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 used to pronounce “adjacent” as adjuhsent.
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.
Buttons. I don’t say but-ins, I pronounce it like but-tons. Idk why I didn’t do the lazy American thing with that word but I didn’t.
As long as you pronounce the Ts.
“It is called ‘baggel’. I lived in New York.”
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.
Solder. I taught myself, never really talked to anyone about it, and for like a decade, I pronounced it like it’s spelled. With an L.
I just can’t break the habit
My aunt does the same with ‘salmon’.
If it makes you feel any better, that’s the correct pronunciation in England.
Thats the correct pronunciation outside of the USA.
You know the famous mage from Forgotten Realms? I pronounce their name “EL-ah-min-ster”
Oh, I also have a terrible Boston accent so I nearly caused an HR incident when talking about “hooked horrors” aka “hookt ho-ahs” or as my coworker heard “hooked whores”. Horror is the best word to check for a Boston accent with.
What? Why? There’s not even an A in Elminster.
“jaws” is an equivalent of that for a metro NY accent. i could never hear my own accent until someone had me say it and really listen for it. now if you’ll excuse me i need to walk my dawg to the cawfee shop
Tet-nus
Assuming you’re referring to bacterial infection, is that not exactly how you’re supposed to say it?
I always thought, growing up, the disease was called “tech’niss” and it took me years to connect it to Tetanus (tet-en-es) infection. I felt dumb. Phonetics are hard.
Living in Los Angeles as a white person, I refuse to pronounce street and city names that are Spanish the English-speaking way. Knowing Spanish since I was a kid from school and using it on a daily basis, my brain simply doesn’t butcher the pronunciation by default.
It’s caused confusion though for sure. I used to live near a street called La Tijera, but Americans pronounced it almost like Spanish “la tierra” which is a completely different word, and I couldn’t figure out where this street was that everyone was talking about.
Houston, Texas has a street called Kuykendahl (or something similar). People kept mentioning this ‘kirkendall’ street and I could never find it.
But that’s one where they’re leaning much closer to the Dutch pronunciation
Maybe there’s some vestige there but I asked upwards of 20 people and no one could explain it. Texas did historically have german-speaking communities and even cities, but I wasn’t aware of any Dutch nor had I heard anyone mention it. It’s interesting?
So, do you call it “Loss Anjeless” or “Lōs On-hay-lays?”
Low’ En’hee-lews
Loss An-hell-ess.
There was a street in the town I grew up in that everyone called “Awkwee-estahh” . It was Aqui Esta, which is a cute street name, but if you pronounced it correctly no one knew what you were talking about lol
That is a hilarious street name, omg
Does that translate to It’s Here Street??
Yeah, something like “it’s here” or “here it is.” With the proper accents the phrase is “aquí está.”
I pronounce the Texas Houston the same as the. NYC street
I don’t know enough about New York or football to understand this.
Texas: like the name Hugh (hyuu)
NYC: like House (how)
The -ston bit doesn’t change.
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
Not me, but a friend of mine pronounces rhinoceros as if it rhymes with dinosaur-us.
As an American, it didn’t click for me until I visited London for the first time why names like Leicester and Gloucester were pronounced the way they are by Brits. My dumb American brain sees the names as Lei-cester and Glou-cester rather than Leice-ster and Glouce-ster.
oh wow, you blew my mind
Was on holiday in Scotland with my father. And bless this girl at the tourist information who realised that when we stupid Germans said “glennis law” that we meant Glenisla (glen ila).
Unfortunately our linguistic history is a huge tangle and there are few safe assumptions. Depending on where you are in Scotland, the places names might derive from Gaelic, Pictish, Welsh, Norse, or English, and then they probably got Anglicised at some point but it could have happened at basically time within the last five centuries. A substantial number of the non-Gaelic ones are doubly messed up because they got Gaelicised first and then the Gaelicisation got Anglicised. Glenisla is a good example - glen derives from Gaelic, and nobody is sure where isla comes from.
Still, Glenisla is a lovely area! Lots of good hikes there. I hope you had a good time.
It was awesome. Best vacation ever. We went to Glenisla for their comparatively small highland games. They had dancing competitions, bag pipe competitions and of course various sport competitions. Apparently one of the competitors was the reigning shot putting or hammer throwing or so world champion. Every time he threw something the judges went back extra far and still he managed to go beyond the field. He was huge. My father and I dubbed him Monster.
Wow, I’m certain I would’ve done the same. Think I’d make myself a cheat sheet for Scotland and Wales when I get around to visit. Knowing that Cymru is pronounced “com-ree” gave me anxiety about butchering names there if ever I’ll need to ask for directions.
We’ll usually understand if you get it wrong. There’s a lot of extremely counterintuitive ones. If you’re American, the most likely trap is Edinburgh - it’s not EE-den-berg, it’s EDD-in-buh-ruh or EDD-im-bruh.
I’ll also just have to ask that the same grace is returned when I inevitably fuck up basically any place name based on anything Native American, because I don’t know how any of those languages work
I went to school and now live outside Pittsburgh and it’s such a mishmash of Native American place names (Monongahela, Allegheny, Youghagheny; which is Ma-nahn-guh-hey-la, Al-uh-gain-ee, and yaack-uh-gain-ee), French (Duquesne, Versailles; Doo-cain, Ver-sales), and English. Combine that with the Pittsburghese dialect and then mash that with not pronouncing foreign words anything like how they natively would be (but only sometimes) and it’ll make your head spin.
Not me, but I know a bondage instructor who pronounces “bondage” like you would in French.
I think if you’re teaching something you should know the pronunciations. Didn’t take long to find other stuff wrong with him. My wife and I quickly left and sought our education elsewhere.
This makes me think of the State Farm commercial showing football players in a ballet class. “Boon-dlay…sah-vey…”
US American. I’ve lived overseas a long time and pronounce the ‘h’ in ‘herbs’ because, as Eddie Izzard once said, “it’s got a fucking ‘h’ in it”. I don’t know when I switched but my mom laughed at me when we had a call recently.
One I only noticed a couple years ago: turmeric (was saying, and still frequently hear) ‘toomeric’.
Do you also pronounce the ‘h’ in hour and honor?
Hno. I do say ‘historical’ rather than ‘istorical’, but that’s the only one I can think of in the global English-speaking world that has any number of adherants off the top of my head.
Those two examples have an “o” after the “h”. Are there any other words starting “he” that Americans treat the “h” as silent?
I lived in Philly for years and never noticed the way people say “erbs” but since returning to Australia I hear it constantly.
Edit: I hear Americans say it constantly. No one in Australia says “erb”.
Heir
Also anything starting with hema-, like hematology or hematoma… though that might be because of the æ.
Yeah you’ve been away a while, we say 'oagies now.
