How many O's in Woolloomooloo

Posted by Sarah on September 24, 2008 · 1 min read

I am often asked how to pronounce my surname. It’s not too difficult, but for your benefit, I will now attempt at a phonetic guide to my last name. 

Essentially, it can be broken down into 3 parts: tara - pore - walla

Tara

pronounced ta-ra. Like the girls name; like the house in Gone With The Wind (but without Vivian Leigh’s accent please.)

Pore

pronounced like pour or poor. The ‘e’ is silent.

Walla

pronounced wa-lla. Not wall-a.

Put it all together and you get : ta - ra - pour - wa - lla

I hope that helps. Please feel free to let me know how you thought it was pronounced or spelt.  

The title of this post comes from a riddle by C.J.Dennis:

How many O’s in Woolloomooloo? Two for the W, two for the M Four for the Ls and thats plenty of them. (Woolloomoloo is a suburb of Sydney, Australia)

Oh - and I have one vowel for every consonant (I always lump the double Ls together)