English is an extremely annoying language to speak because every country that uses it has its own rules of pronunciation, including England, which has normal English but also place-name English, where everything is made up and the rules don't matter.

like, most english place-names, if you just left out a couple letters, they would make so much more sense.
For starters, all of the 'cesters'. Leicester, Worcester, Gloucester. The 'ce' is superfluous.

Lester, Worster, Glosster.

Or you could just... alter the spelling a bit more, like Towcester and Rocester, which COULD JUST BE SPELLED 'toaster' and 'roaster'.

It's really the 'ster' that defines it, though- take Leominster.

Lemster.

Why not.

in fact a lot of names would make more sense if you just... changed a letter or two. Derby COULD be spelled Darby, since it's said that way. Kirkby, pronounced Kirby, could just.. lose a k.

Brewood has choices!! They could be *either* 'brewed' or 'brood'! They both work!

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE 'WICH'es!! Norwich, Greenwich, Woolwich! Drop the w, add a t- noritch, grenitch, woolitch. it could so easily MAKE SENSE

and then you've got the whole class of place names where like, half the letters are just.. silent. take them out!! WHY ARE THEY THERE.
Edensor-- en-sore.
Hunstanton-- Hunston.
Lympne-- lym.
brougham-- broom.

although i guess the silent letters aren't always grouped together, so, be careful with that.
like, Barnoldswick and Puncknowle, you kinda skip letters at random.

Barlick and Punnel.

sometimes it's kinda obvious that the spelling came from a different language, and you have to be halfway familiar with French or German or Welsh or Cornish for it to make sense.
Like Cambois, that's 'Cam-is'. And Avoch is 'awk'.

and Belvoir is 'beaver'.

Keighley is 'keith-lee', and Culzean is 'cuh-lane', and houghham is 'hoff-em', all of which is nice and fair and understandable and you'd be forgiven for starting to think there were *rules* to this chaos but THERE AREN'T.

behold, places with the same spelling....

and DIFFERENT PRONUNCIATION.

Barugh, N Yorkshire, and Barugh, S Yorkshire, are 'barf' and 'bark', respectively.

There's Claughton, Lancs; Claughton, Merseyside, and Claughton-on-Brock.
'klaf-ten', 'claw-ten', and 'kly-ten'.

Bonus points for Loughborough, which gets two different pronunciations in *the same word*. Luff-bruh.

'but Madeline, surely some places are easy!' and you're right! occasionally some places are pronounced exactly how they're spelt! Like Upton Snodsbury.

Unfortunately, some places are spelled really easily, using common words... and then not pronounced like that.
Mousehill? 'mow-zul'. Snowshill? 'snozzle'. Greysouthen? 'gray-soon'. Stiffkey? 'stookey'.

And to make it extra fun, there's inconsistency here, too.

Roughton and Woughton?

rooten and wufften.

and then sometimes you get names where like, i wonder if somebody made a typo once and everyone just stuck with it, because that's the only logical explanation.

like Alresford being 'ollsford', or Cononley being 'cun-lee'.

Tintwistle, which is 'tinsel'.

or you get the very victorian trend of 'let's insert extra unnecessary letters, for fun, like'.
Tacolneston is 'tackles-ten'. Cholmondley and Cholmondeston are 'chum-lee' and 'chum-stun'.

and then finally we get to the place-names where laughing in the face of just one rule wasn't enough, so they do everything at once.
Wymondham? 'wind-em'.
Glenzier? 'gling-her'.
Rampisham and Ratlinghope? Ransom and Rachup.

not weird enough for you?
Have Staithes. that's 'steers'.
Portesham? 'possum'.

Pontefract? 'pum-frit'.

and then, once you've conquered all that, you have the Final Boss.
Woolfardisworthy.

(take a moment, think it over)

Woolfardisworthy?

Wull-zee.

(/fin).

honourable mentions: https://twitter.com/madeleineyoung_/status/1360267851274326018?s=20