Mispronunciation that bother you

[JayhawkCO]

Now let's talk about the word Parmesan.  I'll continue pronouncing it 'wrong' till the day I die.

Wow, no debate at all on this one?

How do you pronounce it?

[CtrlAltDel]

Kansas is named after the Kanza people, now known as the Kaw Nation.

Arkansas is named after the word arcansa, which was an Algonquian word referring to the Quapaw people. Then it got Frenched up.

It's probably worth mentioning, though, that both names come from the same root, like chief and chef.

[CtrlAltDel]

Now let's talk about the word Parmesan.  I'll continue pronouncing it 'wrong' till the day I die.

Wow, no debate at all on this one?

How do you pronounce it?

My guess would be with a "zh" instead of a "z."

[roadman65]

How about Worcestershire Sauce? I've never been able to pronounce that as well as family and friends of mine.

[tmoore952]

Going back a ways for this one. It's not one I've heard anywhere else.

Was listening to Woodstock (1969) soundtrack recently, and Arlo Guthrie's "Coming into Los Angeles".
He sings it  "Coming into Los Ange-"lease"".

Those of you who know the song know that the next lines are
"Bringing in a couple of "keys". Don't touch my bags, if you please, Mr. customs man".
I am aware that the lines involve importing some substance you weren't/aren't allowed to import.
Assume that "keys" is slang for "kilos", or was some old slang that meant "joint", but maybe I am wrong.
Never done that.

Anyway, the last paragraph illustrates why he sang "Los Angeles" that way.

[kphoger]

Going back a ways for this one. It's not one I've heard anywhere else.

Was listening to Woodstock (1969) soundtrack recently, and Arlo Guthrie's "Coming into Los Angeles".
He sings it  "Coming into Los Ange-"lease"".

Those of you who know the song know that the next lines are
"Bringing in a couple of "keys". Don't touch my bags, if you please, Mr. customs man".
I am aware that the lines involve importing some substance you weren't/aren't allowed to import.
Assume that "keys" is slang for "kilos", or was some old slang that meant "joint", but maybe I am wrong.
Never done that.

Anyway, the last paragraph illustrates why he sang "Los Angeles" that way.

I once saw Guthrie perform that song in Croce's Bar, back in the 1990s.  It had long been Mr and Mrs Croce's dream to open a music bar;  he died before they could make that happen, but she opened it up anyway after his death, in the Gaslight district of San Diego.  I sat about ten feet away from Guthrie, and various relatives of famous musicians were one or two tables over from us, including Mrs Croce.  It was a pretty amazing experience—especially considering that we just happened to notice a flyer in the window while we were walking around the day before, and didn't imagine there would even still be tickets available.  It was perhaps in bad taste, because I recall some drug-related news story or another having recently come out, but whatever.  The bar has since closed...

Back to the topic, though.  My understanding is that multiple pronunciations of Los Angeles were in use during its early days, and since then it has gradually homogenized to Anne-juh-liss.  Both pronunciations can be beard in the 1942 Alfred Hitchcock film Saboteur, and former Los Angles mayor Sam Yorty (transplant from the Midwest) pronounced it as Anne-guh-leeze.  But yes, those 'alternate' pronunciations are falling more and more out of common use.

[1995hoo]

^^^^

Although, as I mentioned further up the thread, the Brits seem to use the long "e" pronunciation as their standard one (with a soft "s" sound on the end, rather than the "z" sound you note).

Then you have the Brits, who pronounce the final "e" in "Los Angeles" as a long "e"—"Los Angelease" ("lease" pronounced like the word spelled that way).


(Edited to fix punctuation after the forum shutdown)

[JayhawkCO]

^^^^

Because, as I mentioned also upthread, it seems that the Brits have no interest (worse than Americans!) in attempting to pronounce Spanish names remotely accurately.

[kphoger]

To be fair...  How do you pronounce Achilles and Hercules (the Greek heroes)?

[1995hoo]

To be fair...  How do you pronounce Achilles and Hercules (the Greek heroes)?

Hopefully not like this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGELdp1kurA

[hotdogPi]

To be fair...  How do you pronounce Achilles and Hercules (the Greek heroes)?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGELdp1kurA

[JayhawkCO]

To be fair...  How do you pronounce Achilles and Hercules (the Greek heroes)?

To be fair... Greek is somewhere around the 75th most commonly spoken language in the world. Spanish is 4th. And specifically to my Martínez example earlier, there are currently 2 Greeks playing in the Premier League. There are 12 Spaniards, 11 Argentinians, 4 Colombians, 2 Ecuadorians, 2 Paraguayans, 2 Uruguayans, and 2 Mexicans. The exposure to the name 'Martínez' is much higher than the proper Greek pronunciations of the heroes (that I don't know either).

[SectorZ]

That Wheel of Fortune guy is such an epic fail that two people posted it here in a manner of seconds.

[kphoger]

To be fair...  How do you pronounce Achilles and Hercules (the Greek heroes)?

To be fair... Greek is somewhere around the 75th most commonly spoken language in the world. Spanish is 4th. And specifically to my Martínez example earlier, there are currently 2 Greeks playing in the Premier League. There are 12 Spaniards, 11 Argentinians, 4 Colombians, 2 Ecuadorians, 2 Paraguayans, 2 Uruguayans, and 2 Mexicans. The exposure to the name 'Martínez' is much higher than the proper Greek pronunciations of the heroes (that I don't know either).

To be fair...  Greece is a lot closer to England than Los Angeles is.  Its myths and legends have also been commonly taught in British schools as part of a general western civilization education for literally centuries—since hundreds of years before Modern Spanish was even a thing.  It frustrates me as much as it does you that Brits can't seem to pronounce Spanish better than my nine-year-old son, but it's at least understandable that they would assume a place name ending in -les might rhyme with those figures' names.

[JayhawkCO]

To be fair...  How do you pronounce Achilles and Hercules (the Greek heroes)?

To be fair... Greek is somewhere around the 75th most commonly spoken language in the world. Spanish is 4th. And specifically to my Martínez example earlier, there are currently 2 Greeks playing in the Premier League. There are 12 Spaniards, 11 Argentinians, 4 Colombians, 2 Ecuadorians, 2 Paraguayans, 2 Uruguayans, and 2 Mexicans. The exposure to the name 'Martínez' is much higher than the proper Greek pronunciations of the heroes (that I don't know either).

To be fair...  Greece is a lot closer to England than Los Angeles is.  Its myths and legends have also been commonly taught in British schools as part of a general western civilization education for literally centuries—since hundreds of years before Modern Spanish was even a thing.  It frustrates me as much as it does you that Brits can't seem to pronounce Spanish better than my nine-year-old son, but it's at least understandable that they would assume a place name ending in -les might rhyme with those figures' names.

Might be closer, but I bet the amount of Brits that have been to Greece vs. Spain is probably in a 1:4 ratio.

[kphoger]

Might be closer, but I bet the amount of Brits that have been to Greece vs. Spain is probably in a 1:4 ratio.

Do they butcher the pronunciation of peninsular Spanish place names, though?  I haven't noticed them doing so.

[JayhawkCO]

Might be closer, but I bet the amount of Brits that have been to Greece vs. Spain is probably in a 1:4 ratio.

Do they butcher the pronunciation of peninsular Spanish place names, though?  I haven't noticed them doing so.

Some vowel stuff I can think of off-hand. The soccer team Real Sociedad I've definitely heard "so-see-ya-DAD" vs. "so-see-ya-DAHD".  And then accent things, getting Córdoba and Málaga wrong by emphasizing on the second syllable.

[michravera]

In grade school I was taught to include the first "s" in the first syllable:  wis-CON-sin.  However I believe in the native pronunciation it's correctly attached to the second syllable"  wi-SKON-cin.

I'm trying to figure out what the difference is, and I just can't.

If you put the "s" in the first syllable rather than the second, the "c" comes out a lot harder.

Putting the "s" and "c" in the same syllable produces a very noticeable "SKUH" sound to my ear, whereas separating them is more of a "HISS-KUH".  One of those where I know it when I hear it, I guess.

I can't tell one bit of difference.  In fact, it doesn't matter which syllable I 'decide' to put the letter 's' in:  I still end up pronouncing it exactly the same either way.  What are you guys doing?  Pausing between syllables or something?  All the letters just flow together when I say the word, no matter how I conceptualize the syllabic structure.  I'm honestly in the dark here.  And keep in mind that I'm a bit of a language nerd, so this is really baffling me.

And in fact, we've done this with words before. Spanish cañon became English canyon. That's good! It's the same word, just changed to follow our rules! And nobody has any problem knowing how canyon is pronounced.

Is this a good time for me to point out that the English word canyon is not pronounced the same as the Spanish word cañón?  Both vowels are pronounced differently, and the stress is on the wrong syllable.

Another classic state capital mispronunciation is "dez moynz."

And yet ... Des Plaines, IL ...

This thread is meaningless for me, since Spanish pronounciations are pretty much straightforward (The opposite, however, isn't true).

So it doesn't bother you when people pronounce cabeza to rhyme with fresa?

It always strikes me as extremely pretentious when East Coasters in particular use the argument "that's how it's pronounced in Spanish, so why should it be anything else?"  when justifying pronouncing Nevada or Colorado differently from the local consensus. Do they also pronounce Texas, New Mexico, or Montana like the Spanish words? How about pronouncing Detroit "Deh-twah?"

I agree with this 1000%. If I go to the northeast and mispronounce a place like Worcester, MA incorrectly, I'm going to be corrected very quickly - and rightly so. But apparently it's offensive for places off the coasts to defend their own pronunciations. As someone from Utah, I will defend the proper pronunciation of neighboring Nevada (while obviously trying not to be annoying about it). But the reaction from eastern people is almost always something along the lines of "oh you're so silly" with zero effort to fix it. I'm willing to be patient with people, but that sort of reaction is simply rude IMO.

How do these people pronounce Cape Canaveral?

Actually, what I'm interested in is how Mexican-Americans pronounce the Spanish-origin names of certain Texas towns, as compared to how white Texans pronounce them.



Now let's talk about the word Parmesan.  I'll continue pronouncing it 'wrong' till the day I die.

As to the difference between the Texas and California pronunciations of, for instance, Amarillo and Camarillo: The Texans pronounce them more like they did in the 1600-early 1700s, which are much closer to the Portuguese. In California, the names come more like 1750-1840. I have heard all 4 pronunciations of the primary California Mission founder, Junipero Serra: /h/, /dzy/ /zh/, and /y/ for the "J"

[gonealookin]

On the football telecast from Corvallis, OR tonight Tim Brando's introduction included a "from the beautiful 'WILL-uh-met' Valley".  Somebody gave him the business about it because he apologized for it:  "Leave it to a guy from Louisiana to mispronounce 'Will-AMM-ett'".

[Scott5114]

To be fair...  How do you pronounce Achilles and Hercules (the Greek heroes)?

My wife and I both recently read The Song of Achilles. While she pronounces Achilles correctly, she tends to pronounce "Patroclus" with the same ending as "Achilles" (i.e. as if it were spelled "Patrocles"). This makes me wince, although I'm not confident enough in my pronunciation of Greek names to actually bring it up...

[Rothman]

Popsicles, the lesser known Greek soldier...

[1995hoo]

To be fair...  How do you pronounce Achilles and Hercules (the Greek heroes)?

My wife and I both recently read The Song of Achilles. While she pronounces Achilles correctly, she tends to pronounce "Patroclus" with the same ending as "Achilles" (i.e. as if it were spelled "Patrocles"). This makes me wince, although I'm not confident enough in my pronunciation of Greek names to actually bring it up...

Reminds me of a trip we took to Hawaii where someone explained the pronunciation of Likelike Highway on Oahu (it's a Hawaiian name, so you pronounce every letter in "Likelike") and then noted that many tourists take it a step too far and don't recognize that things named Pipeline have English names pronounced like they would be anywhere else.