Mind your language
CHOLMONDELEY, Marjoribanks, Featherstonehaugh — the English have a love of names that are not pro- nounced as they look (though I under- stand that the Pepys family now regards itself as two-syllabled). It is odd then that we are so cavalier with foreigners' names.
Bjorn Borg must be used by now to having his surname pronounced with a hard `g'. I hear from a reader, Mr J. H. Wiberg, that Ingrid Bergman would have liked to be called Berryman. Mr Wiberg knows the problem well. One of his kinsmen eight centuries ago was a Norman called Simon de Wiberg. Nor- mans were of Scandinavian descent. Simon was granted land in north Devon, and the local people, not being able to read, called the place Wibbery, which name survives near Bideford. But when Mr Wiberg's own grandfather came to England in the 19th century people could read and pronounced his name Wy-berg.
So much for literacy. Indeed I have heard our own 'Low life' correspondent complain in a loud voice when addressed as Mr Bernard, as in Bernard Levin. And of course our not-yet-saint- ed 'High life' correspondent is obliged to resort to a pet name, so difficult is his patronym for English tongues. I sup- pose my own name is one of the few that people can spell right when I men- tion it on the telephone.
Dot Wordsworth
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