Pontrhydyrun

You don't really want to know this but someone over on facebook was asking how to pronounce Pontrhydyrun. My friend Alan Davey pointed out that locals say "pont-rudd-rinn" (or sometimes "pon-a-drinn"). Then Jean-Marc Alter made a fine bash at the phonetics but was caught out (like many before him) not realising that the "un" from "Pontrhydyrun" is actually an English spelling (!). Where he wants us to say reen at the end, therefore, we should be saying "un" as an English speaker naturally would. The original word was probably Pontrhydyrynn (Pont-Bridge rhyd-Ford yr-Of the ynn-Ash trees cf the nearby eatery The Ash Bridge). This means that a correct Welsh pronunciation would be "Pont-r(h)ead-ur-unn". The irony is that the chapel is not in Pontrhydyrun but up the hill from the village where Baptist George Conway started his tinplate works early in the 19th century. It is in ... Croesyceiliog ... don't get me started.