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.

  • GombeenSysadmin@lemmy.world
    51·
    5 个月前

    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!

          • GombeenSysadmin@lemmy.world
            7·
            5 个月前

            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

            • TheRealKuni@lemmy.worldEnglish
              4·
              5 个月前

              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!

              • Jojo@lemm.ee
                2·
                5 个月前

                Everybody’s named John. All the way back. There is only one name, just lots of different spellings and pronunciations.

    • Soggy@lemmy.world
      6·
      5 个月前

      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.

      • jaxxed@lemmy.world
        2·
        5 个月前

        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.

        • Jojo@lemm.ee
          1·
          5 个月前

          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.

    • MIDItheKID@lemmy.world
      3·
      5 个月前

      My Irish cousin-in-law recently had a daughter and named her Blathnaid. I was very surprised to learn it is pronounced Bla-nid

  • TheBiscuitLout@lemmy.worldEnglish
    28·
    5 个月前

    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.

    • IndiBrony@lemmy.world
      English
      5·
      5 个月前

      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.

      • Something Burger 🍔@jlai.lu
        171·
        5 个月前

        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.

        • Dicska@lemmy.world
          17·
          5 个月前

          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.

          • samus12345@lemmy.worldEnglish
            5·
            5 个月前

            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.

            • Dicska@lemmy.world
              4·
              5 个月前

              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!

  • agent_flounder@lemmy.worldEnglish
    251·
    5 个月前

    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

    • RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works
      10·
      5 个月前

      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.

    • Obi@sopuli.xyz
      5·
      5 个月前

      Looks like you’re mainly struggling with words of french origin, which is fair, the language is fucked up.

    • Jojo@lemm.ee
      3·
      5 个月前

      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.

    • samus12345@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      5 个月前

      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”?

    • iTzCharmander@lemmy.world
      2·
      5 个月前

      The only time I have actually heard someone use indefatigable is in the Monty python, where they intentionally pronounce it wrong

    • Poik@pawb.social
      1·
      5 个月前

      /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.

      • agent_flounder@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        5 个月前

        Interesting. I find the combination of rhotic - schwa - rhotic rather awkward. That could explain why it is commonly mispronounced.

      • oktux@lemmy.world
        10·
        5 个月前

        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”.)

        • Cypher@lemmy.world
          2·
          5 个月前

          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!

        • tiredofsametab@kbin.social
          1·
          5 个月前

          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.

    • GentlemanLoser@ttrpg.network
      3·
      5 个月前

      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

      • thisisbutaname@discuss.tchncs.de
        4·
        5 个月前

        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.

        • CoggyMcFee@lemmy.world
          5·
          5 个月前

          I mean, this word does have an English pronunciation that is distinct from the Italian pronunciation, which follows English phonology.

            • CoggyMcFee@lemmy.world
              4·
              5 个月前

              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.

              • thisisbutaname@discuss.tchncs.de
                2·
                5 个月前

                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.

                • CoggyMcFee@lemmy.world
                  4·
                  5 个月前

                  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.