I’ve always pronounced the word “Southern” to rhyme with howthurn. I know most people say it like “suthurn” instead. I didn’t realize that the way I pronounce it is considered weird until recently!
I pronounce caramel as “care-uh-mell”.
People always say something and I reply with “no, Carmel is a [beach-town in California], I’m talking about caramel”.agghh these comments my eyes the fauxnetics please god why can’t Lemmy have a bigger linguistics community and you mfs wonder why i still use Reddit
There just aren’t many linguists unfortunately. I’m a huge grammar and language nerd but learning IPA takes time and exposure to a lot of sounds you’re not used to. I wish more of the reddit linguists would come over. Even the grammar communities here are dead.
If you start one I will subscribe
I’m German. One day my house was being renovated and they were working with jackhammers to remove parts of the facade. It was incredibly loud and I couldn’t bear it. I lived close to university and had recently stopped working in one of the institutes. I knew though that my former colleagues had couches in some of their offices so I thought I’d give them a visit. I walked over to the institute and greeted my Australian former coworker. I explained about the noise in my house and said I was “looking for asylum”. Knowing the word “asylum” only from written language, I had no idea it was not actually pronounced “ay suh lum”. He asked “you’re looking for what?” as he obviously hadn’t understood. I repeated “ay suh lum” confidently and he politely said “ah”. Not long after, I learned the correct pronunciation of asylum and that memory has haunted me ever since. It’s been almost 10 years but I still cringe about it.
I understand the feeling, but that fear of being wrong is a plague, it prevents learning altogether. Especially languages ! we should be brave enough to proudly make mistakes and learn from them. Proudly. With pride
English is a bastard language without phonetics so you’ve just got to memorise every word, every phrase, and of course every idiom since half the language is just archaic expressions cobbled together without rhyme or reason (e.g. “rhyme or reason”)
That being said, German has a lot of traps to. The pronunciation of “ee” in himbeere and beerdigung, and guessing the spelling of words using “e” vs “ä” is a nightmare
I over-pronounce Wednesday. Like wed-nes-day. Most people say wendsday.
Also apparently I’m weird for pronouncing jewelry correctly. I pronounce it like it is spelled, and what it means. It is personal ornaments often containing jewels. Jewel-ry. Not Joolery.
Same thing with Aunt. It’s not Ant. There is a U in there.
It may surprise you that outside of the US, the word is spelled ‘jewellery’ (three syllables)
My wife says I pronounce crayon wrong. The way she says it, it’s a single syllable word that is the same as the first syllable of cranberry. I say it as two syllables: cray-on.
Being fully honest, I’ve started drawing it out and articulating both syllables more because I know she doesn’t like it.
You’re correct. It’s two syllables. My wife is from the east coast and says it like “cran” or “crown” and some people here in the Midwest say it as a single syllable.
Dictionary defines the pronunciation as two though. Crayola, the brand that (essentially) invented them, uses two syllables as well per their commercials.
I say it as two syllables: cray-on.
I have never heard it pronounced any other way. Not American though (and I suppose you may not be either!).
How about Chipotle as cheepotole
Friend says Chipoltay
I love this. I say cheese-poodle.
It’s Helico-Pter not Heli-Copter. It’s a greek word from hélikos (screw, spiral, winding) and pterón (wing).
And since I’m fun at parties, I consequently pronounce it with a slight pause before and stress on the P and not a miniscule pause after the I and a slight stress on the O.
“It is called ‘baggel’. I lived in New York.”
I say appree-see-ate for appreciate, and artif-isss-ee-al for artificial.
Visiting a town in Maine, US, spelled “Calais.”
Is it the French pronunciation? English but attempting it with “Kuh-lay?”
Oh, no, that’s too much. Ka-liss. Like callous. What.
There are a million of these throughout the US. I think it’s done intentionally as a shibboleth.
sometimes I accidentally pronounce “C’est la Vie” as “sest lah vy” even though I know its “say la vee” just because I read it first and it lives in my head as that first wrong pronunciation. confuses the hell out of people and I have to explain my foolery
My wife made fun of me the other day for pronouncing the h in homage. I quickly got my revenge when dictionary.com offered my way as the first pronunciation.
Oh-mage is fancier I will admit.
On Merriam Webster the first pronunciation is without the h. I wonder which way the Brits do it-- everything involving h’s seems to be opposite the US (looking at you, herb).
I pronounce spigot as “spicket” but that’s normal where I’m from.
My mom had a couple of weird ones that took me a while to unlearn:
Stipend = “stipp-ind”
Antibiotics = “antee-BEE-otics”I say anna-bee-otics. My father is a veterinarian, and would abbreviate antibiotics to anna-bees when speaking with techs about prescriptions. This affected how he’d say antibiotics, and I spent so much time with him over the years I picked up the habit.
It’s pronounced quickly, where if I say it properly I spend conscious thought saying an-tie-bye-otics.
Bona fide. It’s latin, you say it Bow-nah Fee-day.
Et cetera is similarly “et ketera”, unless you’re using Italianate ecclesiastical pronunciation. Then it’s “et chetera”, hard ch like church in English.
Nice ! have you studied Latin ? I studied very shortly but my interest piqued only after that brief period
Only bit at uni and that was over two decades ago. I only use what I learned to produce technically correct yet insufferable Latin pronunciations to lovingly harass friends and family.
haaaahh we’re the same breed. cheers
Two immediately come to mind.
First is “Comfortable”. I pronounce each part of the word: “COME-for-tuh-bull”. Many people give me weird looks and insist on “Comf-turr-bull”.
The other is more niche and has to do with League of Legends.
There is a champion whose theme is moonlight. His backstory is that he belongs to a moon cult who opposes a group that is am Order of the Sun type group. This character is an edgelord whose whole thing is darkness and midnight etc etc.
His name is a combination of the Greek “Ap” meaning “furthest from” and “Helios” meaning the sun. His name is Greek for “the one furthest from the sun” in this moon cult.
In Greek, “ph” does not make the “fuh” sound. His name should rightly be pronounced “App-Hee-lee-ose”
But all the casters and developers call him “Uhh-fell-ee-ose” and it drives me absolutely insane.
