Residents in Dewsbury are reeling from the news that the town has a very bad name.
Between a kidnapped schoolgirl, being home to a suicide bomber, the attempted lynching of a boy aged 5, the teaching assistant who refused to remove her veil, a record BNP vote, and the murder of a schoolboy in a park there, well it seems to be all go in Dewsbury.
However, the biggest shock of them all has been the actual name "Dewsbury" and the problems people have with pronouncing it.
For example, people in Hull, a city well known for mispronouncing any word with a vowel in it, call it "Duurhsbry". Visiting Americans call it "Doosbyry". Sloane Rangers from London call it Dues-byuh-rie and Paris Hilton finds it has too many letters and consonants to even try pronouncing it in the first place.
Leader of the town council, Eamon Toohigh said:
"We have to drastically re-think the name of our town. Far too many people are mispronouncing it. We have found ourselves in the situation places like Loughborough, Towcester, and Llandudno have been before, and think that we need to radically rethink the town's name.
"Suggestions from the public have included "Town", "Doobry" and "Yorkshirestan". We also had the suggestion "Leeds" but think this may cause confusion because there is already one called by that name 9 miles up the road.
"We have decided to run a competition to rename the town. And to avoid further confusion, entries should be sent to Batley Town Hall a mile up the road from us."
