Holkham isn’t the only estate to trip people up. Only people who think they’re being posh call it “Hokeham”.’ Coke has been pronounced ‘Cook’ as far back as ‘about 1150, when we were minor knights in Swaffham,’ advises Lord Leicester.
Tom Coke, 8th Earl of Leicester, is the custodian of three awkward names: Leicester, his surname Coke, said ‘Cook’, and his Norfolk seat of Holkham: ‘It’s a hard L. ‘We all agreed that it would be a travesty if he was ever promoted to Major,’ laughs Mr Scrope.
‘I joke that it’s a vowel tax to go with the window tax and we couldn’t afford it.’ Mr Scrope was friends at Sandhurst with one Hugh Mainwaring, whose name, like that of the Dad’s Army character, is pronounced ‘Mannering’. ‘Scrope has historically been spelt with two Os and the change to one was often to disassociate following new administration,’ explains Harry Scrope, a former Coldstream Guards officer. The ancient Catholic family of Scrope (pronounced ‘Scroop’) has been around since the 12th century, yet people continue to get the name wrong. Ross published his essay U and Non-U, laying out which words demarcated the upper class, yet language snobbery has scarcely abated. Just as most things in this country can come down to class, so, too, can language and whether or not we get it ‘right’, even down to the stress we put on words: ‘ research’ or ‘re search’? Knowing that the Marquess of Cholmondeley is pronounced ‘Chumley’ puts you in one camp not knowing might put you in another. I had no business writing about the great man if I couldn’t even get his name right, she snapped. During my first year at university, I was talking about an author when my tutor cut in: ‘It’s Pole, not Powell.’ I was talking about Anthony Powell, but I’d pronounced his name incorrectly. Eleanor Doughty (Dowty? Dockerty? Dotty?) investigates.Įmbarrassment can scorch like boiling water and I was 18 when I made one of my worst faux pas.
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