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Welsh sources contacted by the National Post, however, unanimously agreed that the translation was wrong. In truth, Gorffwysfa carries the somewhat un-Prime Ministerial meaning of “resting place.”

The same name adorns several buildings in Wales, but they’re all retirement homes or bed and breakfasts, not grand seats of political power.

Never intended as a state residence, Gorffwysfa was built in 1868 by Joseph Merrill Currier, a Vermont-born lumber baron notable for a life strewn with tragedy.

An 1850s scarlet fever outbreak killed three of his four children, and his first wife died soon after.

Then, only two months after he remarried, his second wife was killed when she became caught in turbines at the grand opening of a Currier-financed flour mill.

“She was sucked in and smashed against a post, dying in front of her husband and all of their guests,” reads an email to the National Post by CPAC host Catherine Clark.

As a child, Clark lived in 24 Sussex during her father Joe’s brief time as Prime Minister, and she recently hosted an hour-long documentary on the mansion.

Gorffwysfa, said Clark, was Currier’s gift to his third wife who, fortunately, didn’t appear to be cursed by a tragic end.

Given its current usage, a more accurate Welsh name for 24 Sussex would be “Ystâd y Prif Weinidog” (Estate of the Prime Minister). However, with “weinidog” being pronounced exactly like “whiny dog,” it’s unlikely this Welsh name would have found mainstream acceptance either.

As for Gorffwysfa’s tricky pronunciation, the National Post got assistance from Gwyn Williams, 30, a Manchester-based audit manager who grew up in one of the 10% of Welsh households who still speak exclusively in the country’s native tongue.

“It’s three syllables, with the emphasis/stress placed on the middling one: gor-FFWYS-fa,” he explained.

The first syllable is “ghorr. “With the Rs rolled … but don’t linger on the Rs either,” said Williams.

Then comes “phoois” (“Again, don’t linger on the Ss either,” he said).

And finally, “va.”

Noted Melinda Gray, organizer for an upcoming Welsh studies conference at Harvard University: “It doesn’t look like an English word, I suppose; from the point of view of an English speaker, Welsh might seem bafflingly full of consonants, not understanding that the ‘w’ and the ‘y’ serve as vowels.”

“At least it doesn’t have any ‘Ll’s in it,” said Toronto-based Welsh speaker Hefina Phillips, writing in an email to the National Post.