Just based on how often I notice someone mispronounce a word without realizing it (or have done so myself and realized it later). Statistically I’m probably still doing it with some word.
Welcome to the world of Irish names!
We got:
- Dearbhla (Derv-la, f)
- caoilfhionn (kee-lin, f)
- Meadhbh (Maeve, f)
- Saoirse (seer-shuh, f)
- Seoirse (shor-shuh, m)
- Caoimhín (kee-veen, m)
- Sadhbh (sive, f)
And many more!
Hope do you pronounce Siobhan?
Shuh-vawn
My American accent pronounces it “Shove-on”.
There’s meant to be a fada over the a (á), so it’s definitely meant to be a longer vowel sound.
Take the name Sean for example. Spelled like that it’s actually pronounced shan, and means old. The name that we all pronounce as Shawn is actually spelled Seán
The name that we all pronounce as Shawn is actually spelled Seán
And, fun fact, is the Irish version of the Hebrew name Yohanan (יוֹחָנָן) from which we get John and Jean and Jehan and Johan and Shane and Juan and many other variants!
Everybody’s named John. All the way back. There is only one name, just lots of different spellings and pronunciations.
It actually helps a little if you realize the Russian letter В is pronounced like an English V.
We should re-do Romanization. Start over, sound it out, have a big Anglosphere conference to decide on what letters make what noise and stick to it.
Many of the slavic romanizations have largely centralised on strict roman phonetics. There are still exceptions, but many of them can be sounded out with a bit of learning.
Yeah. English doesn’t use the “bh” and “dh” digraphs the same way we use “th”, but Irish does. One you learn that, that’s like 80-90% of the confusion.
My Irish cousin-in-law recently had a daughter and named her Blathnaid. I was very surprised to learn it is pronounced Bla-nid
Worcestershire
I believe it’s pronounced “wstr”
Close, that’s Worcester. Worcestershire is “wstrshr”!
Woosta! :)
Wuss-ter
Wuss-ter-sheer
The whole word is silent
sauce?
That one isn’t silent
And nearby Leominster
And Cirencester
and Towcester (“toaster”)
Map Men have a few more examples
Sern Stir?
It’s pronounced “siren sester”.
“-cester” is usually pronounced “stir”, I’d assume then “Sir In Stir” if I got the first part wrong
It’s English. The only rule is that actually in some cases the rules are different.
Lemon Stir
Wash your sister sauce
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There’s a Worcester in Massachusetts, local pronunciation rhymes with sister (which is in turn said like “sista”)
One of my friends once called me pedantic, and I got to correct his pronunciation of it - he stressed the first syllable. One of the high points of my life.
Someone is peDANTic, but they themselves are a PEdant. Probably why they made that mistake
But did they say Ped-ant or PEE-dant?
Like how we can reCORD some music and release a a REcord
Or make some COMpost by putting those scraps in the comPOST
I still put scraps into the COMpost, but only the comPOSTable scraps.
I had a similar thing with the word contrarian!
Ghoti
Ha I don’t even know what that is so I will never say it.
GH is pronounced F like in “enough”.
O is pronounced E like on “women”.
TI is pronounced SH like in “action”.
Therefore, ghoti is pronounced fish.
You CAN pronounce it fish, but you can also just simply not pronounce it.
GH is pronounced _ like in high.
O is pronounced _ like in jeopardy.
T is pronounced _ like in potpourri.
I is pronounced _ like in receive.
Therefore, ghoti is completely silent.
Fun fact: every letter except V can be pronounced silently.
That’s interesting! How about Q?
Lacquer. (Which I believe is the only word in English with a silent Q. Proper nouns don’t count.)
Do you mean stuff like acquire? There are a good bunch of ‘cq’ words.
T is pronounced _ like in potpourri.
Kind of a cop-out, since that’s a straight-up French loanword. “Soften” would be better. Or “often,” if not for the fact that it’s so commonly mispronounced.
True! I just remembered that there was a way to make the whole word silent but didn’t remember the T bit so I looked it up. This was the first example. Soften is much better!
for fuck’s sake
I remember this one! They’re was another one as well which I’ve sadly forgotten. I believe I tried to make a couple up myself once upon a time.
A “niche” is not a “nitch”
You’re a bit too late for trying to complain about that one.
The latter has been the dominant American pronunciation of the word for so long that it now appears as the primary pronunciation guide in American dictionaries.
Both Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster agree that “nitch” was the correct pronunciation in both British and American English until very recently. You already linked Merriam-Webster, so here’s O.E.D:
N.E.D. (1907) gives only the pronunciation (nitʃ) /nɪtʃ/ and the pronunciation /niːʃ/ is apparently not recorded before this date. H. Michaelis & D. Jones Phonetic Dict. Eng. Lang. (1913), and all editions of D. Jones Eng. Pronouncing Dict. up to and including the fourteenth edition (1977) give /nɪtʃ/ as the typical pronunciation and /niːʃ/ as an alternative pronunciation. The fifteenth edition (1991) gives /niːʃ/ in British English and /nɪtʃ/ in U.S. English.
(N.E.D is the original name of the O.E.D. “/nɪtʃ/” is pronounced “nitch” and /niːʃ/ is pronounced “neesh”.)
I hope cache isn’t pronounced like cachet (rhymes with sashay) rather than cash.
Australians pronounce is as kaysh which Ive always used, and I was horribly annoyed by Americans pronouncing it cash.
I was even more annoyed when I learned that cash is the “correct” way to pronounce it!
Get used to it, my Australian friend
It varies by region at least in the US based on a few years of doing service desk work. Listening to YouTubers, it seems a bit all over the place as well.
It likely correlates with French influence in the South, seeing as it is a French word.
Some of the the Louisana folks would often say ka-SHAY in a wonderful Cajun accent.
They’re exactly the ones who should know better…
Well, crap. Guess I’ll eat a nice quitch to chear myself up
You mean a quickie?
As long as it’s not scrambled, I suppose
Fun fact i lost a regional spelling bee because of those exact words. I should have asked for usage example but I was like 11 and terrified
Or a niece, Eric Matthews.
its aluminium
I’ll concede aluminium when the Brits adopt platinium
theyll adopt aluminum as soon as you wrap your lips around a fag
Don’t threaten ME with a good time.
[dies of smoke inhalation]
aluminum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium
tomato tomato lets call the whole thing off!
oh what, that’s an actual spelling? I was just saying that
Yes, “aluminum” is the original, and “aluminium” was later adopted to make it sound more Latin.
really its just geographic thing. i prefer the european version
Are you European?
No I’m not European, bein’ all I can
I’ve been waiting 31 years for that question
nope
Only if you trust the French more than the guy who named it.
i do. coughs in jpg
For me it isn’t “some” word it is “many, many” words.
charcuterie (shar-KOO-terr-ee) (TIL)
potable (POH-tah-bull)
prerogative (preh-ROG-ah-tiv) – wait, wat? Damn. I say it (pur-OHG-ah-tiv)
preternatural (pree-ter-NAT-chur-al)
remuneration (reh-myoo-ner-AY-shun) – I’m not admitting how I say it lol
surprise - let’s just say I spelled it suprise for ages. sigh
victual (vittle) - wait, that’s how you spell it??
Indefatigable (IN-dih-FA-tih-gə-bl) not in-dee-fa-TEEG-able
Primer: \PRIMM-er\ – small book / short informative piece of writing. (Brits can use long-i for both the paint undercoat and the book).
Mischievous: \MISS-chuh-vuss\ though mis-CHEE-vee-us is a non standard alternate pronunciation.
Interlocutor: \in tuhr LOCK you tore. I had no idea how to pronounce this so I never said it.
I think some “mispronunciations” are down to regional pronunciation. Like, I say miniature as MIN-ih-chure by habit though I’m well aware of how it’s spelled and “should” be pronounced. I swear that’s how I heard it growing up.
Maybe it isn’t regional and it is just me. That would explain some things lol.
And uh, yeah I have a bunch more, some I know but am forgetting at the moment. Undoubtedly I mispronounce many more while having no idea. What must people think of me? Lol
Look, I was on board until you started throwing out made up words like preternatural, victual, and indefatigable, then I knew you were pulling my leg.
Horatio Hornblower would like a word if you think Indefatigable is a made up word!
In war we’re tough and able [steps on cat]
Quite indefatigable
Between our quests we sequin vests and impersonate Clark Gable
Clearly pronounced in-de-fa-tee-gable
But many times, they’re given rhymes that are quite un-sing-able.
Looks like you’re mainly struggling with words of french origin, which is fair, the language is fucked up.
TIL it’s “prerogative”…
I’m American and have never heard “prim-er” I’ve always heard “prime-er”.
I say miniture when it’s an adjective like a smallish thing, but mini-a-ture when I’m using it as a noun, like the pieces used in tabletop gaming.
victual (vittle)
I knew that “vittle” was from the word “victual,” but I never knew that they were actually pronounced the same!
Mischievous: \MISS-chuh-vuss\ though mis-CHEE-vee-us is a non standard alternate pronunciation.
I hate that alternate pronunciation. How do you get “vee-us” from “vous”?
Idk. Likely some people misheard or misread it way back and then repeated.to others and it spread. How does any word change over time, right?
The only time I have actually heard someone use indefatigable is in the Monty python, where they intentionally pronounce it wrong
/prəˈrɒgətɪv/ Huh. I guess usually when a schwa and a rhotic is involved, my dialect drops it. I pronounce it /prˈrɒgətɪv/ which could be romanized to pur-ROH-guh-tiv. But there’s no actual separation between the u and the r there.
Interesting. I find the combination of rhotic - schwa - rhotic rather awkward. That could explain why it is commonly mispronounced.
I was like 25 when I found out it was wheelbarrow and not wheelbarrel
It’s pronounced ‘gif’
The German girl Ginger gave George gross gelatin.
Giblet
Jiraffe
/ʒaɪf/
Gnocchi
Knee-yo-key
Even that is an approximation, I don’t think English has the Italian gn sound, which is the same as Spanish ñ.
I can’t think of any way to spell it that’d lead to a precise pronunciation, or any English word that contains that specific sound.
I mean, this word does have an English pronunciation that is distinct from the Italian pronunciation, which follows English phonology.
Of course, I just found it interesting there’s no equivalent sound
Re-reading I can see you weren’t actually claiming English speakers needed to use the Italian pronunciation. Some people do claim that so I just kind of continued my lifelong argument with those people :)
I agree that basic sounds from one language that don’t exist in another language are interesting.
I understand your point and admit my comment could definitely be interpreted that way.
I could be a dick about it and demand people learn to pronounce it the way us Italians do, but then I’d also have to start pronouncing every English loan word perfectly and with a correct English accent while speaking Italian, and you can do that without sounding like a pretentious asshole, so I won’t.
It’s funny that we call these words “loanwords” that we “borrow”. That implies they don’t belong to our language and that we don’t have the right to modify them however we want; it even implies that eventually we’ll return them to their language of origin. It would be much more accurate to say these words have been acquired, incorporated, or assimilated. That’s what languages actually do with words they get from other languages.
Personally, I enjoy the organic nature of the exchange of words between languages. Different languages and cultures treat foreign words differently. Some try to stick as close to the original pronunciation as possible, and some happily alter the word. This can even be handled differently by the same language and culture at a different period of time. For example, in English we have the words “gender” and “genre”, both borrowed from the same French word at different times. The older one is pronounced in an English-sounding way and the newer one is pronounced as close to the French way as possible. I find this kind of stuff very amusing.
no key?
Knee-oh-chee
Knocky
Not exactly related to the question, but as a non-native English speaker, whenever I read something related to weights in imperial, e.g., 150 lbs, my mind reads it as 150 lubes.
I know it’s pounds, if I would read it out loud, I would say pounds cause I’m not a weirdo (well…). But still, my internal monologue has lbs = lubes
I feel you. My inner voice reads this as “libs”.
Elbs
I love your brain
I love your brain
Right? I’m a native English speaker (Aussie, so…loosely native English speaker) and my first exposure to “Lbs” was for the weight of Pokemon in the physical red Pokédex handbook, so I always just said they weighed “X labs”, still don’t immediately correct it in my head 25+ years later.
For me its always been “limbs”
If anyone is wondering why this is abbreviation for it, it is because the full name for pound weight in latin is libra poundo. We use the libra part for the abbrievation into lbs but pounds for the actual common name.
I was the same except I said it as “ibs” was quite a while I was thinking that when I was younger. My internal monologue still says it this way anytime I read it even though I know now
What’s the grammatical rule for using 4 l’s in a row? Ma gawd what a mess
Perfectly cromulent in Welsh.
According to this song, you pronounce like trying to cough up some phlegm that’s gotten stuck in your throat. I can only assume that their history of coal mining has affected the language.
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4 l’s in a row
That’s basically how you spell “yellow” in 22nd century Spanglish
Not Welsh, but I think it’s a compound with successive elements ending and starting with
llExactly what I found, it makes sense and is just a large contracted description of the town, specifically made to be as long as possible!
You know they specifically chose that place to mess with him haha.
Par-mee-zee-in
Oh crap, which universe are we in?
Dealbreaker, we gotta find another dimension.
Better than Farmer John cheese, at least
I hear so many people pronounce “cavalry” as “calvary,” which is a different word altogether.
A coworker of mine always says chipolte it boils my guts
I pronounce Chipotle with the same emphasis as Aristotle
Do it the other way around and it will sound closer to the original pronunciation of Aristotle.
Same as you, but in my defense I’ve never heard it out loud. A mexican friend taught me the correct way, I then understood the word comes from Nahuatl
Similarly, chocolate and coyote and tomato are also Aztec/Nahuatl words in origin. Which means our pronunciation is likely inaccurate
Avocado is our English speaking ancestor’s poor attempt at the Nahuatl word “ahuacatl.”
cool !!
Xipoodle
wat
Worcestershire.
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiasis.
I must be pronouncing them right enough for voice to text to understand me because I certainly cannot spell those.
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiasis.
I must be pronouncing them right enough for voice to text to understand me because I certainly cannot spell those.
Except voice-to-text spelled “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis” wrong. It did “iasis” instead of “iosis.”
You can’t pronounce worcestershire right. Nobody knows how it should be pronounced.
We just say “pass the what’s-it-here sauce”
It’s wash your sister sauce
/s
More sense than any other pronounciation I’ve heard really.
The pronunciation is easy, but seemingly completely disconnected from the spelling.
Wooster Shur.
