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And surely, folk-eye not folk-ee?
Yes, that’s better than my attempt. 🙂
How about Edward Woodward would?
I think the pronunciation guide given by Noel Coward was that 'Edward Woodward sounds like a fart in the bath"
My wife (at work) was using the expression ‘I can’t be asked’.
Your other wife (at home) is going to be furious
On the Siobhan, Niamh, etc. thing, in Irish, there are quite a few less letters in the alphabet than in English. “Missing” are, j, k, q, v*, w*, x, y and z.
*These two are key here.
The v and w sounds are used loads in Irish and but are made by adding an h to b and m respectively. Just to confuse matters, sometimes “bh” is a w sound and sometimes “mh” is a v sound (as in the name Niamh). Just depends on combination of letters that come before or after, and sometimes it’s dialectical.
On the Siobhan, Niamh, etc. thing, in Irish,
My daughter has a Welsh name as MrsMC refused to entertain my penchant for unspellable Irish names
I remmber Radcliffe and Marconie talking about how the BBC has a 'Pronunciation Unit' - the authority presenters and editors check with on a broadcaster-wide agreed pronunciation when an Icelandic volcano erupts or the leader of splinter group of a faction of ISIS kicks the bucket.
As part of the continuing decentralisation of the BBC its now based in Salford - where the local accent is typified by over enunciated vowels - so you call up to ask how to say Eyjafjallajökull and the phone is answered with a nasal 'Allo, Prownownseation Yownit'
diptheria when its diphtheria
On the Siobhan, Niamh, etc. thing, in Irish, there are quite a few less letters in the alphabet than in English.
There are also letters that have disappeared from the English alphabet. So we also use letter combinations to create sounds for those missing letters. 'Ye olde pub' is pronounced 'The old pub' not 'Yee old pub'. Early printing presses didn't have a 'thorn' - þ - the letter that denoted the 'th' sound, They used 'Y' in its place as at the time the cursive handwritten versions of þ and y looked very similar and as a result þ fell out of use. But the result is we now have an imagined medieval 'accent' because we mis-read the letters they used.
I can't say Cutlery. My Dad couldn't say Statistics and my daughter can't say Position, She says Podigion.
Years ago there was a bloke on the local telly news who said that something was the ‘Eppi-tome’ of bad taste.
I’ve been saying it that way ever since!
In Oz people often pronounce the w in Known, shown etc. I think it makes them sound a bit simple.
Also they pronounce the E in Derby. So wrong.
Saw an English newsreader pronounce Macabre as it’s spelt the other day rather than macarbe.
Mayor is a funny one. Some say Mair.
The brummy Tooth (t’th) is annoying.
Is it keen-wa?
ransos
Free MemberI take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, lough and through?
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
And dead: it’s said like bed, not bead—
For goodness sake don’t call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there’s dose and rose and lose —
Just look them up – and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart —
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I’d mastered it when I was five!
Wonderful
And written by a foreigner IIRC.
@Cougar to refer back to my previous visual aid, car/card like Carr, war/warden like Corr. No ****in' idea where ford comes into this mind you.
[why is **** censored? It's a pre-watershed word! (Father Jack's favourite word. After drink.)]
Ford
So what? The thread is titled words you’ve always mispronounced, not English words you’ve mispronounced
Well why ask a question you don't want to know the answer to?
how is a word spelled Siobhan pronounced Shevhaun. And how do you get Ee-fa from Aoife, and don’t get started on the weird ones like Grainne (Graun-Yuh if you’re wondering) .
It's Gaelic which, as I said is a completely unrelated language (just about as far away as you can get) so trying to apply the same rules* as English is a hiding to nothing.
*in as much as there are any
I was blown away recently when I realised people pronounced the H in vehicle. At that point my whole understanding of the English language was reset and I no longer know what's real.
Is it keen-wa?
No. That's Tabitha and Alasdair's little boy. He'll be joining Octavia at prep school after their summer in their chateau in the Dordogne. Poor little thing.
people pronounced the H in vehicle.
That can’t be the right way though can it? I’ve never heard anyone pronounce it that way.
Arkansas
Someone I unfortunately worked with said 'Ar-Kansas', instead of Ar-can-saw.
True story.
It’s Gaelic which, as I said is a completely unrelated language (just about as far away as you can get) so trying to apply the same rules* as English is a hiding to nothing.
The rules of what letter makes what sound are different in different languages. It's amazing how many anglophones don't get that. And in some languages they have different letters altogether!
Someone I unfortunately worked with said ‘Ar-Kansas
I spent a week with some West Virginians last autumn, and I discovered that there are two pronunciations for the Appalachian mountain range.
App-A-Latch-Un
App-A-Lay-Shun
On enquiring which one they'd use them themselves one turned to the other and said "Jimmy what's the difference between people who say AppaLatchun and AppaLayshun?" The reply was "God's people and cock suckers"
Now you know
@funkmasterp – many Irish and American people say vee-hee-cull
Haven’t you noticed before?
Never come across it. Or if I have it just hasn’t registered.
Never come across it. Or if I have it just hasn’t registered.
Never watched the Dukes of Hazard?
I'm trying to start an alternative pronunciation of tennis marvel's surname Emma ReDACanu.
It hasn't taken off yet, even though I've mentioned it twice to my wife in conversation.
said ‘Ar-Kansas’
Understandable, if not forgiveable, considering the other state is pronounced Kansas, just like it's spelled.
Anyway. One from our household.... marsh-mellow. As in Birds. No amount of discussion will persuade her otherwise, so I just go with it.
I live in Hawick.
Most people outside of the borders seem to find it impossible to pronounce.
Hoy-ick
The rules of what letter makes what sound are different in different languages. It’s amazing how many anglophones don’t get that. And in some languages they have different letters altogether!
I'd say it's more a case of being monolingual and monocultural rather than an Anglophone (though a general perception that you don't need to speak another language in many cases doesn't help)
@Cougar to refer back to my previous visual aid, car/card like Carr, war/warden like Corr. No *’ idea where ford comes into this mind you.
I was right with you until you suggested that corr and ford sounded different.
[why is * censored? It’s a pre-watershed word! (Father Jack’s favourite word. After drink.)]
There's a legacy to this particular word. It's fine in itself, it was added to the swear filter because of rampant abuse by a former forum member who is now baned.
Hah, good christ, I spelt 'banned' with a y in the middle and the filter autocorrected it for exactly the reason I was parodying.
this has just reminded me of my youngest who when he was 3-ish couldnt say fox. he always mispronounced it as box. We figured he was still having trouble with his Fs, until he told us about someone at nursery called Freya.
So you can say Freya?
Freya!
But you cant say fox?
box!
Can you say Freya fox?
Freya box!
Ok son, you do you, I guess.
Hyperbole (hyperbowl)
Never watched the Dukes of Hazard?
Not since I was a kid and I can’t remember what happened a couple of hours ago 😀
Never watched the Dukes of Hazard?
Hah, exactly my first thought also.
Nowadays epidemiology is a word that we're all used to but after find the epidummyology Instagram account (it's very good BTW) I use that word instead
Not me, but on behalf of 97% of the British population, I give you: chorizo.
Where's the T?
Espresso. Very often pronounced as “eckspresso”.
No. That’s Tabitha and Alasdair’s little boy. He’ll be joining Octavia at prep school after their summer in their chateau in the Dordogne. Poor little thing.
When I worked in the housing department, we had a tenant with a young lad called (and this was how it was written down) Joe-A-Quinn.
She was a fan of River Phoenix's brother.
The one that winds me up the most is how Johnson says the word necessary.
Ness-is-ree
I know it's probably correct because he's more educated than me, but it makes my skin crawl.
She was a fan of River Phoenix’s brother.
Full birth name, phonetically, "whackin' bottom"
And along with the Johnson mispronunciation thing, have you noticed that all the ruling class people like randomly to pronounce "to" as "ter".
We're going ter level up the north and we're going ter sell off the NHS to chaps who went ter the same schools as us.
Ibuprofen, always seems that I need two or more goes to get right, even knowing that I have to take care…perhaps it’s the pressure of failure.
Same for tamsulosin…
Take some brufen, release the pressure
Where’s the T?
First thing you hear. "tchorizo", tʃoʁiso, Spanish innit.
I was right with you until you suggested that corr and ford sounded different.
Ford sounds like core ya big weirdo!