My name is Marjoribanks. Well, you know that. But you may not know that I (perhaps, perversely) pronounce it in the traditional Scottish way marshbanks, to rhyme with harsh pranks. Now I do not for a moment expect people to know this – any reasonable attempt at pronouncing my surname is OK by me. Indeed, I am only too pleased if anyone remembers enough of my name to be able to identify me. But the fact remains that this can cause confusion at times where someone who only knows my name in its written form, hears it from me for the first time.
Some Marjoribankses – especially those who have migrated out of Scotland – have taken to spelling their name “Marshbanks”, or “Marchbanks” or even Marchbank” to match the pronunciation. I wish I had when I left Scotland as a newly-minted young geologist many decades ago. But I didn’t, and it is too late now.
The Coat of Arms and motto of the Marjoribanks Clan (I will spare you the tartan: all recent conceits)
We Marjoribankses are in good company. Take, for example, the common Scottish surname “Menzies”. In Scotland (at any rate, in Edinburgh) the correct way to pronounce this name is mingis. Hence the nickname “Ming” of Australia’s longest serving Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies. Also giving rise to the limerick, understandable only by Scots persons (and now, you too)…
A silly young damsel called Menzies
enquired: “Do you know what this thenzies?”
Her aunt, with a gasp,
replied : “It’s a wasp
and you’re holding the end where the stenzies ! “ (Anon.)
There are many other Scottish examples: deeyell for Dalziell, mackaye for McKay and maclaine for McClean. Of course it is not just Scottish names which can display this peculiarity. The list of similar English surnames is long. Try these: Mainwairing pronounced mannering (remember Dad’s Army?), Cholmondeley pronounced chumley, Colquhoon pronounced cohoon, Belvoir as beevor, Bohun as boon and Beauchamp as beecham.
In the 19th century there was a great deal of snobbery about surnames. In 1898, H G Wells wrote a delightful short story – Miss Winchelsea’s Heart – exploring this snobbery in relation to the non-standard spelling of an English surname. Miss Winchelsea, a prim and snobbish schoolmistress, travels to Rome and there falls in love with a handsome, cultured and rich young man on the same tour group. Her feelings are reciprocated, but when she finds out he is called Mr Snooks, and imagining the horrors of a lifetime as Mrs Snooks, she cuts him dead. Weeks later, Miss Winchelsea receives a letter from her plain-looking best friend, on whom the young man rebounded after his rebuff, and to whom she is now married. But the letter is not signed Mrs Snooks. No, now the couple call themselves Mr and Mrs Sevenoaks, reverting to the original name from which Snooks had been derived. Miss Winchelsea is mortified and resigns herself to old-maidenhood. She had blown her chance of a life of happiness as Mrs Sevenoaks, a name redolent of the landed upper class.
There is a witty poem which highlights these strangely-spelt British surnames. It is by Harry Pearson, and published in the Oxford Book of Comic Verse. To understand it, you will need to consult the first two paragraphs above:
Nomenclaturik
There was a young fellow named Cholmondeley
Whose bride was so mellow and colmondeley
That the best man, Colquhoun
An inane young bolqufoun
Could only stand still and stare dolmondeley.
The bridegroom’s first cousin young Belvoir
Whose dad was a Lancashire welvoir,
Arrived with George Bohun
At just about nohun
When excitement was mounting to felvoir.
The vicar – his surname was Beauchamp-
Of marriage endeavoured to teauchamp
While the bridesmaid Miss Marjoribanks
Played one or two harjoripranks*
But the shoe that she threw failed to reauchamp.