Sound and fury: how pronunciation provokes passionate reactions | Hacker News Reader

Sound and fury: how pronunciation provokes passionate reactions

theguardian.com

45 pointskawera69 comments

I always feel weird correctly mispronouncing (?) words I know are imported, for example "Einstein" instead of "Einshtein".

While you could get away with "Einshtein", though most folks would think you're pedantic, you really can't for words with less well-known origins. For example most people pronounce "hagiography" with a "hay" sound instead of a "haw" sound, as in Greek ἁγία (hágia). But if you said "hawgiography" people would think you don't know English.

This can be true even for well-known words, like Bruschetta (common Italian antipasto of bread topped with tomatoes). Most everyone in the US pronounces this with a soft 'ch', but it actually should be a hard 'k'. But whenever I pronounce it this way, people always think I'm wrong.

Maybe that's the pedantic part.

Strangely, everybody gets Pinocchio right.

> Strangely, everybody gets Pinocchio right.

The two 'c's followed by an 'h', which is unusual in English, is probably a factor (as opposed to the single 'c' of 'bruschetta', which looks familiar).

And I've also seen the opposite with prosciutto.

I got some pickled vegetables recently at a semi-fancy restaurant and was amused when they introduced the "chee-oh-gee-uh" beets. It's chioggia, so it should be "kyo-ja" or at least "key-oh-juh".

Same with pret-a-manger in London. Everyone pronounces 'pret' to rhyme with 'let', although most people know the correct pronunciation (more like pray). No-one even attempts the 'manger' part.

Apparently in Germany it's just the opposite: they go out of their way to pronounce things the 'correct' way, as they're pronounced in the native language.

Regarding “prêt.” You are correct when the word is isolated. However, in the locution “prêt à manger,” the word is followed by a vowel sound, so the “t” is indeed pronounced, a phenomenon known as enchaînement. This gives some logic to the common English pronunciation of the fast food chain.

The pronunciation of the "t" in this case is a result of liaison, not enchaînement. Enchaînement has to do with the syllabification of French phrases, e.g. "seize heures" is pronounced like "sê zeur," "moving" the word-final "z" to the start of the following vowel-inital word.

Actually, in proper French you're suppose to "link" the words ("faire la liaison"), so it's perfectly correct to make the "t" heard.

The correct pronunciation of "prêt" is nowhere near that of "pray" (there's no y-like sound at the end).

It gets worse. A decade ago, Obama actually got political heat for pronouncing the names of countries, the same way their inhabitants do.

Language has evolved far far beyond its original roots as a medium for communication, and has now become a symbol of political identity. "If you pronounce words differently, well, you must clearly not share our values."

https://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2010/09/barack_obama

It seems like half of his pronunciations are how natives might say it, and the other half as 'over-educated faux authenticity'.

Which one did he get political heat for?

Also, language has been about politics for thousands of years...see the shibboleth story in the Judges(old testament, ~3400 years ago).

Which is correct is a difficult line to draw though to some extent. Whilst altering the pronunciation of Pakistan makes some sense (because it's the same word), pronouncing a country the same way as the inhabitants is not necessary correct in English -- you'd probably get some sideways glances if you starting insisting on Nippon for Japan or Deutschland for Germany (or even México for Mexico to some extent).

I'd also say that language as a political/shared identity is not a new phenomenon.

Or, conversely imagine Chinese saying "The United States of America" rather than "mei guo" (美国 - mĕiguó), or Mexicans saying "The United States of America" instead of "Los rstados unidos", etc., etc.

It's ridiculous to think you should pronounce the name of any geographic entity by the way the people native to the area do.

I agree with your word-choice examples - I was referring specifically to pronunciation only. My general instinct is to pronounce people's names the same way they themselves do, as opposed to the way I think it should be pronounced. I try to extend that same principle to countries as well, if the natives unanimously pronounce their country in a certain way when talking in English.

> a symbol of political identity

> Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth

I get heat for pronouncing Iran and Iraq anywhere near correctly, people tell me I sound like a redneck for it.

Rule of thumb: if all the other words in your sentence are in French, then pronounce the word "France" the way French-speaking people say it. If the other words are English, pronounce it the way English-speaking people say it. Switching accents in the middle of a sentence sounds ridiculous.

To illustrate, there's a scene from "Better Off Dead" where the mother repeatedly says "Frawnch" in place of "French" trying to affect an authentic pronounciation, with predictably disastrous results https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhW7rpFhr2k

There's nothing wrong with pronouncing borrowed words with commonly accepted sound. That's the way with Jesus, Rome, Ptolemy, Confucius, and everything else. Even the names of native Britons don't stay faithful to the original sound: I'm pretty sure King Arthur or William Shakespeare did not pronounce their own names the same way we do now.

> William Shakespeare

Presumably, later in life he went by "Bill".

Just own it, dude - I knew someone who'd pronounce "Puerto Rico" the "authentic" way and make you feel like the philistine if you dared correct her

It gets worse when speaking/learning more than one language. Since starting to learn Japanese, pronouncing "karaoke" the English way just feels wrong, and conversely the English loan words in Japanese feel like I'm butchering my mother tongue (at times).

So, I'm currently re-reading the 1632 books, and one thing that's frustrating me is how to read the various German and other non-English names in the book (I cannot read without subvocalizing the dialogue). On one hand, I know how most of these words should be pronounced. On the other hand, there's no way that most of the uptimer characters are going to not speak German with a heavy American accent (and it doesn't help that the authors anglicize a lot of place names, such as Thüringen -> Thuringia). So part of me wants to subvocalize the dialogue the way the words are supposed to be pronounced, and another part of me wants to subvocalize the dialogue the way the uptimers would actually pronounce them.

Language is primarily for communication, not correctness or history. We're not talking about a person's name here.

What do you communicate when you say 'Budapesht' rather than 'Budapest' to a bunch of North Americans after your first visit there?

You're showing them their ease of comprehension is less important to you than pedantry or your desire to demonstrate correctness. Easily rude, likely pedantic, at worst pretentious.

Strive to speak in the language of your audience.

Thank you for explaining so clearly why I dislike people doing that. I feel the same way about correcting spelling mistakes too.

Except when you're not sure what the word is pronounced like. The more obscure word, the easier just to switch to the native pronounciation and hope that it's more comprehensible to the audience than the inevitably botched "correct" version.

This may apply to English more than other languages - in some languages it's pretty easy to guess how to pronounce complicated words after seeing them in writing.

It's interesting how some clever people pronounce a few words differently because they've been reading way ahead of what they have the opportunity to converse about.

This was a key part of the mockumentary web series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Pwnage 's schtick.

I did this with the word 'awry'. I read it as aww-ree. Interestingly I also knew the word 'awry' as eh-rye from hearing it spoken, I just didnt connect up that the two were the same word.

I distinctly remember saying "IN-tri-gyou-ing" (intriguing) for a bit as a kid.

Rather than "infra-red", I said "inf-rare-d" as a child.

I know someone who did this with "parse". Somehow it was read as "pa-ray-se", and it stuck. Easy enough to fix, but it did cause a moment of confusion when he asked me to have a look why his "pa-ray-ser" wasn't working.

One of my only favorite movie lines is from Cape Fear, where a redneck says that if someone mispronounces a fancy word it just means they've not been able to discuss what they've learned yet. My Vice Principal in HS told me to flip him a good burger someday, if it weren't for reading and being shameless I'd be doing just that with much of my class. The Guntenberg press was revolutionary for reasons.

I once saw a YouTube video in which the vlogger consistently mispronounced the title of the game Heretic as though it rhymed with "magnetic". And he did this with at least one other word ("requiem")! Hearing him mis-accent these words was like nails on chalkboard. It's like where have you been, that you're reading these words for the first time, just now?

I've caught myself doing this with more obscure (to me) words—ones that I only encountered in text and not in spoken conversation. Debian was one ("DEE-bee-an"). I was talking to a friend one day about it when I first started using Linux ("LIE-niks"!), and he was amused by my innocence :)

> And he did this with at least one other word ("requiem")!

Did he pronounce it "rek-WHY-em"? That would drive me insane.

I used to pronounce Debian and Linux exactly those ways,

He pronounced it re-KWEE-em.

One odd thing I've noticed about myself: when I read the word Linux silently, what I hear in my head is often "LIE-niks", but when I say it out loud it's always "LINN-iks".

And it's not like I'm on the verge of mispronouncing it and have to correct myself; it naturally comes out the right way. Just not when I read it silently.

One thing I've noticed is that if there is a word I only encounter in its written form, I only sight read it and don't pronounce it internally (I remember doing it with "Hermione" the first I read the Harry Potter series). It's almost like there's just a brief silence in my inner monologue. I can see how that might lead to odd pronunciations the first time I actually think about it.

To be fair, when you gain most of your vocabulary by reading, you have to guess at pronunciation most of the time. I read voluminously as a kid but still mispronounce words which I feel very comfortable with!

He might have been reading those words like that for years... I know I mispronounce many words, I just don't know which ones :-)

I have absolutely no idea in which way "Heretic" wouldn't rhyme with "magnetic". I mean, mag-net-ik and he-ret-ik rhyme to my ears :)

I think that they meant the syllable that the accent is on. HARE-ə-tic vs. hare-ET-ic.

I would put the emphasis on the second syllable, like for magnetic. Is this incorrect? I'm a non native speaker.

As a native US English speaker, it sounds far more natural to put the emphasis on the first syllable.

A light emphasis on the first syllable would be correct. It shifts to the second syllable in a word like "heretical" (he-RET-i-cal). Webster's dictionary and Wiktionary seem to agree. Oxford would be authoritative for English itself, but I don't have access to that.

He may have read the words hundreds of times, just not heard them (pronounced by someone who knows their common pronunciation).

Try being a Scottish kid watching TV, hearing the American kids saying "principal" as "princible" or the English ones pronouncing "drawing" as "drawringg" (or "ate" as "ett" or even worse "think" and "fink") and being told that by the world that actually you are the one who speaks weird :-D

Here's one that drives me nuts (an American listening to American speech): Febyouary. Literally everybody says it and it never made sense to me.

That actually happens in the UK too. sometimes its just people using a shortcut, but sometimes it’s very pronounced

It's just a case where the common pronunciation doesn't precisely match the spelling. How about Wednesday? Wennsday. Receipt? Island? Colonel? Do those bother you too?

> It's just a case where the common pronunciation doesn't precisely match the spelling. How about Wednesday? Wennsday. Receipt? Island? Colonel? Do those bother you too?

The difference is that I think that most people agree that 'Febyooary' and 'Wennsday' are incorrect pronunciations, whereas 'reseat' and 'i-land' are correct pronunciations. I don't know the stories behind these, but 'colonel' is fascinating: the reason for the pronunciation–spelling mismatch is that English used the Italian spelling (colonelle) and the French pronunciation (coronelle).

> The difference is that I think that most people agree that 'Febyooary' and 'Wennsday' are incorrect pronunciations

Those are the most common pronunciations I hear, living in California. The U.S. and U.K. recordings on Wiktionary also omit the first "r" in February, and the "d" in Wednesday (although the UK recording seems like it has an elongated sound that implies the missing "d").

> Those are the most common pronunciations I hear, living in California.

They are also the most common in my experience, but I thought, and thought others thought, that they were nonetheless commonly judged wrong. (It is fair to argue what 'wrong' could possibly mean of pronunciation other than "what most people say", though.)

If a native speaker makes an utterance that they don't consider to have a mistake, and that other speakers of the dialect would accept as correct, then I think it's hard to say that it's wrong, even if it deviates from another dialect (and even if the dialect it deviates from is the one considered the "standard" form of the language).

Even taking it in a more linguistic prescriptivist direction though, those words did often have more than one accepted pronunciation listed in various dictionaries.

Fun fact: Island was never pronounced with an 's'. The silent letter was inserted to make the word look more like Latin.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island#Etymology

I've been working with my third grader on spelling, and I swear half of what I've been doing is just saying the word as written, rather than as we actually say it. "Prin-Si-Pal, not Prin-Si-Pel, and yes, the S is a C this time..."

The problem is that it hits the schoolkids the worst. The words that go irregular tend to be the ones that are used all the time, which are also the ones they are learning. "Cardiology", now, there's a word that probably only gets slightly changed around the exact pronunciation of the o sounds as you go around the country. But "milk" or "pen" or "crayon"? Good luck, kiddo.

Do you Scottish actually say the "pal" in "principal" as it's written? I.e., "PRINCE-i-pal"?

Nah not like “pal” but the “p” is distinctly audible

My favorite thing in the world is hearing Scots pronounce "squirrel".

Oddly enough it's those small differences that really stand out to me, even where they might not between British dialects/accents. "Aluminium"/"Aluminum" or "route" as "root"/"rowt" barely even registers, yet the "a" in something like "pasta" going from being a short sound to more like "parhhsta" (more like "par", the golfing term) sticks out like a sore thumb.

The intrusive r is particularly baffling, as it's not a natural position for your mouth in the places it occurs. It's like the omitted r's in non-rhotic accents got lost and needed a place to go.

As a midwesterner, I would certainly appreciate it if people would focus on the other 95% of what I said, and not that I said "bag" ("bay-g").

On the question of Robots, we already have a robot accent: that digital accent that is familiar from TV and movies, which hilariously mispronounce so many wonderful words.

https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/10/05/44...

I do expect that one day computerised speech will be far more eloquent and sound more like HAL and less like Paranoid Android.

But what about great robot voices like Alpha 60, Hitchhiker's Marvin and Tron's Master Control Program? I hope we keep our sense of humour in the future.

If Sat Navs are anything to go by you'll probably be able to get downloadable voice modules to get your robot sounding like Homer Simpson or Bill Cosby (okay, maybe not Bill Cosby... ahem).

Passionate reactions about pronunciation must be a British thing. I really don't think Americans care very much unless the pronunciation is outright wrong, and probably not even then. I really can't imagine an American radio host receiving such complaints.

This is the country that gave the world "nucular" after all. (Sorry about that.)

That said, if any word in America can provoke a passionate pronunciation reaction, it's pecan:

https://www.ourstate.com/pecan-how-do-you-say-it/

What is the best way to find out the accepted pronunciation of various tech project names? Is there any type of resource to make this easy (for podcasts hosts, etc.)?

This winds up being a minefield for audio content creators!

> the accepted pronunciation of various tech project names

Resque (where the readme says in the first sentence that it is pronounced like 'rescue') always bugged me. Are there any English words where 'que' at the end of a word like that makes a 'kyoo' sound? Would 'resqueue' have been such a horrible spelling?

Linux

Reply on news.ycombinator.com