Betcha can't say "Voldemort" ...

[Brus]

... correctly.

The "t" is silent.

This comes from a certain J. K. Rowling, considered by some to be an authority on the matter since she actually invented the evil dude who inconviences Harry Potter.

It seems He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named isn't the only literary character whose name is frequently mispronounced:

http://www.detroitnewstime.com/regional ... r-one.html

[Coffee]

They didn't make the list for some reason, but some names from the J.R.R. Tolkein saga have been grossly mispronounced... particularly the dwarvish ones.
Balin, for example, should be said as Bah-lin, not Baylin.
I suspect this would have annoyed Tolkein somewhat, as he was a linguist and philologist.

[an seanduine]

They didn't make the list for some reason, but some names from the J.R.R. Tolkein saga have been grossly mispronounced... particularly the dwarvish ones.
Balin, for example, should be said as Bah-lin, not Baylin.
I suspect this would have annoyed Tolkein somewhat, as he was a linguist and philologist.

Yes, particularly since he read aloud each new chapter as he wrote them to his circle of literary friends.

Bob

[Nanohedron]

Next you'll be telling me that I mispronounce "lingerie".

[chas]

Violet Beauregarde is pronounced "Bore-R-Garr"? (I suspect they' didn't write the pronunciation all that well.) I'm a bit taken aback at this one -- if Roald Dahl didn't want the d pronounced, he shouldn't have put an e at the end. Just as JK Rowling didn't put an e at the end of Voldemort.

[benhall.1]

Violet Beauregarde is pronounced "Bore-R-Garr"? (I suspect they' didn't write the pronunciation all that well.) I'm a bit taken aback at this one -- if Roald Dahl didn't want the d pronounced, he shouldn't have put an e at the end. Just as JK Rowling didn't put an e at the end of Voldemort.

Yes, I agree. I think they've got that one wrong. Just as I think they've got the pronunciation of Don Quixote wrong. In English it is traditional to pronounce it "Don "Quicks-ut" (not "oat").

Next you'll be telling me that I mispronounce "lingerie".

I hope you don't. That one is one of my top pet hates. And the whole world seems to pronounce it wrong.

[Nanohedron]

Just as I think they've got the pronunciation of Don Quixote wrong. In English it is traditional to pronounce it "Don "Quicks-ut" (not "oat").

I was brought up with "Kee-HO-tay", and haven't heard it any other way. Well, maybe "Kuh-Hoady". These are probably the American norm. If you pronounce it "Qwicks-oat" (or the even less likely "Quicks-ut") here and don't get corrected, I'd be surprised. It's just not done.

Next you'll be telling me that I mispronounce "lingerie".

I hope you don't. That one is one of my top pet hates. And the whole world seems to pronounce it wrong.

I follow the crowd on this one just for the sake of my survival. Can you imagine the jeering and mockery I'd have to face if I insisted on pronouncing it in the French manner? I'd be called a snob, and rightly. Some people wouldn't even know what I was talking about, not that I bring up ladies' undies in conversation, but there you have it.

And that's another thing: The word originally applies to all undies, men's and women's, and essentially means "linens". Obviously we are able to carry purism only so far.

It's strange. There are some loanwords I pronounce according to prevailing English-speaking convention, and others wherein I remain truer to the original. I think this is largely in part due to whether the word will have any ubiquity in English, particularly my own. After all, I normally say "Pare-iss", not "Pa-Hree".

[Coffee]

I'm pretty true to pronunciation with loan words *if* they're from Spanish, which I speak passing well.
For most other cases... I'll go with the way I'm used to hearing it.

[benhall.1]

Next you'll be telling me that I mispronounce "lingerie".

I hope you don't. That one is one of my top pet hates. And the whole world seems to pronounce it wrong.

I follow the crowd on this one just for the sake of my survival. Can you imagine the jeering and mockery I'd have to face if I insisted on pronouncing it in the French manner? I'd be called a snob, and rightly.

Honestly, I don't think I'm being a snob in wanting to pronounce "lingerie" the ... well, the way it's pronounced. I simply wouldn't be able to make myself say it the way almost everyone seems to nowadays. Whenever I hear the word in other people's mouths, always pronounced wrongly, it's like a fuse going off in my head. There's nothing I can do about that. I get the exact same feeling when I hear famous pieces of music being 'cut and shunted' to make them fit into the paid for time of a television advert.

[Nanohedron]

Sorry - I didn't mean to imply that you might be a snob. Rather, that's the mindset you'll find in the States: especially in informal conversation, rigorous pronunciation of loanwords is often seen as pretentious, so you have to pick your battles.

[Tunborough]

I didn't know there was another way to pronounce, "lingerie". I don't even want to think what it might be.

Only recently did I learn that there was a way to mis-pronounce, "foyer".

"Lieutenant," on the other hand, I've know about for a long time. I'll leave it to you to debate which is right, and accept it either way.

[Nanohedron]

I just realised Flornts is in Iddly which is in Yurp.

[benhall.1]

Sorry - I didn't mean to imply that you might be a snob. Rather, that's the mindset you'll find in the States: especially in informal conversation, rigorous pronunciation of loanwords is often seen as pretentious, so you have to pick your battles.

... and yet ... there does seem to be a strange sort of faux-authentic way of pronouncing words over there. The one that springs immediately to mind is "herbs". It's supposed to be pronounced with an aspirated 'h', but Americans seem to go out of their way to drop the 'h', as if it's a French word ... except that the way it's pronounced (by some at least - Frasier, for instance) in the States isn't how the French pronounce their equivalent word. It's baffling.

I didn't know there was another way to pronounce, "lingerie". I don't even want to think what it might be.

I can't do the phonetic spelling, but the first syllable more or less rhymes with "van" and the last syllable rhymes with "bee". The emphasis is on the first syllable.

[Nanohedron]

... and yet ... there does seem to be a strange sort of faux-authentic way of pronouncing words over there. The one that springs immediately to mind is "herbs". It's supposed to be pronounced with an aspirated 'h', but Americans seem to go out of their way to drop the 'h', as if it's a French word ...

It's not faux to me and I don't go out of my way at all, for I was natively brought up with the word that way and I don't even think about it. It's apparently the same with the vast majority of my fellow Yanks as well, for all my life I have rarely heard it said any other way, so if you came to the States I fear your head would explode from indignation. As the overwhelming standard in US pronunciation regardless of one's socioeconomic position or linguistic awareness, it is therefore quite authentic on its own terms, because I can assure you that we're not going around trying to sound "French" about it. It's so ingrained that even reading the word, I hear no H. In fact, I never really considered why we pronounce it that way until you brought it up. As I said, I typically don't even think about it, and that means I'm not the only one. Only a philologist could answer how this convention came to be. Back in the day it may indeed have originally been an aping of the French, but why that word? Be that as it may, in usage now it doesn't carry for me any more subtext of Frenchness than does "hour" - which is to say pretty much none at all, and I don't pronounce the H there either. As a callow youth not knowing any better, I always considered pronouncing the H in "herbs" to be (in a Yank, that is) a sign of either miseducation, brain damage, foreignry, or a strange trait of exclusive and shady cultural inbreeding that only a lost social climber would adopt as an affectation. In the case of Martha Stewart, who knows where the reality lies.

"Hhhhherbs"? No, they quaintly do that over in the UK.

That said, I do often tend to pronounce my "wh" in full (a strictly unconscious reflex from my schooling, such as it was) and occasionally I get mocked for it. Like Stewie and his Wheat Thins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1Vcbm-XWtg

Except I know for a fact that my "wh" isn't as obtrusive as Stewie's.

[Coffee]

That wh... do you know where that's from?
It's a carry-over of English's germanic heritage; wh used to be it's own letter. I would not be opposed to changing it back, by the way.
Bring back the distinctive letters, and English, over time, would get *less* confusing, I think. The wh's, and the þ's. Especially the þ's.
Oh, and double spaces after full stops. Those were... nice.