Why is the word "worcestershire" so hard to say?

It’s the collision of elision and decision.

Lee & Perrin foresaw your arrival and wanted to do their part in assuring your life difficult.

Worst-ter-sheer

Some say worst-ter-shir like New Hampshire.

You’re having trouble because you’re probably trying to read it phonetically, and this word like so many in English isn’t easy to figure out phonetically.

Ignore the “ce” as they do in the name of the English county it is named from and it’s much easier to pronounce.

Really easy. “Wors…sester…shire” If that doesn’t work just say “steak sauce.” Oh wait, that’s A1.

Too many Rs! And “tch“sounds in one word.

And if anyone wants to put “steak sauce” on a steak they bought the wrong cut of steak!

It’s not that hard for me, when I take time to say each syllable one at a time: Wor-cess-ter-sure.

But if it unexpectedly appears in something I’m reading, then it could be a challenge.

I think it might be because it’s significantly longer than a lot of more familiar city names, e.g., Boston, Paris, Rome, London, Houston, Dallas, New York, Chicago, etc.

Because it’s the name of a relatively obscure city, and not among more frequently encountered lengthy words such as nouns and verbs, it’ll be harder pronounce, unless one is familiar with urban MA. Actually, I think at least some Mass. residents pronounce it “Woosta”.

@mazingerz88 You say the ce?

For the definitive answer to this and many other questions we should await that putative pinnacle of the portmanteau, the Earl o’ Ucme:

Magdelen
Kirkcudbright
Mousehole
Alnwick
Godmanchester
Fowey
Teignmouth
Cholmondeley

I say it like
Wore-chest-ter-shire
or worch-ter-shire
or worh-cesi-tirei-reire

I learn how to say it then forget for the next time it comes up in sauce form

I’ll come up with a shorter way to say it
“Get me that sauce”
“What sauce?”
“whoresauce”

There is a city about an hour west of Boston – Worcester. It is pronounced “Wooster”. My daughter goes to college there.

So Wooster-sher is how you say the name of the sauce.

If you want to really examine English pronunciation, consider Cholmondeley- pronounced “Chumley”.

Cholmondeley= Chumley?? I’m lost

Here’s how to pronounce it. All these people leaving in the ce aren’t from the Northeast or New England I’m guessing.

Wikipedia spells out the phonetics. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worcestershire_sauce

This is one video on how to pronounce. https://youtu.be/x4fNFo2nsNw

Here’s another https://youtu.be/oPerqGHwj3k

Looks like you drop the RCE and it is like New Hampshire at the end.

I don’t quite say it correctly either, but all of you trying to pronounce all the letters, no wonder you have trouble.

Worsheh

@SergeantQueen It’s really not much more confusing than the large city in Louisiana pronounced “Nawlins”.

It’s not!
I’ve heard americans pronounce Leicester (Lester) as Lai-chester!! :D

The Brits are masters of syncope (syllable reduction). It results mainly from casual, rapid speech. Names that contain many etymological elements and have many syllables are reduced to just a few for expedience. My personal favorite: Featherstonhaugh (pronoucned “fan-shaw”).

They had better be masters at it. For my money, the further you get from Rome, the more difficult time you’re going to have with the prevailing language. The adjustments forced with the collision of Franco Teutonic Celtic Nordic Latin Germanic languages that is English makes for tongue twisting acrobatics to which no mouth can adapt. It is the price we pay for a language of exquisite expressive capabilities and staggering vocabulary unmatched on the planet.

How its pronounced video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPerqGHwj3k

Sounds MORE like wor test sure

@Demosthenes

I’ll see your syncope and even raise you a couple of syllables in epenthesis.

It was the best of shire it was the worcestershire…

@Dutchess_lll Good one!

Grooooooan