Sandgroper Chuckles As Simple East Coaster Mangles Pronunciation Of Yallingup

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

A Perth native has let out a condescending chortle this afternoon as a colleague explained they'd just returned from a holiday in Western Australia.

The quick burst of chuckle came out of Molly Coyne's mouth almost as a reflex. She sat at the lunch table with her fellow disposable city workers at an equally as irrelevant media agency in the French Quarter, and listened to Dave Gunk refer to a place called "Yallin-gup" that he thought was quite pretty.

"Ha," said Molly.

"Right, okay, so it's Yalling-up. You say the 'Y' like a 'Y', not a 'J', and the 'up' at the end is just 'up', like, as in the word 'up.' It's Noongar, most of the South West place names are. Dunsborough's easy, everyone gets that one, but then people lose the plot at Walpole, it's not 'Wal-pole', it's 'Wall-pl,' you kind of swallow it a bit. And don't even get me started on Gnowangerup. The 'Gn' is silent, so it's 'No-wang-er-up', but even then you have to, are you remembering this? You're not writing this down. Okay, whatever. What about Mundaring? People always put the emphasis on the wrong. You know what, forget Mundaring. Just. When you're down there again, just point at things on the map and let someone local say it first. That's what I'm telling you. That is the system."

Dave nodded and thanked Molly for setting him straight. Then he asked her to say 'Goondiwindi'.

More to come.