This is 100% my girlfriend, and I take great pleasure in never correcting her, I find it charming.
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.
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.
The one that I mispronounced for awhile was hyperbole. I thought it was pronounced like "hyper bowl."
But "hyperbolic" is exactly like you expect.
Segue for me. I pronounced it seg-goo and my mom busted out laughing.
Huh… don’t think I’ve ever seen segue written down. I’d be writing Segway if I had to.
Wait... it's not??
I gotta check now: Oh god dammit. I never made the connection.
Facade. Got laughed for saying fac-aid. How am I supposed to know a c make an s sound.
laughs in a language that makes sense phonetically
Laffs.
Langwij.
Maeks
Senz.
Fonetikly.
Ai jenyuinely wish inglish woz laik thiz
Hooked on fanəks wurked four me.
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.
The english language badly needs an orthography reform
Using an alphabet designed for Latin has had some dire consequences.
Using a Latin alphabet. Using Germanic pronunciation. Borrowing words from Spanish. Stealing words from French. Changing accent to avoid sounding Gaelic.
I have always loved the analogy that English isn't a language, it's three bilingual children stacked on top of each other wearing a trenchcoat and arguing about bologna.
Simple, just read your books in IPA. Tæps ˈtɛmpᵊl
lˈʊk ˈæt ˈɔːl ðˈiːz dummies ˈɪn ðˈɪsθɹˈɛd ðˈæt dˈo͡ʊnt nˈo͡ʊ ðˈəˌa͡ɪpˌiːˈe͡ɪ.
What has the education system been reduced to smh.
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)
Bold of you to trust the performer knows how to say the words.
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
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%.
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
I said "miss happen" one time in front of my girlfriend. "What?"
"You know, like badly shaped, deformed."
"Misshapen?! BAH HAH HA HAA!"
Some names would also throw me for a loop. When I first heard how they said "Hermione", I was quite flabbergasted.
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.
Truth...hah! I still have words I have to look up on the sly on the internet and click one of those definition services that will pronounce the word for you so I don't sound completely wrong.
Trebucket
As someone whose father had a doctorate in English, I grew up reading and being told off every time I mispronounced a word.
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 😂
Also... fuck the cobbled together mess that is English.
Edit: some of it is regional pronunciations too
I did this, and grew up in a ESL English only house,I pronounce so many words wrong with a perfect American accent.
Bunch of y'all didn't watch TV with the captions on or movies with subtitles.
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