William Farquhar

My history teacher in Secondary school declared that the proper pronunciation of "Farquhar" was "Far-kwa".

I was even then a sceptical person, and I was immediately suspicious of this out of the blue declaration.

What other pronunciation is there for "Farquhar"? That would be scandalous for teenage boys to utter?

A suggestion came to mind immediately.

I was also suspicious because the "kwa" sound is not something you hear in the English Language. At least not as spoken by the native English speakers, by which I mean BBC English. At least, not in my experience. The "kwa" phoneme is characteristically... Hokkien or Teochew. Or maybe that was my personal linguistic bias.

And there are a lot of contractions and pronunciation oddities in English.

For example "Leicester" is pronounced "Lester". I found that out from the old song "It's a long way to Tipperary".

Later I would find the same for "Gloucester", and "Worcester" (which I found out from trying to pronounce "Worcestershire sauce").

Which led me to wonder if a Brit would pronounce "Winchester", "Winster"...

Later I would find a whole lot of British names pronounced idiosyncratically.

Here is a video of some of those names of places:



BUT... those are names of places. Not names of people. Surely people's names are pronounced the way they are spelt, right?

"Featherstonehaugh" is a real, though rather unusual British surname. How do you think it's pronounced? I'll give you a clue: it's less than 4 syllables. Here's the pronunciation guide (Spoiler: It's pronounced "Fen-shaw".).

The pronunciation of that surname is nothing like how it is spelt!

That was quite a lot of contraction over the years.

Like "colonel". How did that become "Ker-nel"?

So... could "Farquhar" have been contracted to something more clipped?

Well, if you attended the Bicentennial Experience's The Time Traveller, in Act II when they recount the arrival of Stamford Raffles, the narrator's pronunciation of "Farquhar" was in accordance with this pronunciation guide:



And yes, my prurient suspicion has been confirmed!

If you Google "Farquhar Pronunciation", you'll learn that "Farquhar" pronunciation rhymes with "darker", and is a Scottish surname meaning "Fear Guard".

And the pronunciation of "Farquhar" was part of a discussion on Common Singaporean Mispronunciation on Reddit SG, with this comment:

Hell yes. I remember when we viewed a British documentary in Secondary school on William Farquhar, and my then teacher kept squirming because the narrator kept going 'WILLIAM FUCKER'. All of us totally got kicks out of it and insisted very strongly on using the proper pronunciation for his name after that and trying to work it into as many awkward conversations as possible. Fun times.

And this is probably why there are Raffles Institution, Raffles Hotel, Raffles Medical Group, Raffles Hospital, and Raffles ad nauseam, but not ONE Farquhar Institution, or Farquhar Square, or Farquhar City, or Farquhar University.

I guess this might be awkward:

"So which University did you graduate from?"

"F.U."

More on Farquhar (27 Dec 2023 Amendment)

A Forum Page Letter from 2 June 2017:

Name a road to honour Farquhar 

While Sir Stamford Raffles was the founder of Singapore, Lieutenant-Colonel William Farquhar was the First Resident Minister from 1819 to 1823. It was he who governed the new settlement in the absence of Raffles, who was stationed in Bencoolen. 

Among other challenges, Farquhar had to work within a limited budget. To fund the administration, he raked in revenue through the sale of licences for vices such as gambling dens and gaming houses, and through the sale of opium and alcohol. 

Raffles was furious when he returned to Singapore and saw what was happening, as he regarded these activities as immoral. 

Despite the prosperity achieved through Farquhar's diligent planning and governance, he was sacked. 

John Turnbull's book, "Translations from the Hakayit Abdulla, Bin Abdulkadar, Munshi (1874)", records the day of his departure: 

"It is not because he is a great man or a little man, rich or poor, but because of his amiability - on that account only; from this comes the excessive love of the people for him. 

"Thousands of people followed him from his house to the seashore, each and every one bidding him goodbye, and offering their respects; and in receiving each, he was detained two hours before he could get into the vessel, his tears flowing. 

"The people in the prows now fired cannons, guns, and crackers, some sang, some fiddled, each to their notion... making the whole sea resound... The appearance of the scene was as a father amongst his children, till all were weeping; he wept also." 

We saw a similar moving farewell for our late prime minister Lee Kuan Yew. 

Other colonial residents are remembered by landmarks, such as Crawford Street, Crawford Lane, Crawford Bridge after John Crawfurd; Church Street after Thomas Church; Raffles Institution after Sir Stamford Raffles. 

Singapore used to have a Farquhar Street. It was located between Beach Road and North Bridge Road. However, it was expunged in 1994 due to street realignment and site development. 

Shouldn't we consider naming another road to honour this man who laid the foundation of modern Singapore? 

Tay Zi Han