How would Jerome K. Jerome have pronounced Montmorency?

March 24, 2017 10:38 PM

I peruse "Three men in a boat" pretty much every day, in a certain situation, briefly. I'm a Californian and have no idea if Montmorency is pronounced as Mont-mor-en-cy or as Montsy, or Moresy, or. . . ?
posted by goofyfoot to Society & Culture (7 answers total)

Best answer: Stephen Fry Reads the audiobooks for the Montmorency book series. He pronounces it MONT-mor-RENC-y. I trust Stephen Fry.
posted by bq at 10:44 PM on March 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

Best answer: And Stephen Fry's one time comedic other half, Hugh Laurie has done the audiobook for Three Men in a Boat, and also says MONT-mor-RENC-y. I'd say this is pretty definitive unless there is some kind of ex Cambridge comedian conspiracy to make us all say it wrong.
posted by pianissimo at 12:14 AM on March 25, 2017 [3 favorites]

(Can I just say how much it pleases me to see that you peruse is pretty much every day, and also thank you for giving me the idea to do that too?)
posted by old_growler at 12:33 AM on March 25, 2017 [4 favorites]

(Can I just say how much it pleases me to see that you peruse is pretty much every day, and also thank you for giving me the idea to do that too?)

Ditto. I've never had the framing of a question make me smile. Well done.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 6:00 AM on March 25, 2017 [6 favorites]

In Connie Willis's book "To Say Nothing of the Dog" - audiobook narrated by Steven Crossley - it is pronounced MontMOREency.
posted by Blue Genie at 7:26 AM on March 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Daniel Jones' English Pronouncing Dictionary (13th ed., 1967), pretty much the gold standard for traditional pronunciations of English names, has only ˌmɔntməˈrensi (i.e., mont-mor-RENC-y, with a slight secondary stress on the first syllable), so I think we can take that as correct. (Steven Crossley should do his homework better.)
posted by languagehat at 9:07 AM on March 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

In his 1941 song "Could You Please Oblige Us With A Bren Gun?" Noel Coward swapped out McNamara for Montmorency, so I'd imagine the stresses would be similar.
posted by mdrew at 2:21 PM on March 25, 2017 [1 favorite]