@?&®% Mispronunciations!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Well, they're just made up American words anyway.

What happened was that the Pilgrims came to America and brought with them UK English. They then took that UK English and made what is now the better US English.

[JSWolf]

One thing that can drop me out of an audiobook is some UK words. For example, Aluminum is a word that doesn't work for me when it's the UK pronunciation. Aluminum is even spelled differently in the UK (aluminium).

But words like color that are spelled differently in UK English at least sound the same no no problem there.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What happened was that the Pilgrims came to America and brought with them UK English. They then took that UK English and made what is now the better US English.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

One thing that can drop me out of an audiobook is some UK words. For example, Aluminum is a word that doesn't work for me when it's the UK pronunciation. Aluminum is even spelled differently in the UK (aluminium).

But words like color that are spelled differently in UK English at least sound the same no no problem there.

Aluminum is a bad example I think. The "ium" ending for elements is pretty standard (uranium, polonium, rubidium etc.), it's odd that US English changes it just for aluminum.

[SeaBookGuy]

Bowdoin College as "buh-doyne" recently

[GrannyGrump]

A recent cringe-worthy audible ---- Blodgett with a "hard" G.

I can *almost* tolerate accent on the wrong syllable, but things like this draw out the insane shrieks. Especially when the offending word is repeated again and again and again...

[Snodgrass]

Just a warning for people with sensitive ears: don't go anywhere near Youtube!

It's not just the amateur idiots in back-to-front hats who scream at you who mispronounce things. Quite a few 'professional' presenters are also guilty. Too many channels? Talent spread thinly?

Corona please go away... Until then, happy isolating.

[issybird]

Gareth Armstrong: pest-ul, for “pestle.”

Even worse, after the first few times he obviously was corrected, but not only did they not go back and fix it, he was inconsistent thereafter. One wonders how he pronounces nestle, wrestle and trestle.

[CRussel]

THAT would be very disruptive. I would rather a consistent mispronunciation than an inconsistent one. Though honestly, where was the director on this whole thing??

[issybird]

Originally Posted by CRussel

THAT would be very disruptive. I would rather a consistent mispronunciation than an inconsistent one. Though honestly, where was the director on this whole thing??

My perennial question. Mispronunciations should scream for attention and if the director doesn’t know how ordinary words are pronounced and isn’t willing to vet words they don’t know, then they shouldn’t be producing audiobooks. Talk about the Peter Principle.

I remember once reading an article about why audiobooks were better than print books* and one of the reasons was that you found out how to pronounce difficult words. Hah bloody hah, was my reaction to that!

*Audiobooks are different from print books. I don’t know why people in either camp think it’s a contest.

[SeaBookGuy]

Originally Posted by issybird

Gareth Armstrong: pest-ul, for “pestle.”

Even worse, after the first few times he obviously was corrected, but not only did they not go back and fix it, he was inconsistent thereafter. One wonders how he pronounces nestle, wrestle and trestle.

Interesting as I find his reading of the Maigret series outstanding!

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What happened was that the Pilgrims came to America and brought with them UK English. They then took that UK English and made what is now the better US English.

It was Webster that decided to change (possibly French origin) -re endings to -er and drop internal double LL to L and drop U from OUR. He was prescriptive and deliberately changing variations of US spellings to his own idea. Whereas the OED people have always argued they are simply documenting actual usage.

Each ethnic group to USA brought their own dialect and spellings. Irish, Scottish and Welsh people. Also Irish Travellers (miscalled Gypsies because they are not Romany). Then Germans (USA Dutch instead of Deutsch), Poles, Russians, Italians, Spanish speakers (often from Mexico but some before USA independence).

People also have blind spots in pronunciation because of reading far more than talking. Also their ethnic and-or geographic background may give them a valid different pronunciation. Often the BBC, English "Home Counties" and London people from posher backgrounds have worse pronunciation than elsewhere. In the UK and Ireland it's a myth that there is one official way to pronounce words, though some people of course mispronounce. My own grandfather was from a mixed working class background but read a lot in his younger years and to the end of his days pronounced "niche" as "nicky".

My father qualified in Maths and Geography but was an English teacher and I was sent to elocution class, 1:1 with a woman in her own home. I hated it and I'm sure it wasn't many months. Despite (or because?) being married for over 40 years, the wife delights in occasionally correcting my pronunciation. I never seem to get Chicago right. Some pronunciations baffle me, like "Belvoir Park" in Belfast is called "Beaver Park". Some English place names are more baffling to me than Welsh ones, and though I don't know Irish I have some idea of the pronunciation (which is unrelated to English and closer to Old Latin, not Church Latin, or even Hebrew and Arabic).

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by issybird

I remember once reading an article about why audiobooks were better than print books* and one of the reasons was that you found out how to pronounce difficult words. Hah bloody hah, was my reaction to that!

*Audiobooks are different from print books. I don’t know why people in either camp think it’s a contest.

And dramatic readings done like a Radio Play are totally different thing to straight Audio Books. I picked up a set as cassettes* and couldn't listen to them as there was too much music and sound effects. At most you can have a little music between chapters, but I discovered in about 1996 doing stuff for multimedia that dialogue needs to stand-alone. Too much cinema and TV now needs subtitles due to poor mixing on dialogue and too dominant effects and music. Or productions that only work played on decent 5 channel audio (the .1 doesn't need a separate channel if you have fuil range speakers instead of 3" to 4" plastic boxes, or 6" in proper boxes if lucky as it's only less than 70 Hz effects).

*Cassettes work better than CDs if you stop in the middle of a chapter or track. Even digital files need a player that "remembers" last location. Also while even HiFi Cassettes are not really HiFi, even a very basic cassette player is good enough for audio books. Books for the Blind, before cassette, used approximately 16 rpm 12" discs. They started with abridged 12" 78 rpm discs in the Victorian era. Even in 1930s the albums with symphonies often used five 12" discs rather than more 10" discs (the equivalent to 7" 45 rpm disc released from 1949).

[arjaybe]

Skuh LEE tal, or worse sklee tal, for skeletal.

[SeaBookGuy]

Perhaps it's different in Britain, but hearing Penelope Keith just now reading an Agatha raisin book pronouncing the crafting term "macrame" as Muh-KRAH-may (rather than MAC-ruh-may) was rather jolting!