Our old friend the pronunciation of Scafell is here again (Letters, June 8 ‘How is Fell pronounced?’).
The Whitehaven News ran a long correspondence on this in January 2015. The pre-1812 maps call it Sca Fell; Coleridge in his letter written on its top in 1802, gave it the fashionable (but meaningless) apostrophe, Sca’Fell, which his friend Dorothy Wordsworth (William’s sister) interpreted a Scaw Fell (1818) as did William in his 1835 edition of the ‘Guide to the Lakes’.
So it remained till well into the 20th century, though H.H. Symonds (1933) gave the local pronunciation of it as Scarf’l (Walking in the Lake District, p.166).
In 1794 it was called Sco(w)fell. The pronunciation may still be evolving. Hang in there!
Jeremy Godwin
Penrith
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