The Pronunciation Thread

Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:
I've been here more than half my life and will die on the hill for HERB (name or aromatic plant).  It has an H on the beginning, I will never lower myself to Erb.

While you're on that hill, can you please shout out (for all of those of us clueless rubes in the colonies) the correct English pronunciation of the H at the beginning of these words?

Hour

Honesty

Heir

Honor

Gary said:

So here's one: Reims (as in the old French GP circuit). Should it be Reems? Rims? RRRonch (rolled r's)? Or something else?

I google/youtubed this a while back. It's like rance with a really nasal R.

Somewhere out East inquiring as to the sandwich ordered.  Java Wahlah?  Huh?  Java Wahlah?  Huh?

Did you order a Whaler?  Ah yes, thank you.

May or may not have been near Bah Habah.

And some where south of Indy, the cash required for my single meal purchase. 

That will be Seventeen.

How much again, Seventeen.

Wow, for one happy meal?

That will be seven doelahrs and teen sants.

Ah right, I left the midwest.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

akylekoz said:

I pronounce my last name Kuz-luv'-itch unless it hockey season then it is Koz-lo'-vitch.  Spelled Kozlowicz so in Polish it would be?

Koh-z,or si,or ch, three z sounds in polish, l,or v, -its

Kohz-wov'-its?   

What about other popular names and places in the news, or not that I get wrong?

I mean seriously I can't even figure out how to pronounce my own name!

You know better than I (it's your dang name) but the little I know of Polish - from my grandmother-in-law - I would have pronounced it Koz-LOW-itz with a little puff on the W making it sound half way between W and V.

But I'm German.  My last name is Mittong which is a misspelling of Mittank, which is probably a mutation of "with thanks" or "thankful."

 

I believe you are correct, but I'm not changing it now.

Or should I, just to drive my wife and kids nuts.

Despite the extra letters, my last name is pronounced Bro.  Yea, it's French and there isn't an "o" anywhere to be found in my name.

In the days before we had caller ID, it was our preferred screening tool.

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

Lived my entire life in this state and I have never once seen a brain sandwich. 

As for carp, there's only one decent recipe for them. Nail whole fish to a cedar plank, season with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Bake in the oven at 425 for 45 minutes. Remove from oven, pull the nail, dump the carp in the trash and eat the board. 

Almost forgot.

We absolutely murder "Ponce De Leon" here in Atlanta. If it isn't shortened outright to just "Ponce" we go full bore into "Ponce duh LEEN".

I got into a conversation yesterday with a younger engineer that thinks the L in words like "solder" or "folk" should be pronounced with a fairly hard L.

As for last names, the first half of my last name gets an "ah" sound at the end.  Kind of like how Porsche has that at the end; "ronn-ah".  Almost nobody gets it unless they know me or one of the other few folks in this country that share that name. 

You can pretty clearly tell if someone is not from the southern Appalachians by how they pronounce "Appalachians."

j_tso said:

 

Parmer Lane and Palmer Events Center are pronounced differently, I think people are confusing them and just calling them both the same.

akylekoz said:

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

akylekoz said:

I pronounce my last name Kuz-luv'-itch unless it hockey season then it is Koz-lo'-vitch.  Spelled Kozlowicz so in Polish it would be?

Koh-z,or si,or ch, three z sounds in polish, l,or v, -its

Kohz-wov'-its?   

What about other popular names and places in the news, or not that I get wrong?

I mean seriously I can't even figure out how to pronounce my own name!

You know better than I (it's your dang name) but the little I know of Polish - from my grandmother-in-law - I would have pronounced it Koz-LOW-itz with a little puff on the W making it sound half way between W and V.

But I'm German.  My last name is Mittong which is a misspelling of Mittank, which is probably a mutation of "with thanks" or "thankful."

 

I believe you are correct, but I'm not changing it now.

Or should I, just to drive my wife and kids nuts.

My buddy lived 60 years of his life as a Kulikowsky and aways assumed he was of Polish/Crimean descent.  He did a home DNA test and it turns out he's Greek and his family's surname derived from Koulikaskas.  He legally changed his name, but he had one grown son and his wife passed away so it didn't really impact anyone.

bobzilla said:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

Lived my entire life in this state and I have never once seen a brain sandwich. 

As for carp, there's only one decent recipe for them. Nail whole fish to a cedar plank, season with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Bake in the oven at 425 for 45 minutes. Remove from oven, pull the nail, dump the carp in the trash and eat the board. 

Haaa... I'll have to try that carp recipe

Brain Sandwiches were a big thing down in Evansville which is big pig territory.  You're not missing anything.  It tastes like you're eating scrambled eggs with a 9v battery on your tongue

Having a pretty solid foundation in the Spanish language, it always irritates my eardrums to hear the "proper" pronunciation of Buena Vista, VA.  You'd like to think it would be "Bway-nah Vee-stah", but nope, it's "Byoo-na Vis-ta."

Just this week, for the first time in my life someone asked me how to pronounce my last name. I guess maybe they thought I was French? 

1988RedT2 said:

Having a pretty solid foundation in the Spanish language, it always irritates my eardrums to hear the "proper" pronunciation of Buena Vista, VA.  You'd like to think it would be "Bway-nah Vee-stah", but nope, it's "Byoo-na Vis-ta."

Don't get me started on Sepulveda Blvd in L.A. which is pronounced "suh- PUHL - vih-duh."  It should be "SEH-pul-VEH-dah."  It basically translates to closed tomb.  It might be equivalent to "Old Graveyard Road." in English.

Callabasas (the town) is KAL uh BAS iss.  It should be "kay-ah-BAHS-ahs."  It more or less means Quietville

I like the old "do you pronounce the capital of Kentucky LOUISville or LOOEYville?"

I pronounce it Frankfort. 

KyAllroad said:

I like the old "do you pronounce the capital of Kentucky LOUISville or LOOEYville?"

 

I pronounce it Frankfort. 

But as for Louisville, I hear the proper pronunciation is Loo-uh-vill.

Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:

RoddyMac17 said:

Here's a few:

 

Cholmondeley - pronounced chum-lee 

Milngavie - pronounced mul-guy

Beaulieu  - pronounced bew-lee

All are towns/villages in the UK

The funny thing is I would never have thought to mention any of those.  I've never heard anyone here try to pronounce them, so it would never have occurred to me that they could be difficult or unusual, to me they just are what they are! 

I grew up on Slaithwaite Rd, named as it goes over the hill to the town of Slaithwaite.  The correct pronunciation of that is Sl-owe-IT

My take from that post was the Brits are even more hopeless at pronouncing words properly tha Americans are.

You have maybe read Stephen Leacocks story about Notacentinthemthere Towers, pronounced Nawsham Taws?

Houston, Texas

Houston Street, NYC

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

What people forget is that the English language has been developing for over 1500 years. There's bits of Celtic, Roman, Germanic, Norse, French, Norman (yes there's a difference) that have been added and modified over those 1500 years. Then add in the expansion of the 26 character alphabet, multiply by different, and cut off regions that did not communicate much for centuries at a time, multiplied by the vagaries of these meat sacks we call humans, and it's amazing it makes what little sense it does. Some words that would've made sense to everybody from a pronunciation point of two, four, six, eight hundred or even 1000 years ago suddenly sound strange when compared with the accepted  pronunciation of today.  
 

I'll take English as it is with all its foibles. Partially because it's the only language I've ever, will mastered would be a lie, let's say achieved minimal competency in.  Partially because it's so much better than boring old German where they don't make any new words, they just stick more and more existing words together, and let's not get into randomly assigning gender to inanimate objects.

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Yeah, I never understood that one.

Here are some from Tennessee that drive me up the wall:

Blount-pronounced BLUNT County

Lafayette-pronounced la FAY ut

Tent-pronounced tint

McMinnville- pronounced MAC minn vul

Crossville-pronounced Krossvul

The list goes on. For the first several years of school, I was Jewel, because God knows Joel is a tough one to pronounce.

Bicester UK is pronoun BISS-ter 

My born-and-raised-in-England father insisted that Cirencester in Gloucestershire, England,  was pronounced "Sih-sih-ter"...