• Weirdfish@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    This is 100% my girlfriend, and I take great pleasure in never correcting her, I find it charming.

    • Classy@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      Mine is full of ‘oreos’ (Oreoles), ‘emeralds’ (Admirals), ‘see-ment’ (cement), and very cute regionalisms like ‘roundy-rounds’ (roundabouts). I love it

      • Welt@lazysoci.al
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        6 months ago

        That’s a slightly different phenomenon called a mondegreen (Hendrix singing ‘scuse me while I kiss this guy’ etc)

    • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Better than my one friend. He seems to only correct pronunciations. It’s gotten to the point that he denies idioms if he hasn’t heard of them before. I don’t actively seek him out anymore.

      • Weirdfish@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Thing is, I know she knows exactly what she is saying. The context is correct, she knows what the words mean, she just didn’t grow up around people who spoke that wide a vocabulary, and while working in blue collar trades, she was looked down on for all them fancy college words.

        She can swear with the best pipe fitters, well, because she was a union pipe fitter.

        Language is so fluid, people who get too hung up on syntax and not the substance really annoy me.

        When I was in the military, one of the smartest people I knew was from the bayou of Louisiana. To me, a yank, he sounded like a complete idiot, and in fact I often couldn’t understand him when we first met. Once I was able to look past his mode of speech, and actually listen to him, I realised what an ignorant fuck I was being.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    As someone who has learned the English language primarily by reading thousands of books, I wholeheartedly agree. On the other hand, English pronounciation sucks big time.

    • elvith@discuss.tchncs.de
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      6 months ago

      When the English tongue we speak.
      Why is break not rhymed with freak?
      Will you tell me why it’s true
      We say sew but likewise few?
      And the maker of the verse,
      Cannot rhyme his horse with worse?
      Beard is not the same as heard
      Cord is different from word.
      Cow is cow but low is low
      Shoe is never rhymed with foe.
      Think of hose, dose,and lose
      And think of goose and yet with choose
      Think of comb, tomb and bomb,
      Doll and roll or home and some.
      Since pay is rhymed with say
      Why not paid with said I pray?
      Think of blood, food and good.
      Mould is not pronounced like could.
      Wherefore done, but gone and lone -
      Is there any reason known?
      To sum up all, it seems to me
      Sound and letters don’t agree.

      • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        You got me there. Im a very systemic person, and pronunciation is higly asystemic, even in the English language.

    • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
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      6 months ago

      Like, how THE FSCK would I know that a geoduck is pronounced gooey-duck? Also geo-duck sounds like a Pokémon, so that’s gotta be right.

      • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        geoduck

        Hey, at least it is a nice, short word. In German, it is an “Elephantenrüsselmuschel” (elephant trunk clam). At least there is absolutely no question how it is pronounced, so that’s that.

        • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
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          6 months ago

          German pronunciation rules are awesome. If only you could get rid of some of your consonants, I’d be able to pronounce any German word.

          • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            If only you could get rid of some of your consonants, I’d be able to pronounce any German word.

            You probably dislike the German variants of “ch” as much as the Germans loathe the English “th” ;-)

            • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
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              6 months ago

              Out of Rohrbacherstrasse, I could pronounce Ro, ba, and strasse. German has like 5 different R sounds and I can pronounce 2 of them. And yet most of you can’t pronounce the vibrating R in my name.

              And I hate English’s TH as well, both sounds of it, and especially the insistence in using it next to S. How am I supposed to pronounce “clothes” with any grace or dignity left?

              No, my mother tongue isn’t Germanic, but Celtic-Latin with a lot of Banto and Tupi thrown in for mellowing.

  • Trailblazing Braille Taser@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    6 months ago

    I always knew that “misled” in books (pronounced mīzulled) and the spoken “misled” (mis-led) meant the same thing, but it took me until high school to figure out that mīzulled was only in my head.

    • s_s@lemmy.one
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      6 months ago

      Using an alphabet designed for Latin has had some dire consequences.

      • BambiDiego@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Using a Latin alphabet. Using Germanic pronunciation. Borrowing words from Spanish. Stealing words from French. Changing accent to avoid sounding Gaelic.

        I have always loved the analogy that English isn’t a language, it’s three bilingual children stacked on top of each other wearing a trenchcoat and arguing about bologna.

        • Classy@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          I have heard it analogized that English is a language that follows other languages into dark alleys to beat them up and steal their words.

      • deikoepfiges_dreirad@lemmy.zip
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        6 months ago

        Well, German has almost as many vowels as English and we’re doing just fine I think. On the other hand, French orthography is similarly fucked up although it’s a direct descendent of Latin and they don’t even have any weird sounds they can’t write concisely. So I think its just a matter of trying.

    • sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz
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      6 months ago

      lˈʊk ˈæt ˈɔːl ðˈiːz dummies ˈɪn ðˈɪsθɹˈɛd ðˈæt dˈo͡ʊnt nˈo͡ʊ ðˈəˌa͡ɪpˌiːˈe͡ɪ.

      What has the education system been reduced to smh.

      • Firestorm Druid@lemmy.zip
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        6 months ago

        Some of the accents are a little off since they would need to go in front of the consonants instead of the vowels and “dummies” isn’t spelled correctly but other than that I had a chuckle :D (not mesnt to be rude - sorry if it comes off this way)

        • sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz
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          6 months ago

          Don’t worry, it wasn’t mean! I haven’t used IPA since probably secondary school where we had mayyybe three lessons on it, so it was bound to be off.

          • Firestorm Druid@lemmy.zip
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            6 months ago

            Gotcha! It’s fresh in my mind again because of my SLT apprenticeship where we need to be able to transcribe what our patients say when diagnosing pronunciation errors

  • KingJalopy @lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    Not me! I only read audiobooks, so I know how to pronounce all those $5 words!

    (Just don’t know what they mean or how to use them)

      • Wogi@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        A decent performer will likely verify words they’re unfamiliar with. If it’s being read by the book’s author it’s anybody’s guess.

        I’m looking at YOU Gibson

        • TheTetrapod@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I don’t know how many times I’ve heard professional audiobook readers say casualty instead of causality. They might have a higher hit rate, but not 100%.

          • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
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            6 months ago

            Those are just causality casualties then. I’ve had good luck with performers, but it may depend what you’re reading interest is

  • shalafi@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I said “miss happen” one time in front of my girlfriend. “What?”

    “You know, like badly shaped, deformed.”

    “Misshapen?! BAH HAH HA HAA!”

  • Hikermick@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I grew up reading Warner Bros comic books my grandma had and thought Yosemite Sam was pronounced “Yosemight”. Eventually figured it out. Later my backpacking buddy and I were looking at a map of California when he told me we should check out “Yosemight” if we ever get around to visiting Yosemite

    • Dozzi92@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I don’t speak Spanish, but do Spanish authors pull the same shit English ones do, where they give characters absolutely nonsense names with ambiguous pronunciations? Is it even possible? I will read a name of a character or place and spend the next 20 chapters reading the word twice or three times in different ways.

      • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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        6 months ago

        My biggest gripe with spanish is J having the “ha” sound. Juan is spelled “Hoo-an”, Jesus is “Heh-zus”, etc. If you can get over that, the rest is mostly phonetically sound, like portuguese

        • Skates@feddit.nl
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          6 months ago

          I think you’ll find even in Spanish Juan is still spelled Juan and Jesus is still spelled Jesus.

          • Welt@lazysoci.al
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            6 months ago

            It’s striking how different it sounds. I have knowledge of Latin, French and German, and Portuguese sounds way more like a German dialect on casual overhearing than the one it’s derived from or its modern descendant it’s closely related to!

  • Trickloss@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Some names would also throw me for a loop. When I first heard how they said “Hermione”, I was quite flabbergasted.

  • Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    Reading through Lovecraft’s (especially his earlier) work be like, “Hey Google! Define cacodaemoniacal…”

    You’re gonna need to know what gambrelled roofs and gables are too. Dude loved his gambrells and gables.

      • Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca
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        6 months ago

        Nah, Google would be like, "Sorry, I don’t understand. But I did find something else on the web. Did you mean “Cacodaemoniacal defined?”

        Edit: Whoops, accidentally pasted in that word I couldn’t remember how to spell.

    • Welt@lazysoci.al
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      6 months ago

      Caco = shit (same as caca/kaka in many European languages

      Daemon = background program that does things without user input

      -iacal = suffix turning the above into an adjective

      So, Windows 11

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Truth…hah! I still have words I have to look up on the sly on the internet and click one of those definition services that will pronounce the word for you so I don’t sound completely wrong.

    • Dozzi92@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I pronounced epitome epi-tome for the longest time. Now as I read, I pop onto Google when I encounter something I’m unfamiliar with. And I’m 36, my job has me fairly familiar with the English language, but I swear some writers discover a word and they’re like “can’t wait to use this two or three times in the next couple chapters.”

      It’s that and character/place names, but character names are dangerous lookups, spoiled a plot in WoT looking up how to pronounce Moraine. And the worst part is her name’s pretty obvious, but I fucking looked it up anyway. I thought Hermione was obvious as a kid, but that’s probably because I transposed the I and O, now that I think about it.

      • tempest@lemmy.ca
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        6 months ago

        I was teasing my significant other about her epi-tome but then she caught me with indictment so we’re back on equal footing.

  • voracitude@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    in-ter-MINE-able / in-TERM-in-able

    Is one that jumps to mind which I still cock up to this day, I feel a little called out 😂