Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
 
Seriously, I listen to a lot of books with egregious mispronunciations (non-fiction, major publishers, etc.). I only wish this were part of the process!
I'm still shuddering at the biography of John Quincy Adams where the word "quay" was pronounced "kway." No, I'm not making that up. And it's not even as if the narrator got it wrong once and someone clued him in so he could fix it subsequently. It was consistent throughout the book. |
This is one of the words I would have mispronounced and not known it (Although in this case I would have looked it up because I don't know what it means.) Now, it may be because I'm a dummy, but I prefer to view it as: Depends on where you are from, your life experiences and what you've been exposed to. Voice actors are often VERY good at what they do--act, read and entertain. But they may not have the exposure to as many words (or the same words) as the author who wrote the book. Those publishing it may cut corners and not listen to the finished book or they may listen but not know how to pronounce the words either!
I've taught English as a second language and I can promise you that even in that environment, the students use very different English words--not always the easiest one either. Some of it can depend on their original language (Spanish versus Japanese, the two I've taught to the most).
Language is a very powerful tool. Communication, however, is often magic.
