Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with pronunciation

A boost at the polls from jōō'lə-rē?

dkg — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:48:15 -0800

I'm looking for historical examples of shibboleths used in electoral politics. Got any examples? We've beaten to death the nōō'klē-ər/nōō'kyə-lər distinction here (and elsewhere!) -- and most folks seem to accept the idea that there are social implications/connations about the choice of variant used (though there is disagreement about whether adoption of one pronunciation or the other is a calculated political tactic by any given candidate).

I'm curious about other historical instances where a particular word's pronunciation played the role of a shibboleth, particularly in electoral politics. Bonus points for non-English and non-USA examples!

Need name for English-pronunciation website for Japanese learners

Dragonness — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:49:34 -0800

Help! Need name for English-pronunciation website for Japanese learners. The tool is based on speech recognition. The intention is to eventually make it work on mobile devices and also extend it to Korean and Chinese users.

This is for a startup that is based out of Boston and currently attempting to get funding. (I know.)

any broth in brothel?

cogneuro — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:37:41 -0800

Is there any native speaker of English reading this for whom "broth" is pronounced the same in the words broth and brothel ? No joke. They aren't the same in my dialect, but maybe in yours?

JapaneseFilter: How is 'fureai' pronounced?

coizero — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:14:26 -0800

How is fureai pronounced?

How to pronounce Stephenson

spasm — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:14:38 -0800

How does author Neal Stephenson pronounce his last name? I've always assumed it's like "Steven-son", but recently somebody who might know claimed it's like "Stephan-son."
Anybody know for sure?

"Walter de Gruyter": Dutch or Deutch?

ormondsacker — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:11:54 -0800

What's the excruciatingly correct pronunciation of Berlin-based academic publisher Walter de Gruyter? [w] or [v]? What about their subsidiary, Mouton de Gruyter? Bonus points for IPA.

Words which change their meaning depending on how you say them.

booksprite — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:14:03 -0800

I'm looking for words which can have different meanings, depending on how they are pronounced. I was talking with a german-speaking colleague recently about the word suspect, which can be a verb or a noun (or even an adjective) depending on how you say it (at least where I come from).

Rebel is another example.

What is this phenomenon called and do you know of any other examples?

How do you pronounce 'read'?

gman — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:37:06 -0800

How do you pronounce the word 'read' when used in the following context? -- 'John is dry (read: boring).' /rɛd/ or /rid/ Thanks!

say my name, bitch!

violetk — Mon, 05 May 2008 11:33:23 -0800

pronunciationfilter: how do i mitigate the awkwardness of correcting someone who is pronouncing my name wrong after a significant amount of time has already passed? so i've been dating this guy for about a month and a half. the first several times i heard him say my name, he put the accent on the wrong syllable (it's an unusual name but not hard to pronounce). usually when i first meet someone and they haven't heard my name or ask how to pronounce it, i will say, "it rhymes with —" and it's no problem. i thought i had this conversation with him when we first met, but then i heard him mispronounce it a few times thereafter. i thought i could correct this without outright pointing out to him that he was mispronouncing it by saying my name when leaving him voicemails or when he'd hear me telling others how to say it when asked (he even pointed out how one hostess at a restaurant was having such problems even after i repeated it to her several times). i haven't heard him say my name very often (we both answer our phone calls with, "hey…!") and thought he'd gotten it but yesterday he said my name again, and again, he pronounced it wrong.

what do i do here?! am i going to have to awkwardly point out to him that he's been saying my name wrong all this time, and particularly considering how much time we've spent together? or is there some other way i can do this with much less awkwardness?

correct pronunciation of "Pogge"

verisimilitude — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:31:14 -0800

How do I pronounce POGGE? ...as in Thomas Winfried Menko Pogge.

I've heard various versions. Which is correct?

My feet are fit

GoingToShopping — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 06:23:05 -0800

What are some totally awesome free online ESL resources that focus specifically on how to produce the correct sounds in English words for people whose native languages don't contain them? I'm an ESL teacher in Japan, and every once in a while I get a student who, due to no particular dearth of intelligence on their part, just can't for the life of them form the proper i sound, as seen in words such as: him, it, medicine, live, fit, etc.
They can recognize the sound, just not reproduce it, and generally the suggestions I give them that help others are ultimately futile. At one point I had stumbled across a website with an interactive interface that showed animated mouth and throat diagrams for all the myriad sounds in our wonderful language, but I'm completely unable to figure out where that page escaped to. All the resources I can find are simply databases of words that a user can click on to listen to, which is utterly useless when one's native language doesn't have the sound in the first place.

CAY-muss, de-LEE-yo, NAY-bo-koff, PROWST

Darth Fedor — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 08:25:12 -0800

How do I pronounce some of my favorite authors' names? (Names inside.) J.M. Coetzee
Halldor Laxness
Junot Diaz
Kenzaburo Oe
Michel Houellebecq
Michael Chabon

Phonetics appreciated. Thanks!

Sanskrit pronunciation guide

aletheia — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 11:59:25 -0800

I have a desperate need to gain some basic command over Sanskrit terms written in the English alphabet (i.e. with the diacritical marks). Can someone point me to a no-nonsense pronunciation guide, as I am having difficulty finding one that doesn't assume preexisting linguistics knowledge.

Hillbilly pernunciation

F Mackenzie — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:04:57 -0800

Regional dialect or dyslexic family? Switching the "r" with a vowel at the beginning of words. My wife points out that my mother and I "kinda talk funny." Specifically, on words beginning with the combination of "consonant-letter R-vowel" we often transcribe them as "consonant-vowel-letter R." Perscribe instead of prescribe, for example. Perspective instead of prospective. Dozens of other examples escape me, but I know I pronounce (pernounce?) them incorrectly without knowing.

Mom was born and raised in rural Missouri of German heritage but near an area rife with Scot-Irish immigrants via Kentucky and Tennessee. My question: is this there a regional linguistic history behind this mispronunciation?

Help me not mangle this name!

dirtmonster — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 14:46:14 -0800

What is the correct phonetic pronunciation for Tite Kubo (creator of Bleach)? Thanks! I am giving a talk next week where I reference Kubo's use of the face fault in Bleach, and I don't want to mess up his name. Thanks for helping me sound on the ball!

Three Iraqi first names: pronunciation?

allterrainbrain — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 12:11:17 -0800

Iraqi first names Zainab, Aysha and Nour: how should I pronounce them? (For each name: how do the vowels sound [in comparison with an English word], how many syllables does the name have, and which syllable is accented?)

How to pronounce "Mary Jacobus"?

redfoxtail — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 10:37:19 -0800

What is the correct way to pronounce the name of the feminist/psychoanalytic critic Mary Jacobus? Which syllable is stressed?

How should I pronounce "February?"

DarwinianDan — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 10:33:07 -0800

Did you ever receive explicit instruction on how to pronounce "February" from someone who is considered an authority on such things? Is saying FEB-roo-air-y more common than FEB-you-air-y? I know most American dictionaries say both pronunciations are acceptable. But is one more acceptable to those who use proper English? And is one more common the world over?

Como se dice en ingles

ludwig_van — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:44:30 -0800

In a conversation consisting entirely of English speakers, how should I pronounce the name Jorge Luis Borges? I skimmed this previous thread, but it was hard to find a consensus there, and this particular case wasn't mentioned but comes up frequently for me.

I tend to pronounce it like the Spanish (I speak Spanish decently), but I sometimes feel awkward doing so. But pronouncing Borges so it rhymes with "gorgeous" sounds really goofy to me, and I don't know how else one could pronounce Jorge.

Is there a standard English pronunciation for his name?

Words that native English speakers mispronounce

pravit — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:25:35 -0800

I'm a native speaker of English but I pronounce some words incorrectly. What other words am I pronouncing wrong? Some time ago at a gathering of friends, I mentioned "tire iron" and was greeted with hysterical laughter. You see, I pronounce the word "iron" as "eye-run", and everyone thought it was funny because apparently "tire iron" is supposed to rhyme and the correct pronunciation of "iron" is "eye-urn." I had never heard of this before, but I checked dictionaries and it really is the right pronunciation for both British and American English, alas.

There have been a number of similar incidents with the words "heifer", "heir", and "cache", which I pronounce(d) "high-fer", "hair", and "cay-sh", respectively. There are probably some other words I have a habit of pronouncing incorrectly that I can't recall now.

I consider myself a reasonably educated person, so the only explanation is that I picked up some peculiarities from my parents, who are non-native speakers of English. It seems most of my pronunciation errors are a result of pronouncing words as they are written (as a kid I read a lot and didn't talk much). My English is otherwise completely standard midwestern American.

So, I guess what I'm looking for is a list of words often pronounced wrong by native English speakers or just some anecdotes from other people with the same problem. Thanks!

Pronounce me this: "Cicott"

bricoleur — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 16:48:47 -0800

WastingThisWeek'sQuestionFilter: How do the locals pronounce "Cicott" in Lake Cicott, IN, USA? I've driven through that fair burg many many times in the last 25 years, and every time, I wonder the same thing. It's ambiguous from a phonetics standpoint, and Hoosiers don't seem to care a fig for phonetics anyway, when place names are involved. Please help me astound my traveling companions the next time I'm traversing beautiful Indiana.

How do you pronounce the last name Geschiere?

almostbarefoot — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 07:10:26 -0800

How do you pronounce the last name of the anthropologist Peter Geschiere? If it helps any, he teaches at the University of Amsterdam, so I assume he's Dutch. (Although there is an outside possibility that he's French, as he does a lot of his writing in French.)

What are some of the best tools available for mastering the Received Pronunciation accent?

scarylarry — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:31:11 -0800

What books/courses/web tutorials would you recommend to help me learn the Received Pronunciation (BBC) English accent? I am an American, and I grew up in and around Los Angeles, so I have a slight 'valley' Californian accent. I'm interested in mastering an RP accent, just as a hobby. (Though when I lived in England, I sometimes fantasized about using a British accent to avoid the instant judgment I received in shops and pubs....)

I'm willing to put the time and practice into this that I know it requires. Are there any very good tutorials out there? I'd love to find something that both represented the phonemes visually and offered audio accompaniment.

Thanks.

Helping an ESL student with a lisp

msbrauer — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 06:07:35 -0800

How best can a teacher address an ESL student's lisp or other speech impediments? My girlfriend is teaching English in China and a couple of her students have lisps that make their spoken English extremely difficult to understand. While she does have training as a teacher of english as a foreign language, she has no training in dealing with speech impediments. The program at her university, similarly, has no real structure for dealing with this kind of problem. She'd like to help these students with their pronunciation, but has no idea where to start. The problem isn't limited to the students' English; the lisp is there when they speak Chinese. What sort of exercises can she give these students to help overcome their severe pronunciation problems? Is it even possible? If you had a lisp, is there something in particular that helped you with better pronunciation?

How do you pronounce stressed them?

Inigo Jones — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 12:00:28 -0800

How do you pronounce them when it's stressed? For instance, "Don't give it to me, give it to THEM." I pronounce the stressed them so that it rhymes with bum. I'm trying to get a sense whether this is idiosyncratic with me, or whether it's a dialectical thing (and if so, which dialect).

I expect there to be some variation, but get the sense most people will pronounce it to rhyme with hem. Though maybe not.

So, how do you pronounce it?