20 Years On: Remembering Rob Hall
- Publish Date
- Wednesday, 11 May 2016, 12:42PM
In this video clip, Australian actor Jason Clarke reflects on the remarkable Rob Hall (the man he played in the 2015 film Everest), on meeting Rob's widow and child (born after Rob perished), his impressions of Mt Everest and more.
Speaking of Everest - have we been pronouncing it wrong all these years?Â
The world's highest mountain's been known as Mt Everest since it was named after Welsh surveyor and geographer Colonel Sir George Everest in 1865.
While George Everest objected to the honor, the Royal Geographical Society went ahead and named it after him due to his significant contribution to the Great Trigonometric Survey of India, which took place over several decades starting in 1806.
However, over time the pronunciation of Everest's name has altered to the point where now the way people commonly say "Mount Everest" isn't actually reflective of the man who gave the mountain its name.
George Everest's surname was actually pronounced Eve-rest, with the emphasis on 'Eve,' like the woman's name. But the mountain is almost universally, in the English language, known as Ever-est (or, in some cases, Evv-rest).
Language and pronunciations evolve, of course, so it's hard to see that there's an absolute right or wrong here. But to stay true to the Royal Geographical Society's original intentions, Earth's highest peak should technically be referred to as "Mount Eve-rest."