Pronunciations you had to unlearn

[Rounin Ryuuji]

(French) au, aux: tended to read these as [au] (interference from Spanish, which I had studied before)

Detritus: I still mentally read it as ['dɛtɹɪtʊs] half the time, despite being aware it ought to be something more like [dɪ'tɹaitʊs].

Doubt: While I already knew the word [daut], as a child, orthographic "doubt" was read [duːbt] the first few times I saw it.

Lyra: [lɪɹə] (probably analogical with "lyric, lyrical", to which it is etymologically related, despite "lyre" and "liar" being homophones to me, probably coupled with hyperforeignism) > [laiɹə]

Hermione: [hərmioun] > [hərmaiouni] (What child growing up when I did wouldn't have this one?)

Mallard: ['mæɫɪd] > ['mæɫəɹd] (my paternal grandmother is non-rhotic, and she rhymes this word with "salad"; I also assumed the word was spelled mallid or mallad).

Minerva: [mɪnɛɹvə] > [mɪnɜɹvə] (hyperforeignism)

Rowling: [rauliŋ] > [rouliŋ]

[Pabappa]

thanks, i didnt know detritus either.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

It's so unintuitive, in my mind.

[KathTheDragon]

Hermione: [hərmioun] > [hərmaiouni] (What child growing up when I did wouldn't have this one?)

Me, as it happens, because I watched the first Harry Potter movie before reading the book and seeing how the name was spelt.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Hermione: [hərmioun] > [hərmaiouni] (What child growing up when I did wouldn't have this one?)

Me, as it happens, because I watched the first Harry Potter movie before reading the book and seeing how the name was spelt.

I have an idea I may be a bit older than you, then.

[Pabappa]

Hermione was also the name of Mr. Lodge's wife in Archie comics ... it was one of those names I just sort of blushed over and would have given an indistinct pronunciation if I'd been talking with a fellow fan and needed to say the name out loud. "her-MY-un", perhaps, again not using IPA because it was just an approximation.

[Linguoboy]

I had /hər'mi:ohni:/, part of my general tendency to...underanglicise? pronunciations of Latinate words, particularly when I was younger. (I'm also of the age where I first encountred her in Shakespeare rather than Rowling, though I'm not sure that makes much difference.)

[Rounin Ryuuji]

If I understand right, that isn't that far off how it would be pronounced in modern Greek.

[Linguoboy]

If I understand right, that isn't that far off how it would be pronounced in modern Greek.

Yeah, I guess the chief difference would be in the first syllable. Also the /oh/ would tend to centralise if I were using the name frequently.

Looking over the dramatis personae for The Winter's Tale, I see that Hermione is "Queen of Sicily". That definitely would have influenced my pronunciation, prompting me to approximate a modern Italian pronunciation.

[Travis B.]

I had /hər'mi:ohni:/, part of my general tendency to...underanglicise? pronunciations of Latinate words, particularly when I was younger. (I'm also of the age where I first encountred her in Shakespeare rather than Rowling, though I'm not sure that makes much difference.)

I had the same exact same pronunciation myself.

[jal]

I only knew the name "Hermione" from David Bowie's song "Letter to Hermione", in which he doesn't even one pronounce the name, so I always assumed (and so did my Bowie-fan friends) it was "Her-me-own". Didn't learn the right pronunciation until Harry Potter came along.


JAL

[Linguoboy]

I also just recently learned that the French name of French Guiana, Guyane, is pronounced [ɡɥijan]. Seems obvious in retrospect but I was so heavily influenced by the <u> being silent in English that it never even occurred to me to sound it in French.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

That is, I think, also an unusual pronunciation in French (the given name Guy is simply /gi/); I also didn't know this pronunciation, either, and would've expected it to be orthographically Guïane or Guÿane.

[Travis B.]

I also just recently learned that the French name of French Guiana, Guyane, is pronounced [ɡɥijan]. Seems obvious in retrospect but I was so heavily influenced by the <u> being silent in English that it never even occurred to me to sound it in French.

I too assumed a pronunciation of [gijan] myself.

[quinterbeck]

It just occurred to me that /ˈkadusejəs/ is probably not the correct way to pronounce caduceus in English... Turns out it's /kəˈdjuːʃəs/ or /kəˈdjuːsiəs/. With my British accent, that's [kəˈdʒuːʃəs] which to me feels like a mouthful of potatoes!

(EDIT: correct spelling is caduceus, doh)

[Linguoboy]

It just occurred to me that /ˈkadusejəs/ is probably not the correct way to pronounce caduseus in English... Turns out it's /kəˈdjuːʃəs/ or /kəˈdjuːsiəs/. With my British accent, that's [kəˈdʒuːʃəs] which to me feels like a mouthful of potatoes!

In the yod-dropping USA, most people would have /kəˈduːsiəs/. (/si/ does commonly coalesce to [ʃ] in this position, but I think in this case the sounds would be kept distinct because it's an unusual term and might not be understood otherwise.)

[Travis B.]

It just occurred to me that /ˈkadusejəs/ is probably not the correct way to pronounce caduseus in English... Turns out it's /kəˈdjuːʃəs/ or /kəˈdjuːsiəs/. With my British accent, that's [kəˈdʒuːʃəs] which to me feels like a mouthful of potatoes!

In the yod-dropping USA, most people would have /kəˈduːsiəs/. (/si/ does commonly coalesce to [ʃ] in this position, but I think in this case the sounds would be kept distinct because it's an unusual term and might not be understood otherwise.)

I would pronounce it /kəˈdusiəs/ or /kəˈduʃəs/, and I would expect most Americans to do the same.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

It just occurred to me that /ˈkadusejəs/ is probably not the correct way to pronounce caduseus in English... Turns out it's /kəˈdjuːʃəs/ or /kəˈdjuːsiəs/. With my British accent, that's [kəˈdʒuːʃəs] which to me feels like a mouthful of potatoes!

In the yod-dropping USA, most people would have /kəˈduːsiəs/. (/si/ does commonly coalesce to [ʃ] in this position, but I think in this case the sounds would be kept distinct because it's an unusual term and might not be understood otherwise.)

I would pronounce it /kəˈdusiəs/ or /kəˈduʃəs/, and I would expect most Americans to do the same.

I tend to produce hypercorrect /kə'djusiʊs/.

(Edit: I'm also used to seeing it spelled caduceus and hadn't seen the caduseus spelling before.)

[quinterbeck]

(Edit: I'm also used to seeing it spelled caduceus and hadn't seen the caduseus spelling before.)

Oh that's my bad, I misspelled it. I also know it only as caduceus.

[axolotl]

Here's an interesting one from past me that I suddenly recently remembered. Around age 4-5, I used to think the word "jaguar" was /d͡ʒægwaɪɹ/, and I would misspell it as "jagwire."

Why? Because my mother has /aɪ/-monophthongization and I don't, so when I heard her say the word and heard the /a/-like vowel before the r there, I mapped it onto my /aɪ/. Jagwire, rhymes with fire.