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Post by Phar Lap on Dec 20, 2023 1:14:57 GMT -5
Could we have a thread for how to pronounce words? I don’t think we have one. Today on a Christmas movie, the actress said ‘hyperbole’, but the way she pronounced it was very different from what I had always imagined it to be. Don’t laugh, but I always thought it was said as hyper - bowl. Ah, evidently not, it is hai-puh-buh-lee. Or Hy-pur-buh-lee.
So now I know how to pronounce hyperbole. This is probably very important because for the last forty years I have been reading it the wrong way.
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Post by Liiisa on Dec 20, 2023 8:54:19 GMT -5
It’s another one of those “depends where you’re from” things. As a USanian originally from the NY area, I would say “hy-PER-buh-lee.”
That “puh” sound is like certain UK areas, right?
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Post by Queen on Dec 20, 2023 9:03:34 GMT -5
English isn't a phonetic language so when native English speakers can't pronounce something that they can spell and know the meaning of it's just a sign that they learnt the word by reading and might have been reading ahead of their age as a kid.
My brain is too fogged to remember which ones but there are a couple of words I have to actively remember how to say because for a long time I only had the pronunciation I'd invented when I saw the word in my head and that still comes into my mind first.
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Post by snowwhite on Dec 20, 2023 10:02:16 GMT -5
Here's a list of words I believe extracted from the National Adult Reading Test:
Chord Aisle Debt Naive Bouquet Placebo Subtle Gouge Hiatus Heir Equivocal Facade Zealot Superfluous Cellist Quadruped Leviathan Abstemious Beatify Sidereal Gauche Detente Syncope Demesne
This list was part of an interview I was administering fairly recently - a few of them were new to me, but heard one of them (sidereal) on the radio the other day, which was nice.
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Post by Webs on Dec 20, 2023 11:52:56 GMT -5
syncope and demesne are the ones I tend to have problems with on inital reading.
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Post by Queen on Dec 20, 2023 12:54:38 GMT -5
Abstemious is one of my "think before you say it" ones. I would like to put an extra t in it before the ious for no good reason whatsoever.
I see lots of people using "isle" when they mean aisle" so I'm not surprised there's some confusion about that one. (on FB so not really a fair test I guess)
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Post by snowwhite on Dec 20, 2023 13:02:27 GMT -5
It's a reading test, not spelling, so you literally ask people to read down the list - like read aloud, and then tick a box for correct or incorrect pronunciation
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Post by Liiisa on Dec 20, 2023 13:11:08 GMT -5
It's all kind of biased, though, isn't it? I mean, some people pronounce things the way their home community pronounced them, and as long as they're understood it should be fine.
I used to be very VERY proud of how I pronounced things correctly, and despaired for example of people saying "axe" instead of "ask," but to pronounce it "axe" is perfectly fine in the DC Black community and who am I to say that's wrong. In their home community my saying "ask" would be "wrong," if you see it in that way.
I've become a relativist!
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Post by Liiisa on Dec 20, 2023 13:22:12 GMT -5
Though if you said hyperbole as like “hyper-bowl” I would say that’s wrong wrong wrong
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Post by sophie on Dec 20, 2023 14:07:34 GMT -5
English is not my first language and (especially when I was young) I messed up the pronunciation of some of these words spectacularly!
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Post by kneazle on Dec 20, 2023 15:24:39 GMT -5
Though if you said hyperbole as like “hyper-bowl” I would say that’s wrong wrong wrong There's a song from the early 2000's with the line 'no Hyperbole (said hyper-bowl) to hide behind'
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Post by Liiisa on Dec 20, 2023 16:07:44 GMT -5
Omg!
Maybe it’s a sports event - like the Super Bowl at double speed would be the Hyperbowl.
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Post by jimm on Dec 20, 2023 16:33:38 GMT -5
Same as Webs - not sure about the last 2.
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Post by Liiisa on Dec 20, 2023 16:44:50 GMT -5
SIN-coh-pee Duh-MAIN
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Post by Queen on Dec 20, 2023 16:56:19 GMT -5
It's a reading test, not spelling, so you literally ask people to read down the list - like read aloud, and then tick a box for correct or incorrect pronunciation I understood that, but if people write isle meaning aisle, when they see aisle and are asked how to pronounce it they're not necessarily going to know.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Dec 20, 2023 17:56:42 GMT -5
My brain is too fogged to remember which ones but there are a couple of words I have to actively remember how to say because for a long time I only had the pronunciation I'd invented when I saw the word in my head and that still comes into my mind first. That's epilogue for me.
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Post by vinnyd on Dec 20, 2023 19:05:45 GMT -5
On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific—and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
— John Keats
And now you all know how to pronounce "demesne".
(But apparently Keats stressed Cortez on the first syllable, which is not what Cortez would have done. And anyway it was Balboa.)
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Post by vinnyd on Dec 20, 2023 19:13:25 GMT -5
"Ask" and "axe" have both been around since before the Norman Conquest. (as ascian and acsian in Old English). Axe meaning ask survived in respectable literature until Shakespeare's time. I don't think there is any particular reason why ask became standard and axe was relegated to various dialects.
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Post by Liiisa on Dec 20, 2023 19:41:58 GMT -5
Thank you for that.
Are there peaks in Darien? I've been to the Panamanian jungle one (since surely he isn't talking about the one in Fairfield County), and it wasn't particularly peak-y. Oh, but I just pulled up a terrain map; forgive me Mr. Keats, I obviously was just in the wrong part.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Dec 20, 2023 21:25:44 GMT -5
My childhood mispronounced word was funeral, and briefly, cafe and chemist.
Demesne is de mean.
As for spelling, liaison is commonly spelt without one of the I’s.
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Post by Phar Lap on Dec 20, 2023 22:30:46 GMT -5
Reading Ozzie’s post brought back a memory of my childhood friend across the road, Kerry, who could never pronounce the word ‘hospital’ - she always said ‘hostabul’. Even when she was ten, she still called it a hostabul.
When the Big A was little he said he had the neezles - he meant measles.
And he would say he had pins and neasles in his foot!
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Post by scrubb on Dec 20, 2023 22:37:22 GMT -5
There were plenty of words I read before I heard spoken, and had the pronunciation all wrong. The only one I remember right now is picturesque. And I still think "pictureskew" when I read it. Although, when I say it, I'm never inclined to mispronounce it.
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Post by groo on Dec 20, 2023 23:26:16 GMT -5
Also place names. Around here we have:
Tumbulgum - (tum bulgum)
Cudgen - (Koodjen)
Mooball (Moball)
Tyalgum (talgum)
Hopping Dick Creek (pronounced as it is spelt, but I just thought I'd throw it in)
... even the ship named after my home city of Uki (and that's you kai) was referred to by US servicemen during WW2, when she did wartime service, as the "UK 1".
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Post by groo on Dec 20, 2023 23:30:13 GMT -5
Once upon a time (around 60 years ago when I studied the English language) I was fluent in the phonetic alphabet, but I've forgotten the bloody lot.
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Post by kneazle on Dec 21, 2023 0:26:24 GMT -5
This thread reminded me of this:
I'm never entirely sure how to say chimera and neapoliton ice cream is always Napoleon
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Post by groo on Dec 21, 2023 0:34:51 GMT -5
OK. If Onehunga is own e hunga, how does one pronounce One Tree Hill, in the same city.
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Post by kneazle on Dec 21, 2023 1:16:56 GMT -5
Well that's easy! One is Maori the other is English! Makes sense to us locals!
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Post by kneazle on Dec 21, 2023 1:22:23 GMT -5
Though a friend at uni was talking about Maori place names that had been so badly mispronounced for so long people didn't recognise them when they're pronounced properly.
I'd just heard Te Kauwhata pronounced properly for the first time (te Coe far tar) instead of the mispronouciation (tee car what a)
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Post by groo on Dec 21, 2023 1:54:19 GMT -5
Well that's easy! One is Maori the other is English! Makes sense to us locals! Quite obvious, really. This was an attempt to point out the inconsistencies of spelling and pronunciation, not a bloody put down.
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Post by Queen on Dec 21, 2023 3:51:11 GMT -5
OK. If Onehunga is own e hunga, how does one pronounce One Tree Hill, in the same city. It's almost like they're from two different languages. Well that's easy! One is Maori the other is English! Makes sense to us locals! Quite obvious, really. This was an attempt to point out the inconsistencies of spelling and pronunciation, not a bloody put down. But what fool would expect consistency of spelling and pronunciation between two different languages?
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