It’s the most famous mountain in the world, and one that comes with many tales of wonder and loss from the people that dare to ascend it but, it turns out, that many of us have been pronouncing Mount Everests’ name incorrectly.
This is because the mountain was named after George Everest, a British geographer of India, who, according to Gripped, never even saw the mountain.
George actually didn’t want the mountain to be named after him, as his name is difficult to write in Hindi and native speakers found it difficult to pronounce and it turns out, we kind of do too, since it’s not pronounced ever-est but instead eve-rest.
How Mount Everest was named
According to Montana State University: “The Great Trigonometric Survey of British India, spanning several decades during the 19th century, identified “a stupendous snowy mass” through surveying instruments from above the hill resort of Darjeeling, over 140 miles away.
“The peak was initially named “Gamma” and then subsequently changed to “peak b” in 1847; it was suspected that “peak b” might be the highest mountain in the world, slightly higher than Kangchenjunga* which was considered to the highest mountain in the world at that time.”
The mountain was eventually named Mount Everest, not by George Everest himself but by his successor, Andrew Waugh.
Though George had spent his adult life in India working as a geodesist, he returned to Britain for his retirement in 1843 and was knighted in 1861 for his hard work and discoveries during his career.
He rallied against naming the mountain after himself as he believed all names should be native to the places but, of course, he never did convince people to re-think the name and died at age 76 years old.
So, if we can’t honour his wishes by renaming the mountain, we could at least pronounce his name correctly!