this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2024
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Microblog Memes

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 5 months ago (4 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 5 months ago (12 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 5 months ago (6 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (2 children)

This makes my head hurt and I love it.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 5 months ago (15 children)

The one that I mispronounced for awhile was hyperbole. I thought it was pronounced like "hyper bowl."

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago

But "hyperbolic" is exactly like you expect.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago (7 children)

Segue for me. I pronounced it seg-goo and my mom busted out laughing.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Huh… don’t think I’ve ever seen segue written down. I’d be writing Segway if I had to.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I was at the store with my partner and I was like

“What’s… kwee-know-ah?”

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Mine was "banal".

Sounds like "canal".

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago

Wait... it's not??

I gotta check now: Oh god dammit. I never made the connection.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Epitome and Penchant for me. Mocked mercilessly for those two.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 5 months ago (3 children)

laughs in a language that makes sense phonetically

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Laffs.

Langwij.

Maeks

Senz.

Fonetikly.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Ai jenyuinely wish inglish woz laik thiz

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 5 months ago (5 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The english language badly needs an orthography reform

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (4 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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)

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Bold of you to trust the performer knows how to say the words.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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%.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 months ago (7 children)

Simple, just read your books in IPA. Tæps ˈtɛmpᵊl

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 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!"

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 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

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (2 children)

As someone whose father had a doctorate in English, I grew up reading and being told off every time I mispronounced a word.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

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 😂

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (7 children)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

Epitome is mine.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (6 children)

Spanish would never pull this BS on you.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Also... fuck the cobbled together mess that is English.

Edit: some of it is regional pronunciations too

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I did this, and grew up in a ESL English only house,I pronounce so many words wrong with a perfect American accent.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Bunch of y'all didn't watch TV with the captions on or movies with subtitles.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago (1 children)

None of my books even had an audio track?

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (5 children)

Soft "ch" chimera just makes more sense to me.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I feel like this is especially true for English since it seems to me there are no spelling rules that convey pronunciation. You can have 2 words spelled completely the same save from one letter and the pronunciation is nowhere near the same.

I'm not sure how this is in other languages, but in my native german (which is always said to be difficult to learn) when you understand the spelling rules you can always assume the correct pronunciation of a word. Certain letter combinations always amount to the same way of pronouncing it.

I guess this is because both languages started out in the germanic language family, but over the course of history english adapted way more from other languages and just made them their own. Including differences in spelling, but maybe not as much pronunciation. Best example is "Bologna", which is still the italian/latin spelling, but no one near italy would call it "Baloney" .

I'm always amazed at how native speakers learn to write things like that, since you cant count on what you hear at all.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (2 children)

As a French Canadian moving from Quebec to Ontario, that struggle was real.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

My English learning process was me being a eight year old kid who wanted to play diablo. No clue about shit. Barely able to read in the first place and just going from one word which is similar to one in my native language to the next similar one. Like "ok, intelligence looks a lot like intelligenz. Dexterity makes my bow do more damage so it should be something like speed or whatever" so basically trial and error over the years. The pronunciation was accordingly. As an example, strength was "stren g t hö". Not sure how I'm supposed to write what i said back then xD Still to this day from reading and such and not practicing enough speaking English some are way off.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

I call this being bookish, pronounced "bockish"

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

Jokes on you, I pronounce most of words in English wrong, because no one bothered to teach me proper pronunciation at school.

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