised that's how they were pronounced, anyway stay happy and healthy everyone ✌️.

My family lived near a place called Aike but it’s pronounced Yak, it’s old English, gets people every time!

The US has interesting prononciations of place names too. Louisville, KY comes to mind. Tucson, AZ, Lebanon, PA etc

Most people are use to others getting place names wrong, but London is quiet easy, relatively speaking, since it's an area with a lot of foreigners and tourists.

Great video, great reaction! I'm in Newcastle Upon Tyne - great City to explore if you are interested in Romans or Vikings (NE England) It can be cold here but we are great people! Great stuff!

Hi, Its worth watching their Adverts, they are quiet funny.

I love map men, I'm glad you enjoyed the video too!

Looks to me as if if you come to England you'll enjoy it. These two guys are from north London. People like me find them informative and hilarious at the same time. You'll maybe have to get used to the toned down sarcasm but I think you'd be welcome in my local pub. Until recently we (ie the pub) had a New Yorker bartender and she fitted in really well. If it's any consolation, most of the British find non-local British place names a problem too if we've never been there. Near my home town is Cholmodeston which is pronounced Chumston but I have no idea why. Of no interest whatsoever is that my dad's mum was born close to Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch.

We get them wrong too, there are some where people don't agree on the pronunciation, don't worry about it, it is not done to embarrass you.

You can always pause the video in order to take in the information better.

You guys crack me up. 🤣🤣😄

Hi from Grimsby. Really.👋😀

I live near Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch, the name is fairly recent and was just for tourism, it's referred to as Llanfair-PG locally.

My town is in there. It's name is 'Bedworth', but folk around here call it "Bedduth" or if you're older "black Bedduth" as it's been a big mining for coal town for 200+ years

If you want to explore and do some review videos on British comedy try 'Fawlty Towers' an iconic English comedy TV series. Great channel - your reactions are interesting and entertaining :)

Just come visit Yorkshire especially York and where l live Keighley which was called Chicheley in 10th century

You have to look at the etymology of place names and their pronunciation, Way back many centuries ago, the vast majority of these places WERE pronounced the way they are spelt. Over time, the WAY we say placenames has chanced but the SPELLING has remained the same. It is far too late now to change the spelling of placenames as that woul cause even more confusion.

my favourite place names are within a few miles of each other in the Peak District Derbyshire. Firstly the village of Shatton, just past Hathersage. The second id the Devils arse in Castleton.

3:39 STOMPED right over that excellent joke...pffft

I would suggest York if you want to visit a famous Viking settlement steeped in Roman and Viking history.

But it's the same for us. If you come across a new place name you are never 100% how to say it so it's best just to ask if you think it might be a weird one. No shame in it. My personal favourite is a village in Norfolk which is spelt Happisburgh and pronounced haze-bruh.

Grimsby is my Town of Origin, but now live down in Essex.

“So who were the complete anchors who…” Note the silent ‘w’ there.

Just one word…Arkansas (especially compared to Kansas)

I was had to catch a train at Marylebone Station I had how to pronounce it until the conductor pronounced it as "Marlabone".

How about Cholmondeley - Chumlee, Tarporley- Tarplea or Mainwearing - Mannering. Or how about Bwlch-y-Ddwy and Bwlch-y-Mynydd.

Heckmondwike …. Viking village in Yorkshire …. Or Maryland if you’re in the USA but with no Vikings … unless it was the man with Viking ancestors who moved from Yorkshire to Maryland and couldn’t think up a simple name for a new town … but it has been proven that Vikings landed in the USA before the other Europeans by the BBC so it must be true …

I'm Welsh and I once suffered stinging derision from a friend from Suffolk for pronouncing ALDEBURGH as ALL-DEE-BERG (which would be the way we say things in Carmarthenshire) where the Suffolkians say it as Allbrah. So there you have it - no-one's safe - ps. his efforts at pronouncing Welsh place names was even worse, so there !

I don't mind being stuck in "Abereest wyth" as much as I did, lol.

A video on a similar subject is David Mitchell's Dear America. The English language is a glorious mess of imported words and grammar stretching back millennia. Until the 17th century, most communities were fairly isolated, so pronounciation drifted around a lot, so much so that communities separated by as little as 30 or 40 miles would speak mutually unintelligable dialects. Spellings in English weren't really codified until the early 19th century (and even that took a long time to filter down to the general population). Compounding this is the fact that English dictionaries are by design descriptive, in that they record how language is used rather than how it SHOULD be used. Other languages (I believe that French is one, but I could be wrong) have a much stricter, prescriptive approach, resulting in a language that actually makes sense!

I'm from uk 🇬🇧 most of the British cant pronounce the names so no need to worry lol

Oh please do more map men and Jay Foreman reactions 😂

This is great. Don't worry, no one will care. Due to local accents none of us can say them properly anyway. As they say on the vid, I would say Newcastle with the emphasis on New, but residents of Newcastle would say NewCASTLE. None of us English can pronounce Welsh names. 😁 and I come from the Midlands where local towns like West Bromwich is pronounced West Brumitch by locals... so 🤷‍♀️

It's the British sense of humor, seeing how many ways we can confuse people, have a go at Trottiscliffe or Meopham both in Kent. I was born in Hampshire and what locals says is the correct pronunciation confuses me. Trottiscliffe is pronounced Tros-Lee and Meopham is pronounced Mepam.

The same thing happens in the USA, for example New Orleans is pronounced "Norlins" by the locals !

If Im correct There is six different spellings of London. Down south we say Lunden. London is from the Queens (God bless)/Kings English. England history is within our names, and dialects and her people. PS Vikings were all over the Uk.

They forgot the Picts! Their presence is felt still in Pittenweems (pronounced as it is spelt, just to confuse you further). In the N of Scotland any place name which includes 'Pitt' is Pictish. But two definitely non-Pictish tongue twisters are Cogenhoe (Northamptonshire, pronounced Cookknow) and Kingston Bagpuize, a derivative of Norman French and pronounced - don't ask me!

Because these place names have different origins ie Grimsby is nordic grim is a norse name and by means farm hence Grims Farm from the Danish and Norse invasions of the 860 AD onwards.

Don't worry, we all get the names wrong from time to time, even as natives 😂 I pronounced Frome wrong for ages and because I'm half Welsh/Northern English... I get a ton of southern town names wrong 🙈 Huish Episcopi still gets me!!!

Main thing is Edinburgh is pronounced Edinborough not Edinburg (Scottish capital). Other names come from experience, watching the news and using trains. Of course if you were a tourist you'd make mistakes. That's OK. English people not from that area likely would too. A few key examples to get you going are: Leicester Lester Bicester Bister Loughborough Luffborough Worcester Wuster Beaulieu Bewlee. Marylebone Marlebone You're never going to know all of them.

They missed one in Scotland. Milngavie which is pronounced by locals as Mull-Gai.

For British comedy you need to watch Yes Minister! Blackadder Only Fools and Horses Porridge Life of Brian (Monty Python) The Holy Grail (Monty Python) Kevin Bridges Billy Connolly Michael McIntyre Meet the Richardsons Doc Brown especially 'My Proper Tea'

Even being from the UK I still don't correctly pronounce place names correctly as it just depends where you live or if it is a well known place. I do have a story about Frome though l, which is not far from where I live now, but before I was born my parents often used to travel to the west country in the days when you used road maps so my mum said that they needed to head towards Rome so after a while of being lost my dad saw a sign for Frome and told my mum she was an idiot and her reply was well I didn't see the F in front which made everyone laugh and my mum blush as any hint of rude words made her embarrassed. That story was told for many years

Don't feel dumb a lot of brits still struggle with place names like Bicester which is pronounced Bister

Don't feel stupid. I'm a true Brit with a family tree back to the thirteenth century apparently, but still took two hours driving around a place called "Belvoir" looking for Beever castle. Well, turns out "Belvoir" is actually pronounced "Beever". Makes perfect sense.

did nobody pick up on the 'anker' joke shortly after they said W's were often silent?

Just wait until you meet Lord Featherstonehaugh of Cholmondley Manor. Pronounced Fan-shore and Chum-ly. Because.

Heard a story once about an Australian over here mis-pronouncing Clitheroe in a slightly inappropriate way...........

Well they're going to have fun with the market town of Penistone in South Yorkshire.