@?&®% Mispronunciations!

[Keslynn]

Originally Posted by copyrite

Y'all need to go listen to my favorite podcast "A Way With Words". There's lot of discussion on regional dialect and sayings etc.

It's interesting a word like
water
can be pronounced depending where you are

wahter
warter
wahder
warder
and that dropped middle t sound
wa er (sorta slurred together)

And one of my all time favorite mispronounced words...
segue
!

In the Philadelphia area, it's often pronounced "wooter" (with the oo as in book).

I read somewhere that for the audiobooks of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, the author worked closely with the narrators to ensure that character and place names were pronounced properly. I read most of the series in paper and then listened to one in audio. Turns out I'd been pronouncing a few things wrong in my head as I read.

[copyrite]

Originally Posted by Keslynn

In the Philadelphia area, it's often pronounced "wooter" (with the oo as in book).

I read somewhere that for the audiobooks of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, the author worked closely with the narrators to ensure that character and place names were pronounced properly. I read most of the series in paper and then listened to one in audio. Turns out I'd been pronouncing a few things wrong in my head as I read.

That happened to me with the Outlander series, how in reading I pronounced some of the Scottish locations & people's names one way, but they were pronounced differently in the Audible versions.

In general it's also very distracting when you're familiar with an area and an audiobook mispronounces place names.

And back to colorful vernacular...

My PA co-workers tend to say "you'ins" or "you'se" for "you all" while us Marylanders (mostly) tend to say "y'all" (must be that doggone Mason-Dixon line, hm?)

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Keslynn

I read somewhere that for the audiobooks of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, the author worked closely with the narrators to ensure that character and place names were pronounced properly. I read most of the series in paper and then listened to one in audio. Turns out I'd been pronouncing a few things wrong in my head as I read.

One of my many pet peeves is an author's use of odd invented names with multiple possible pronunciations. It's jarring to have decided on one pronunciation in your head and then find out the author intended another pronunciation.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Catlady

One of my many pet peeves is an author's use of odd invented names with multiple possible pronunciations. It's jarring to have decided on one pronunciation in your head and then find out the author intended another pronunciation.

Hard to avoid sometimes with Fantasy.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Keslynn

I read somewhere that for the audiobooks of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, the author worked closely with the narrators to ensure that character and place names were pronounced properly. I read most of the series in paper and then listened to one in audio. Turns out I'd been pronouncing a few things wrong in my head as I read.

I know when Audible Studios first started doing the Liaden series they set up time for the authors and narrators to have conversations like this.


Sometimes it works out wrong though. David Weber actually gave Allyson Johnson the wrong pronunciation for Manticoran in his Honor Harrington series.

People, it turns out that the wrong pronunciation of Manticore in the audio books is my fault.

I have no idea how I came to do it, but when Allyson set out to do the first books, she sent me a long list of words for which she wanted me to give her the correct pronunciation, and "Manticore" was on the list. Frankly, I don't remember specifically addressing the point, but she sent me a copy of my original e-mail to her and, yup, I did. She asked it it was properly "Man-ti-CORE-an" or "Man-TIK-eran," and I (for some reason) told her it was the second.

It's wrong, but it's not her fault or Audible's. It was a simple miss communication, and I have no idea how I managed to do it since I have never pronounced it aby other way than the first of her suggestions. There were a lot of words on her list, and the only thing I can think of is that for some reason while dealing with all of them, I somehow managed to flip this one. She did her conscientious best to get it right, and I managed to tell her wrong.

Sigh.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Hard to avoid sometimes with Fantasy.

Another reason to avoid the genre!

If an author wants an invented name pronounced in a certain way, he should spell it phonetically or find some other way to reveal the preferred pronunciation.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by issybird

And the current narrator who has set off this diatribe is Malcolm Hillgartner. I'm listening to a book about the culture of the Depression ( Dancing in the Dark by Morris Dickstein). It's 24 hours long; I wonder how many times, in the course of a book about the Depression, I'll be forced to hear "afFLUence" and "afFLUent"?

Some more from the current book, not limited to these:

Goebbels, Delano, Regina, Guignol, brooch, timbre.

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

One part of the Norfolk dialect is to replace 't' with a glottal stop (represented here by an apostrophe). Water -> wa'er.

Jack: I only have some bread and bu'er for my lunch.
Teacher: That's not the way to say butter, Jack. Try again.
Jack: Bu'er
Teacher: But-ter
Jack: But-ter
Teacher: There, Thass be'er.

That would be glo'al stop. right?-)

[Keslynn]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Another reason to avoid the genre!



If an author wants an invented name pronounced in a certain way, he should spell it phonetically or find some other way to reveal the preferred pronunciation.

A lot of fantasy authors (including the aforementioned Jordan) will have a glossary with a pronunciation guide. That doesn't always stop me from pronouncing it the wrong way in my head anyway.

Karen Moning has pronunciation guide for Gaelic words in her Irish-set urban fantasy series. I was very grateful for that!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Yes. I think you're right. That's how my sister in law, a Canadian, says it.

Of course, I was also asking for a bottle of water, which seemed to exacerbate things ("bottle" seems to be another problematic word).

You can tell a Canadian narrator as every pause ends in eh.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by copyrite

And back to colorful vernacular...

My PA co-workers tend to say "you'ins" or "you'se" for "you all" while us Marylanders (mostly) tend to say "y'all" (must be that doggone Mason-Dixon line, hm?)

All of those mispronunciations would get me calling them rednecks. They sound awful. I don't get how Southerners (US) can get so many pronunciations just plain wrong. Not even just a little bit wrong, but a lot wrong. It's like they are from another planet.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

All of those mispronunciations would get me calling them rednecks. They sound awful. I don't get how Southerners (US) can get so many pronunciations just plain wrong. Not even just a little bit wrong, but a lot wrong. It's like they are from another planet.

How about Bostonians, Jon? "Pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd."

I live in New England but I'm not a native. (Thank you, jeebus.) A little girl I know thinks the way I say "Barbie" is hilarious. So she says "Barrrrbie" to me and I say "Bahhhbie" to her. Clearly, we're easily amused.

[Keslynn]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

All of those mispronunciations would get me calling them rednecks. They sound awful. I don't get how Southerners (US) can get so many pronunciations just plain wrong. Not even just a little bit wrong, but a lot wrong. It's like they are from another planet.

Pennsylvania is definitely not the South, despite certain parts of it being called "Pennsyltucky" sometimes.

[copyrite]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

All of those mispronunciations would get me calling them rednecks. They sound awful. I don't get how Southerners (US) can get so many pronunciations just plain wrong. Not even just a little bit wrong, but a lot wrong. It's like they are from another planet.

Haha... there's probably folks in the South who would think you're the one from another planet.

[GrannyGrump]

I remember long ago reading some article that found that northern New England and certain isolated parts of the Southern United States had the highest occurrence of faithfulness to the original British pronunciation. I find that pretty fascinating.