Overheard in the lbs the other day,
"I've got a Giant Deffie."
I shot him dead, obviously.
Someone on here did that when he was telling me about his borrowed road bike a couple of years back. I didn't tell him because I thought that would be funnier.
Didn't you Craig? 😆
Sounds like one those people who pronounces 'Dyfi' as 'Diffy' 🙄
I overhead someone pronounce scone rhyming with phone and another rhyming with gone 🙄
*It rhymes with loon, if you were wondering 8)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scone,_Perth_and_Kinross
[url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/how-would-you-pronounce-this-am-i-going-mental ]Bindun'[/url]
....and I will still say Deffy.
How about "Alfine"?
I say it as "Al feen" or "Al fine" but I've heard it pronounced "Al feen ay" (admittedly by an American so it probably doesn't count)
Non-biking words: clique is pronounced "cleek" not "click" and I'll deffie anyone who says different 😆
Yes Geoff, but you spoilt that by not use a capital!
There used to be a Scone Recycling Centre in the eponymous hamlet. 😀
whitestone - Member
How about "Alfine"?....
I've heard it pronounced "Al feen ay" (admittedly by an American so it probably doesn't count)
If it was broken beyond repair, it would be correct.:-)
See Geoff, all this time and you're still an Incomer. 🙂
Schwalbe seems to cause a lot of people problems.
'Shram'... where is the h in SRAM?
Schwalbe as [i]Schwabble[/i]
Mondraker as [i]moondraker[/i]
*edit* SRAM as [i]Ess Ram[/i]
These, along with loads of others I can't remember atm, should be punishable by death. The excuse of "that's just how I say it" is frankly unacceptable. You're not pronouncing it an alternative way; you're clearly just too thick/lazy to read and pronounce it correctly, and are therefore too stupid to live. Goodbye.
Best one I ever had was a customer in a bike shop I used to work in; he came in looking for a bike for his son (about 2-3 days before Xmas)
Him "Yeah, hi, I'm looking for one of they 'bummkss' bikes for ma boy"
Me "Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean"
Him "you know, one of they bummkss bikes for doin jumps an that"
Me "err... Is it a particular brand you're after?"
Him "Aye, it might be, actually"
Me "oh right, how do I spell it?" *looking on the computer*
Him "B.M.X."
Me "ah..."
Camp-ag-nolo.
Campag.
Campy.
I suppose more stw specific...
"I drive an oddy"
I've heard Jalfrezi pronounced "Jal-fri-ah-zi"
Very odd.
I've heard someone say mispronunciation, but said it as.. mis-pronounce-iation
Schwalbe? Swobble? Shvaalbeh?
much easier just to into a bike shop and translate it as "Do you swallow?" 😈
Guilty of ess Ram.
Sram just doesn't make sense in my head.
Some woman at work pronounces 'anglepoise' as a french word.
She thinks it makes her sound clever.
It doesn't.
orena45 - Member
Sounds like one those people who pronounces 'Dyfi' as 'Diffy'
Easy to do given the daft rules on pronouncing Y's in Welsh.
On that note, (not being Welsh I do mispronounce the names loads despite spending a year in Wales)... I've never understood the pronunciation of the word Y (as in The). Y Wall, Y Mynydd for example. Y for The is ee, ih, or uh? Ditto where the Y is between words, like Coed-y-Brenin. (just giving bike examples here 😀 )
Scottish mountains.
Not a clue.
I usually just nod and point at the wrong one.
The Welsh Y is about halfway between the e in "tee" and "then" sound but with a bit of "u" in it except where it's the next to last syllable in a word when it's "uh". So
Ysgol => uhskoll
Ysbyty => eesbuttee
Mynydd -> mun eevth
Apologies to native Welsh speakers, it's quite hard to transliterate the vowel sounds into how an English speaker would say them. The above is a reasonable approximation and depends as much on where in England you live, ysbyty is almost "hisbutty" without the initial 'h' to me for example.
Afan. The "f" is pronounced as a "v" people.
Bianchi pronounced "bian-chi" rather than "Bian-key"
YT Tues... Not pronounced like the abbreviated Tuesday, but rather Tu-es. "do it" in German
@whitestone - yeah I got the difference between last and other syllables for Y. It's just the Y on it's own as a word.
Y Mynydd - The Mountain (I think) - Ee Mun-eevth, Or Uh Mun-eevth ? I've always said Ee.
I got very weird look trying to say Glyncorrwg to a local 😀
Yes mynydd = mountain. To my ears (old and not very good at the best of times) it seems to depend on the following word: y Ddraig (the dragon) would be more like "uh thraig" to me but most usages seem to be somewhere between a short "err" and "uh".
I heard a bloke in a bike shop say "Scrabbly" for Schwalbe - I don't think he was having a laugh. Always Scrabbly for me now.
Dakine anyone ?
Not strictly a mispronunciation but I worked with a woman who told me about her friend who'd had a car crash, a collision with an argonaut. You'd think they'd have been easy to see, rowing up the high street.
Man, she was so dumb.
I moved to the US. Then Persil moved to the US. Did ANYONE pronounce it this way? NO!
Asked a clubmate a couple of weeks ago how the order for his canyon aeroad was going - he told me he cancelled it due to delays and was instead getting a Trek Mad 1 now!
If we're talking Americans, one that gets me is Nissan pronounced Neeee-san.
However if you hear how Japanese pronounce it, it's more accurate than Brits do it. Less of the long E though, just Nessan said quickly. Not Ni-ssan as in Ni, the Nights who Say Ni.
Then Americans... Hundy (Hyundai). But again, they're kind of closer than Brits who say Hi-un-day. Proper pronunciation is more He-yunday. Not Hundy though.
Trek Mad 1
That's a good one 🙂
I've heard 'Schwabbly' a few times as well.
Best non-bikey one though, and not a (mispronunciation as such I suppose) has got to be 'pacific' for 'specific'.
It never fails to amaze me when I hear it, because I can't understand how anyone who has ever heard pacific used the right way (which must be everyone) can use it in that context and not wonder how it makes any sense.
Americans often stress the final syllable, e.g. garARGE rather than the UK style where the leading syllable has the stress: GArage
I've heard 'Schwabbly' a few times as well.
My LBS (and therefore all the regulars in there) all use Schwabbly in an ironic fashion after a genuine enquiry from a customer.
Many years ago we had a customer asking about the new Pew-Joe bikes. Eventually worked out that he meant Peugeot. 🙄
I think I must have heard most of the possibilities for Marzocchi and Bianchi too after years in a bike shop.
Bontrager: by all accounts the man himself pronounces it 'bon-tragger'
Used to work with a scouser who proudly told me he had just bought a Ford Orion Guy-ah. (ghia). 🙄
micey coomer is probably as close as I can write it in phonetic English
Mice urr cum-ma. That's how I'd say Maesycymmer. Shithole anyway.
Y Mynydd, again, I'd pronounce it ur mun-ittthhh certainly no eeees in the second part. Depends where your from tho.
I live in Treorchy, Rhondda. Quite a difficult one when saying your address over the phone.
I get loads of these in work...
Had a guy ask what "loom" is as someone said the tyres he bought are great for "steep and loomy trails" (he meant loam).
had a good laugh at the though of a tyre designed specifically for the conditions in a textiles factory.
One I was thinking about the other day, how do you pronounce Topeak?
Like the verb "to peak"?
Like "toe-peak"?
Like "top-eek"?
BTW Persil has been pronounced like that (with the emphasis on the last syllable) for years, but with a throatier R, as it's French for parsley.
I try to avoid shitake mushrooms because I'm scared people will laugh at me if I pronounce it out loud the way I think it.
As touched on in my fish pond thread the previous owner of our house warned us about the Herring that used to come and snaffle the fish.
Also had some electricians round and when talking about the ivy covering the outbuilding the one lad kept calling it ivory.
On the subject of Topeak, heard someone call it Top-ee-ak once.
My, how we laughed.
(slightly scared now that he might actually have been right all along)
My mother speaks almost perfect English for someone who only moved here as an adult. However her most infamous mistake was when explaining what she did at summers when in Uni
"I used to work with depraved children"
Cue silence. Then laughter.
She also pronounces wolf quite amusingly.
I have a friend who has "muselli" for breakfast. Also when asked once how he slept he said he "went out like a log".
My boss says Choritsior when he means Choritho, about as often as I can get him to say it. He does come from oop north though, bless.
Us Midlanders just use Cody, Nanty and Deggy for the popular Welsh trail centres. It is lazy and ignorant but then we often struggle with the English language as well.
pinetree - MemberSchwalbe as Schwabble
I like skwabbly tbh.
With welsh stuff; if you spelled it right I'd say it right. Dolgellau is pronounced doll gel lau. If it was called Doll geth lee it'd be spelled Dollgethlee. Simple really but welsh folks keep getting it wrong even though they live there.
I pronounce Les Gets, Lez Getz.
Been asked for 'them Boat ranger' tyres.....
Also if those LEN bikes are any good... (take the DMR logo and turn it anticlockwise 90 degrees = it says LEN.
Confused me for ages til the guy showed me a pic of what he was after.
Commercial instead of Commencal.
Seems like a good excuse to post this.
The local shop where I used to live was popular with American tourists. The shop had an extensive cheese counter and I couldn't help smile listening to them ordering chunks of "Swallydolly" (Swaledale) and "Lie ces ter" (Leicester).
The staff in the shop never did tell them how to pronounce them properly.
The problem with pronunciation is that sometimes saying it right, in the way a local would, makes you sound like a bell end.
Any one that says "Por-sha" when referring to a German sports car is a bell end although they are saying it correctly IF they were German.
If it were correct to say it like that in English then they should also pronounce BMW in the correct German fashion "Bee Em Vee"
Another one often mispronounced...
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True. I used to pronounce it Sway-Doon.
Mate works in a bike shop so these are all his:
"Hydroscopic brakes"
"Adjustable expension"
"Maxxis Med-USA" (Medusa tyre)
Another friend was sent to the shops to buy "Mangy Toot" Mange tout, Rodney 😉
I think the IT Crowd had a great episode built around this thread. I can only remember "pedal stool" though. Hmmm
Typical SNL insofar as they drag the joke out too long and take it too far, but I remember when this sketch, about pronunciation of 'foreign' names was first broadcast. It seems relevant now...
'Multi storage car parks' was one of my dear aunties.
Kwinoah or keenwah?
Try living here.
I drive through Ljungskile on the way home from work. Not "Lung Skill eh"
But Young Sheila.
🙄
Town not far away, Jönköping. Not Jon Coping, but Joon Shooping.
Get the piss taken out of me all the time. An English colleague of mine can't even say his own address.
A friend of mine who lives in the east midlands was once asked by an American tourist "Do you live here in Loogerborooger?"
Obviously the weirdest thing about that story is how a tourist ended up in the east midlands.
My ex father inlaw refused to go to Cornwall ever again after one trip where he was asking directions for Fowey (fawee) and the local told him there was no such place. Only later did he realise it was pronounced Foy.
He is a grumpy sod at the best of times and never went back 'Bloody Corns' is all you get out of him whenever the County is mentioned.
Any one that says "Por-sha" when referring to a German sports car is a bell end
The whole point of German cars is to show that you are proud to be a bell-end, pronouncing it properly just proves that you are fully deserving.
There are a few place names round my way which catch out the unwary-
Milngavie? - Mill-guy
Strathaven? - Stray-ven
Kilncadzow? - Kill-Kay-Gay
Ravenstruther? - Rens-tray
Dalziel? - Dee-El
I've heard a few good ones;
Whyte- 'White-Tea'
Mondraker- 'Moon-drake-er'
None bike stuff;
River Thames- 'Thh-emms'(Bus of American tourists)
Leading on from Saxon Rider
Why has nobody mentioned Commencal? I have one and even i'm not sure how to say it! I normally go with Com-en-sal but i'v eheard it pronounced com-en-cal too....
Bath; as in bAth or ba[i]r[/i]th.
The problem with pronunciation is that sometimes saying it right, in the way a local would, makes you sound like a bell end.
I was behind a woman in Costa ordering two capuccini, and then explaining to her companion that that's the correct plural. No doubt she was right but you could pretty much hear what everyone else was thinking!
I do say Por-sha though and I pronounce chorizo properly, so the line into bell-endery is blurry 😉
Easy to do given the daft rules on pronouncing Y's in Welsh.
Not daft, nothing like as daft as most of English.
Y as in the definite article is 'uh'. That's it. It varies with accent a bit, I think, but consistent with the same sound in all words, for example in Cardiff they might say it a bit like 'er' but then they also say 'merm' instead of 'mum'.
The rules I read, and that seem to work:
- y and yr = uh
- single syllable word e.g. byd = ee
- multi syllable words = i or ee if it's the last syllable, otherwise uh
So
mynydd = m uh n i th (as in the)
Penhydd = pen heethe
Pen y Fan = Pen uh Van
Coed y Brenin = Coyd uh Brenin
The problem with pronouncing words like chorizo and Porsche "properly" is the need to be consistent
Paris for example. Do you pronounce it "properly" or like every other person who uses the word in an English sentence ?
The rules I read, and that seem to work:- y and yr = uh
- single syllable word e.g. byd = ee
- multi syllable words = i or ee if it's the last syllable, otherwise uh
Perch-uh-panther? I don't like it 😉
Then Americans... Hundy (Hyundai). But again, they're kind of closer than Brits who say Hi-un-day. Proper pronunciation is more He-yunday. Not Hundy though
How is it pronounced in welsh?
Hugh in Die?
Welsh is very regular in its pronunciation, obviously there's regional variation but they are consistent.
The two exceptions that I was taught were the 'y' as the next to last syllable and 's' becomes a 'sh' sound when followed by two vowels, so Sian is "Sharn" not "See-anne"
How is it pronounced in welsh?
Hugh in Die?
Huw 'n' Dai?
Huw 'n' Dai?
I think I met them once....
New-killer for nuclear. Even flippin newsreaders, correspondents and media analysts do it.
I was behind a woman in Costa ordering two capuccini, and then explaining to her companion that that's the correct plural. No doubt she was right but you could pretty much hear what everyone else was thinking!
Reminds me of... one of the QI researchers who insists that he orders a "panino" for lunch as "panini" is plural. 100% accurate, 100% bellend, and 100% mocked by everyone else on their podcast for it.
neilforrow - Member
Bath; as in bAth or barth.
Baath, unless you're posh or from the south east. The more west you go, the longer the A.
But then I have a broad A for a lot of words, part from northern ancestry and part from being from Devon.
Proper way of saying stuff like bath, path, grass, none of which have a bloody R after the A.
I was behind a woman in Costa ordering two capuccini
"two cappucinos" or "due cappucini", but "two cappucini" will make you look like a ponce.
I'm still trying to work out where the X is in espresso
pizza/pizze is the same, but you're probably not going to order plural
And it's Baath