Pronunciations you had to unlearn

[anteallach]

So do others have the "lot" vowel in Florida? For me, the "Flor-" patterns with the Latinate element in "floral, florid(ity), floriography, inflorescence" et. al.

LOT in Florida is characteristic of traditional East Coast dialects in the US.

I suppose I have heard it in some older people, now that you mention it. I was more wondering if anybody else here had it.

It’s the normal pronunciation in BrE.

[Ryusenshi]

Inspired by the discussion about nephew: I originally pronounced Stephen as [ˈstɛfən], instead of [ˈstiːvən] (homophone of Steven). My mother really likes Stephen King, and always says [stɛfœn].

[Travis B.]

Inspired by the discussion about nephew: I originally pronounced Stephen as [ˈstɛfən], instead of [ˈstiːvən] (homophone of Steven). My mother really likes Stephen King, and always says [stɛfœn].

Indeed, Stephen is the traditional spelling, and Steven is a modern respelling that takes the pronunciation into account.

[Xhin]

If it hasn't been mentioned yet, I unlearned /hir\o/ for gyro, replacing it with /jir\o/ or /jiro/ and correcting anyone who used /dZair\o/ ... only to find out that that word has 16 distinct and acceptable pronunciations based on region of the world and whichever region of Greece the word originated from. These days I just stick with /hir\o/ or /dZair\o/ depending on who I'm talking to. People in the American southeast seem to stick to one of those.

[Travis B.]

If it hasn't been mentioned yet, I unlearned /hir\o/ for gyro, replacing it with /jir\o/ or /jiro/ and correcting anyone who used /dZair\o/ ... only to find out that that word has 16 distinct and acceptable pronunciations based on region of the world and whichever region of Greece the word originated from. These days I just stick with /hir\o/ or /dZair\o/ depending on who I'm talking to. People in the American southeast seem to stick to one of those.

I normally pronounce it /ˈjiroʊ/ or /ˈjɜroʊ/ largely in free variation, which seems to be the norm here. Of course, if one wanted to be a prescriptivist, one would insist on pronouncing it with an /s/ at the end as in the original Greek (as the form with /s/ is the singular in Greek, with the /s/-less form in English being an English backformation based on interpreting <s> as signifying a plural).

[Raphael]

Huh? Where did you ever get an initial /h/ for that one from?

[jal]

Huh? Where did you ever get an initial /h/ for that one from?

English pronunciation of presumed /x/?

In Dutch, we have "gyro" (/xiro/) without -s as prefix in words like <gyroscoop> ("gyroscope") and "gyros" (/xirOs/) to denote the meat dish similar to shoarma/showarma/kebab.


JAL

[Linguoboy]

Huh? Where did you ever get an initial /h/ for that one from?

I assume by analogy with recent borrowings from Spanish with /h/ for j or g such as jalapeno and Geraldo. (It's not at all unusual to hear this sort of hypercorrection in culinary contexts. I once had a server pronounce mujaddara with /h/--repeatedly, so I know it wasn't simply a mishearing.)

[Travis B.]

Huh? Where did you ever get an initial /h/ for that one from?

I assume by analogy with recent borrowings from Spanish with /h/ for j or g such as jalapeno and Geraldo. (It's not at all unusual to hear this sort of hypercorrection in culinary contexts. I once had a server pronounce mujaddara with /h/--repeatedly, so I know it wasn't simply a mishearing.)

I figured it was this sort of thing, but then I thought that English borrowings of Spanish <g> before a front vowel tend to take /dʒ/ rather than /h/ unless the speaker has trained themselves to do otherwise (cf. Ar/dʒ/entina).

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I have an odd anecdote with that word. I tend to pronounce it ['çuʊ̯.ɹoʊ̯]. While I was growing up, I had a family member who owned a restaurant bought from a Greek-speaker, and apparently in that person's dialect (I don't know which one), the [y] vowel (or something like it) was preserved in that context (I'm guessing the [ç] represented the nearest English approximation of some fricated form of the historical initial /g/, which I would guess was either [ç] or [ʝ]). Pronunciation as a homophone of hero is, in my experience, more common, however.

[Linguoboy]

Huh? Where did you ever get an initial /h/ for that one from?

I assume by analogy with recent borrowings from Spanish with /h/ for j or g such as jalapeno and Geraldo. (It's not at all unusual to hear this sort of hypercorrection in culinary contexts. I once had a server pronounce mujaddara with /h/--repeatedly, so I know it wasn't simply a mishearing.)

I figured it was this sort of thing, but then I thought that English borrowings of Spanish <g> before a front vowel tend to take /dʒ/ rather than /h/ unless the speaker has trained themselves to do otherwise (cf. Ar/dʒ/entina).

Note the qualifier "recent". I'm not sure how soon after its independence in 1816 "Argentina" came into common use in English, but it's important to note in this case that "the Argentine" (with /dʒ/) was already in use as the name for the region at the time and doubtless influenced the pronunciation.

[Travis B.]

I have an odd anecdote with that word. I tend to pronounce it ['çuʊ̯.ɹoʊ̯]. While I was growing up, I had a family member who owned a restaurant bought from a Greek-speaker, and apparently in that person's dialect (I don't know which one), the [y] vowel (or something like it) was preserved in that context (I'm guessing the [ç] represented the nearest English approximation of some fricated form of the historical initial /g/, which I would guess was either [ç] or [ʝ]). Pronunciation as a homophone of hero is, in my experience, more common, however.

I'd be damn well surprised if a rounded realization of <υ> survived in any Greek variety outside of Tsakonian...

[Xhin]

Huh? Where did you ever get an initial /h/ for that one from?

That's not a huge stretch from /C/, which is evidently how it's pronounced in Greece.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I have an odd anecdote with that word. I tend to pronounce it ['çuʊ̯.ɹoʊ̯]. While I was growing up, I had a family member who owned a restaurant bought from a Greek-speaker, and apparently in that person's dialect (I don't know which one), the [y] vowel (or something like it) was preserved in that context (I'm guessing the [ç] represented the nearest English approximation of some fricated form of the historical initial /g/, which I would guess was either [ç] or [ʝ]). Pronunciation as a homophone of hero is, in my experience, more common, however.

I'd be damn well surprised if a rounded realization of <υ> survived in any Greek variety outside of Tsakonian...

I never met the guy personally, but that might well have been what it was.

[Travis B.]

I have an odd anecdote with that word. I tend to pronounce it ['çuʊ̯.ɹoʊ̯]. While I was growing up, I had a family member who owned a restaurant bought from a Greek-speaker, and apparently in that person's dialect (I don't know which one), the [y] vowel (or something like it) was preserved in that context (I'm guessing the [ç] represented the nearest English approximation of some fricated form of the historical initial /g/, which I would guess was either [ç] or [ʝ]). Pronunciation as a homophone of hero is, in my experience, more common, however.

I'd be damn well surprised if a rounded realization of <υ> survived in any Greek variety outside of Tsakonian...

I never met the guy personally, but that might well have been what it was.

Just for the record, Tsakonian is a Doric Greek language spoken by a quite small population (about 2000-4000 people at most) in a relatively limited portion of the Peloponnese. I somehow doubt the likelihood that he spoken Tsakonian.

[Richard W]

If it hasn't been mentioned yet, I unlearned /hir\o/ for gyro, replacing it with /jir\o/ or /jiro/ and correcting anyone who used /dZair\o/ ... only to find out that that word has 16 distinct and acceptable pronunciations based on region of the world and whichever region of Greece the word originated from. These days I just stick with /hir\o/ or /dZair\o/ depending on who I'm talking to. People in the American southeast seem to stick to one of those.

I've only ever heard /dʒaɪrəʊ/ for the stabilisation device.

[Richard W]

I'd be damn well surprised if a rounded realization of <υ> survived in any Greek variety outside of Tsakonian...

Is this, inter alia, an assertion that Maniot and Old Athenian are extinct?

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I was also told the pronunciation with /juː/ by a singularly unimaginative person, who probably wouldn't know anything about the history of the Hellenic languages, nor have it in him to concoct a fanciful story to justify using an odd pronunciation of the name of a sandwich. I haven't the slightest idea where the original Greek-speaker came from, or what became of him (or even if he's still alive; he would have to be at least in his 80s by now).

[Linguoboy]

TIL that the surname of former NFL quarterback Brett Favre is pronounced as if spelled "Farve".

[Travis B.]

TIL that the surname of former NFL quarterback Brett Favre is pronounced as if spelled "Farve".

I personally have never heard another pronunciation myself.