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Pronunciations that drive you mad

12467…19

Comments

  • #92
    Solair
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,227 ✭✭✭Solair


    A.Partridge wrote: »
    Can you be a bit more pacific...(instead of specific. :mad::mad:).

    Ahhhhhh!!!!

    That's not a mispronunciation! It's just lack of education, stupidity, illiteracy or all three!

    I remember correcting an essay which contained a reference to the 'Specific Ocean'.


  • #93
    Sar_Bear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,555 ✭✭✭Sar_Bear


    A.Partridge wrote: »
    Can you be a bit more pacific...(instead of specific. :mad::mad:).

    Ahhhhhh!!!!

    Heard someone on Ireland AM say this over and over this morning.. I wanted to punch the tv!!


  • #94
    dpe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 520 ✭✭✭dpe


    Solair wrote: »
    To a French speaker, it's a bad a pronunciation as "l'oueeek-endh" is in English :)

    Er, no its not. It just isn't. The English pronunciation is in the normal range of French dialects, Pew-joe isn't anything like any of them. Its just not.

    And its "Spring Onions" not "salad onions". And its cupboard not press while we're at it ;)


  • #95
    Shenshen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,453 ✭✭✭Shenshen


    Solair wrote: »
    I wouldn't worry about it too much. Peugeot is difficult to pronounce in English!

    The UK common pronunciation of it is totally incorrect too!

    "Pair-jo"

    If anything, the Irish attempt at it is slightly better than the British mispronunciation of it :D

    Neither are accurate, but it's a French word!

    The Germans would just pronounce every letter of it, same with the Spanish.
    Renault in Spain is R-E-N-A-U-L-T vs "Rehnn-Oh!"
    If anything, someone from Drogheda would have a better chance of getting it right, with the French-style uvular-R

    Er... that is close enough to the correct pronouciation of Renault.
    And no, the English pronouce it more recognisable than the Irish... I never got that at all. If you want to promouce it as if it was an English word, surely you'd go for Pyew-got, not Pyew-sho?
    Pur-sho would be close enough to correct.


  • #96
    Solair
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,227 ✭✭✭Solair


    Pronouncing the common phrase "Hi guys!" as "Houy gouys!"


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  • #97
    Gyalist
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,537 ✭✭✭Gyalist


    Solair wrote: »
    Because the sound fits Irish phonetics better than the English version.
    The English also insist on calling perfectly good 'scallions' salad-onions!
    Scallions works fine in the US and Ireland :D

    I mean, you might as well start calling satsumas "baby oranges".

    I've never heard scallions called salad onions anywhere in the UK. They call them spring onions.


  • #98
    Solair
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,227 ✭✭✭Solair


    Gyalist wrote: »
    I've never heard scallions called salad onions anywhere in the UK. They call them spring onions.

    Tesco loves calling them "salad onions". :D
    Clearly it's new Tesco-speak.


  • #99
    Solair
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,227 ✭✭✭Solair


    Shenshen wrote: »
    Er... that is close enough to the correct pronouciation of Renault.
    And no, the English pronouce it more recognisable than the Irish... I never got that at all. If you want to promouce it as if it was an English word, surely you'd go for Pyew-got, not Pyew-sho?
    Pur-sho would be close enough to correct.

    As a French speaker, I can assure you both are horribly wrong !
    But than again, anyone trying to squeeze French phonetics into English will find it they don't quite fit.

    At least the Spanish just borrow the word and pronounce it in Spanish - reading it letter-by-letter, as per Spanish phonetics.
    Sometimes I think English makes too much of an attempt to pronounce loan words without either respelling them or just not worrying about the pronunciation as long as it fits into English.


  • #100
    Susie_Q
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,211 ✭✭✭Susie_Q


    I was in St. Pancras train station in London and overheard a nearby woman say on the phone "Yeah, I'm currently in Pancreas station".

    No you're not, you idiot. Unless the station is suddenly part of the endocrine system and the trains are now producing insulin, I'm pretty sure you're not currently in a pancreas.


  • #101
    mikemac1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,395 ✭✭✭✭mikemac1


    harney wrote: »
    ash-hume instead of assume :(

    Works if you say it in a nordie accent :)
    Carlos_Ray wrote: »
    English pronunciations of Irish names especially football players. A lot of Irish people are starting to use the English pronunciation now ffs.


    KAY-HILL instead of Cahill.

    Tim Cahill pronounces it as Cayhill
    We use what the man wants himself, it's his name


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  • #102
    Shenshen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,453 ✭✭✭Shenshen


    Solair wrote: »
    As a French speaker, I can assure you both are horribly wrong :D

    Really? What part of France would you be from, if I may ask?


  • #103
    Solair
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,227 ✭✭✭Solair


    Shenshen wrote: »
    Really? What part of France would you be from, if I may ask?

    But, just in general - neither pronunciation is accurate. The British one to my ears sounds like "Pair-jo"
    The Irish one sounds like "Pew-jo"

    You should just call it whatever is comfortable in English, which is exactly what French-speakers do with loan words / trademarks borrowed from English, German, Japanese etc etc.


  • #104
    Jester252
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,533 ✭✭✭Jester252


    Everybody outside my family mispronounces my surname. That annoys me. When I correct them on it sometimes they will tell me I'm wrong. That makes me what to slap a bitch


  • #105
    Gyalist
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,537 ✭✭✭Gyalist


    I've often heard Irish people say Wimble-ton instead of Wimbledon.


  • #106
    Auvers
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,987 ✭✭✭Auvers


    something is very addictable

    its addictive ffs


  • #107
    Solair
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,227 ✭✭✭Solair


    Jester252 wrote: »
    Everybody outside my family mispronounces my surname. That annoys me. When I correct them on it sometimes they will tell me I'm wrong. That makes me what to slap a bitch

    What's worse is when you have a surname that is pronounced a particular way and someone says "Oh you mean --- (mispronounces name horribly or says an entirely different name)"

    I have had a few incidents were I have gone FFS ! I know how to pronounce my own name!!!

    School teachers and bank officials are the worst for that!


  • #108
    Solair
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,227 ✭✭✭Solair


    Gyalist wrote: »
    I've often heard Irish people say Wimble-ton instead of Wimbledon.

    That's just a case of never having read the word / being a bit deaf.
    Auvers wrote: »
    something is very addictable

    its addictive ffs

    The only response to that is :

    "Me fail English, that unpossible!" (Ralph Wiggum)


  • #109
    Katgurl
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,145 ✭✭✭Katgurl


    ThurstonWhore wrote: »
    A woman I work with describes herself as "volumptuous" and she also pronounces pyjamas as "perr-jarr-merrs".

    This bothers me immensely.

    OT but women who repeatedly describe themselves as voluptuous unprompted tend to annoy me. If you're so curvy, fabulous, real woman etc surely the world can see that and doesn't need to be told?


  • #110
    emzolita
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,602 ✭✭✭emzolita


    The man on the Innocent Orange Juice ad, he pronounces "orange" in one syllable like "ORRNGE" Bleugh!

    and "Gorrthee" for gardaí on the RTE news. and anything said by Rachel Allen really. :s


  • #111
    Shenshen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,453 ✭✭✭Shenshen


    Solair wrote: »
    Spent a lot of childhood (practically grew up) in the Southwest.

    But, just in general - neither pronunciation is accurate. The British one to my ears sounds like "Pair-jo"
    The Irish one sounds like "Pew-jo"

    You should just call it whatever is comfortable in English, which is exactly what French-speakers do with loan words / trademarks borrowed from English, German, Japanese etc etc.

    I'm well aware that there is no exact English equivalent to the French "eu" and German "Ö" or "oe" sounds, but there are a few close seconds.
    If people here were to pronouce it Pyew-got, I wouldn't have that much of an issue. What drives me mental is the nonsensical half-and-half that is Pyew-sho, Hala-peeno instead of Halapenyo, Eyebitha instaed of Ibiza and many many more.

    And since I happen to drive a Peugot, that one tops the list for me. :mad:


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  • #112
    dpe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 520 ✭✭✭dpe


    http://translate.google.ie/?hl=en&tab=wT#auto|en|peugeot

    Listen to the French and English pronunciations. Not a million miles apart. In Ireland on the other hand...


  • #113
    Shenshen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,453 ✭✭✭Shenshen


    Solair wrote: »

    At least the Spanish just borrow the word and pronounce it in Spanish - reading it letter-by-letter, as per Spanish phonetics.
    Sometimes I think English makes too much of an attempt to pronounce loan words without either respelling them or just not worrying about the pronunciation as long as it fits into English.

    English manages ok, I've only ever heard Irish people mangling words in that god-awful way.


  • #114
    Katgurl
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,145 ✭✭✭Katgurl


    SolpHadeine

    Pattren

    Finnance

    Scaffs

    Sahurrrday


  • #115
    Solair
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,227 ✭✭✭Solair


    Shenshen wrote: »
    I'm well aware that there is no exact English equivalent to the French "eu" and German "Ö" or "oe" sounds, but there are a few close seconds.
    If people here were to pronouce it Pyew-got, I wouldn't have that much of an issue. What drives me mental is the nonsensical half-and-half that is Pyew-sho, Hala-peeno instead of Halapenyo, Eyebitha instaed of Ibiza and many many more.

    And since I happen to drive a Peugot, that one tops the list for me. :mad:

    You get so called, "proximate substitution" when attempting to pronounce a foreign word. So, it can go many ways and it depends on the speakers dialect / which phoneme they happen to find fits the word best. That will create plenty of odd variations.
    It's quite possible that a Hiberno-English speaker will jump to a different substitute phoneme than a Southern English speaker, which I think explains the Peugeot thing. Irish/American speakers tend to dislike intrusive "r" sounds, where as English people insert them all over the place.

    Ah, I had a great one in Belfast:
    A waitress corrected my correct pronunciation of fajita to "Fah-jiy-tah"

    She shouted back to the kitchen: "Two orders of fah-jiy-tas"


  • #116
    Skerries
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,945 ✭✭✭✭Skerries


    Jam-Bon
    Untitled Image




  • #117
    mikemac1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,395 ✭✭✭✭mikemac1


    Tescos
    Doesn't bother me but it seems to bother some people


    The girl in the deli asks if I want buh-hur


  • #118
    Shenshen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,453 ✭✭✭Shenshen


    Solair wrote: »
    Ah, I had a great one in Belfast:
    A waitress corrected my correct pronunciation of fajita to "Fah-jiy-tah"

    She shouted back to the kitchen: "Two orders of fah-jiy-tas"

    Bruschetta is another favourite of that.
    although you have to admire the sheer stubbornness of a waitress who will correct (obvious) native Italian speakers more than once...


  • #119
    Jimoslimos
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,930 ✭✭✭Jimoslimos


    Heathrow is a funny one.

    It's common enough to hear it pronounced as "Hea - throw" in Ireland
    where the correct way is "Heath - Row"


  • #120
    Solair
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,227 ✭✭✭Solair


    Shenshen wrote: »
    Bruschetta is another favourite of that.
    although you have to admire the sheer stubbornness of a waitress who will correct (obvious) native Italian speakers more than once...

    Meh, it happens in other countries too.

    The one that really annoys me is the odd interpretation of a cappuccino in France, Spain and elsewhere!

    You expect coffee with frothed milk and instead get some kind of huge creamy thing with a massive dollop of spray-on chantilly cream and sprinkles.

    It's not the pronunciation, but rather the entire concept!

    I ordered one in Bilbao and got : a few shots of espresso, layer of whipped cream, topped with chantilly cream (spray can stuff), then a cross-cross of chocolate sauce and an umbrella!

    So, I am a little less harsh on Irish waitresses mispronouncing bruschetta, if they at least deliver something resembling one! :)


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  • #121
    Shenshen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,453 ✭✭✭Shenshen


    Solair wrote: »
    Meh, it happens in other countries too.

    The one that really annoys me is the odd interpretation of a cappuccino in France, Spain and elsewhere!

    You expect coffee with frothed milk and instead get some kind of huge creamy thing with a massive dollop of spray-on chantilly cream and sprinkles.

    It's not the pronunciation, but rather the entire concept!

    I ordered one in Bilbao and got : a few shots of espresso, layer of whipped cream, topped with chantilly cream (spray can stuff), then a cross-cross of chocolate sauce and an umbrella!

    The umbrella bit actually made me laugh out loud here now!


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