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Wooster, Worcester, or Worcestershire sauce?


Orwar
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   It's Sunday, and I've been ploughing through a fair amount of cooking videos on YouTube throughout the day. For the third time today, I'm watching a chef stumbling over his words as he tries to pronounce this popular condiment. 

   Being the nerd that I am, I've long since read the arguments for which spelling is correct, and made up my mind about what I think is the correct pronunciation - but I'm curious, how do my virtual neighbours pronounce it?

 

 

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I usually say it fast so it comes out sounding like Worstashar..  I don't even say sauce because it's about the only thing in the house that sounds like it, so everyone knows what I'm talking about.. Even my youngest..

Get me the worstashar, Quick!

hehehe

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Earlier today, I considered posting the video of the 3 hardest things to say, in the Make Us Laugh thread, but I assumed that, in such a long thread, it must have been posted already. In case anyone one doesn't know it, the 3 hardest things to say are:-

I need help

I'm sorry

and

Worcestershire Sauce.

The humour is lost here because, in this thread, everyone knows what's coming, but it made laugh when I first saw it.

It's pronounced as has been posted. I would spell the pronunciation as wusstersher sauce, and I've recently started shaking it onto my tomato soup :)

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its only 3 syllables. worce(worse)/ster/shire(sher)

but some people do this and add an invisible H to it. wor/c(h)ester/shire and make it 4 or 5 syllables.

Edited by Finite
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The kes-ter part is said as one syllable making it 3 syllables. I divided it that way as to make it easier to "hear" how I was taught to pronounce it. Wor Cester Shire. But since everyone likes to argue about it just call it Lea & Perrins. Since 1835. 🤭

 

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Edited by Silent Mistwalker
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I could call it a zillion different ways and everyone in the house would know what I am asking for..

Sometimes my husband will just get silly making it into a 20 syllable word for the heck of it.. then other times he'll just ask for the thin stuff.. hehehe

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1 hour ago, Finite said:

Reminds me of Worcester, MA. People like to call it Worchester like they are Italian or something. But it's freakin' Worstah!

Hmm. When I lived in Massachusetts, I heard "Woostah"—but to be fair, I never knew a native to utter an audible "R" the whole time I lived there.

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4 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Hmm. When I lived in Massachusetts, I heard "Woostah"—but to be fair, I never knew a native to utter an audible "R" the whole time I lived there.

Yes R's don't exist to me. I was going to type 'wohstah' but figured someone would take that as woahster or something. Ive never heard wooster (Rhymed with rooster?). Maybe they say that out in the sticks.

Edited by Finite
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2 hours ago, Orwar said:

   It's Sunday, and I've been ploughing through a fair amount of cooking videos on YouTube throughout the day. For the third time today, I'm watching a chef stumbling over his words as he tries to pronounce this popular condiment. 

   Being the nerd that I am, I've long since read the arguments for which spelling is correct, and made up my mind about what I think is the correct pronunciation - but I'm curious, how do my virtual neighbours pronounce it?

 

 

"What's-this-here sauce."

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Dunno if Loughborough is in the map-men video but there's an apocryphal story of an Australian hitchhiker asking where "LoogaBarooga" was, and by pure luck had asked another Australian the question.

 

Swerving back on topic, I've always pronounced it "Wustersheer".

Edited by Profaitchikenz Haiku
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37 minutes ago, Claireschen Hesten said:

Where i am in Britain i hear it most commonly pronounced as Wooster-sher or Wooster-Sheer sometimes Wooster-shire or just Wooster sauce if not using the brand name

As a native Englishwoman I've heard it most often pronounced Wooster regardless of brand, or Wooster-sher if people are being a little posh.  I've never heard the syllable Wor pronounced as War.

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You'll know when you're getting to grips with English place names when you've learnt how to pronounce Happisburgh. Now you might like to think about moving onto Welsh place names.......

Worcestershire Sauce is my magic ingredient. Whenever a savoury dish "needs something", a shake of Worcestershire Sauce usually does the trick.

Interestingly (or maybe not!), when "shire" gets pronounced on its own, e.g. "the shire counties", it inevitably gets pronounced "shyre", or maybe even "shier". When it forms the end part of a full county name, it gets pronounced "sheer".  Why? Because it bloody does, ok?

Ah....kansas? Surely other countries aren't so silly?

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