Help me tell someone how to prounounce my name
March 19, 2017 12:04 PM Subscribe
In a couple of months, I will get my B.S. in geography. I must register online for graduation. The form has a space to indicate the phonetic pronunciation of my name. I have no idea how to do this in a concise way.
My first name is Maurreen. Wikipedia has a pronunciation key of /mɔːˈriːn/. But I expect few people could read that. I pronounce the first syllable to rhyme with “car.” But the traditional pronunciation, like “more”, is fine also. So maybe that could be written as “Morene.”
My last name, Skowran, is more trouble. The first syllable rhymes with “cow.” The second syllable sounds like “run.”
How can I sum that up concisely?
My first name is Maurreen. Wikipedia has a pronunciation key of /mɔːˈriːn/. But I expect few people could read that. I pronounce the first syllable to rhyme with “car.” But the traditional pronunciation, like “more”, is fine also. So maybe that could be written as “Morene.”
My last name, Skowran, is more trouble. The first syllable rhymes with “cow.” The second syllable sounds like “run.”
How can I sum that up concisely?
Basically what ish said, but I would also capitalize the stressed syllables:
Mar-REEN SCOW-run
(or however you stress it - I'm assuming)
posted by obfuscation at 12:10 PM on March 19, 2017 [15 favorites]
Mar-REEN SCOW-run
(or however you stress it - I'm assuming)
posted by obfuscation at 12:10 PM on March 19, 2017 [15 favorites]
Do you have a Facebook profile?
If you go to your profile page, under Intro (just below your profile photo), and select edit; it lets you choose the correct pronunciation of your name. Then it spells that out phonetically, in plain English. Copy and paste it elsewhere as needed.
posted by Drosera at 12:16 PM on March 19, 2017
If you go to your profile page, under Intro (just below your profile photo), and select edit; it lets you choose the correct pronunciation of your name. Then it spells that out phonetically, in plain English. Copy and paste it elsewhere as needed.
posted by Drosera at 12:16 PM on March 19, 2017
"Phonetic" spellings are a minefield.
If there's room, I'd do "Skowran rhymes with cow-run." IME the people reading names are often rattled enough that they ignore or botch the phonetic representations (or the phonetic representations are useless because they are so subjective). So brace yourself for mispronunciation no matter how good the solution you come up with.
Congratulations!
posted by wintersweet at 12:27 PM on March 19, 2017 [5 favorites]
If there's room, I'd do "Skowran rhymes with cow-run." IME the people reading names are often rattled enough that they ignore or botch the phonetic representations (or the phonetic representations are useless because they are so subjective). So brace yourself for mispronunciation no matter how good the solution you come up with.
Congratulations!
posted by wintersweet at 12:27 PM on March 19, 2017 [5 favorites]
My company writes academic competition questions that get read aloud, so we have to include a lot of pronunciation guides that are supposed to be accessible to neophytes. Based on how we do things, I'd write [maw-REEN "SCOW-run"] or [mah-REEN "SCOW-run"], where the enquoting indicates "pronounce like the normal English words". I guess I'm not sure how well known the word "scow" is, but I think the correct pronunciation is going to be a good guess anyway.
You could also say something like "Maurreen is pronounced the same as Maureen" (which I think most people know how to pronounce, although it sounds like you do the first syllable a little differently) "and Skowran rhymes with 'COW-run'".
posted by likedoomsday at 2:26 PM on March 19, 2017
You could also say something like "Maurreen is pronounced the same as Maureen" (which I think most people know how to pronounce, although it sounds like you do the first syllable a little differently) "and Skowran rhymes with 'COW-run'".
posted by likedoomsday at 2:26 PM on March 19, 2017
I keep reading "skow-run" to rhyme with "low-run", so another vote for "rhymes with cow-run" from me.
posted by a car full of lions at 2:54 PM on March 19, 2017
posted by a car full of lions at 2:54 PM on March 19, 2017
This doesn't help you write it down, but at my college graduation, you said your name to the announcer guy right before walking, so he knew for sure how to pronounce it. You might ask (whoever you send the card to) if that's something they do.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 4:13 PM on March 19, 2017
posted by Huffy Puffy at 4:13 PM on March 19, 2017
Definitely give the emphasis for your first name as there are multiple ways to stress it and US/UK pronunciation split. ("Marine" vs "MORE-een")
posted by the latin mouse at 4:26 PM on March 19, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by the latin mouse at 4:26 PM on March 19, 2017 [2 favorites]
I'd add the S from your last name onto the end of your first name...that way, there's no ambiguity about how the COW part of your last name should be pronounced:
MORE-een's COW run
posted by richmondparker at 9:45 AM on March 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
MORE-een's COW run
posted by richmondparker at 9:45 AM on March 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
For yours though, marr-reen skow-run ? If i saw that I'd probably be pretty close.
posted by ish__ at 12:07 PM on March 19, 2017 [1 favorite]