Around the Year in 52 Books discussion
Archives
>
[2020] 14th Mini Poll Results
date
newest »
newest »
It seems to me like people are correctly acknowledging that there are instances where mispronunciation of a name is harmful, but then drawing a conclusion that it’s therefore wrong to acknowledge that you personally are unsure about how to pronounce a name. It is absolutely true that some people face hurtful, discriminatory or even just insensitive treatment because they have a name that some people find difficult to pronounce. This is often linked to racism in society - for instance British people are far more likely to know how to pronounce Camus or Proust than Emcheta or Tutuola because racism in society means that white European men are deemed more important than Black African people and so people are more likely to learn about French authors than Nigerian authors.
It’s also true that most people will encounter names they’re not familiar with. Sometimes the reason for the lack of familiarity will be the point I made above, sometimes it will just be that the name is from a language you don’t speak and which doesn’t follow similar phonetic rules to your own language - eg Irish is typically difficult for people who don’t speak it because you can’t use knowledge of your own language to guess how to correctly say Siobhan or Orlaith or Caoimhin.
But, I think you can accept the above points are true and still think it’s okay to select an author based on your uncertainty about the correct pronunciation of their name. It could even prompt you to reflect on why you might find names from some cultures more unfamiliar than others.
Mod
We have this one on the list already:
A book that fits a prompt from the list of suggestions that didn't win
Oh, I missed that, thanks. I think I'll do the birthday - word etc one for this.
I up voted the pronunciation prompt. My niece is called Sara, but many people call her Sarah. We correct them if it is needed, but mostly for strangers just ignore it, but it shows to me how easily this happens.
I say “Sara” and “Sarah” the same way so now I’m confused. I thought they were just different spellings, like Amy and Aimee. How do you say your niece’s name?
I think it depends on where you're from. I have a lot of international friends and colleagues who pronounce my name Sara, but then I know at least two Saras who pronounce it Sarah.
Nadine wrote: "I say “Sara” and “Sarah” the same way so now I’m confused. I thought they were just different spellings, like Amy and Aimee. How do you say your niece’s name?"I say "Sara" and "Sarah" the same way, too, and every Sara/Sarah I've ever known has introduced themselves pronouncing it the same way. Now I'm curious as to how the pronunciations differ?
The only Sara I've known said it to rhyme with Zara.
Mod
I just found this:“I live in England and generally we pronounce Sarah and Sara differently. With Sarah, the first syllable rhymes with fair and dare but with Sara the first syllable rhymes with far and bar.”
Which is funny because while I pronounce both Sara and Sarah to rhyme with Farrah, they rhyme with neither fair nor far. The best I can come up with is they rhyme with arrow, but with an a at the end instead of an o. If I heard someone say them with an a like in fair or far I would just assume it’s a local dialect difference (similar to how people say Mary, marry, and Merry in different ways in different places) and not that they were different names.
Of course if someone corrected my pronunciation of their own name, I’d do my best to comply.
I’ve known Sonyas and Sonias who say their names in different ways, sometime the o is like on and sometimes it’s like own.
Nadine wrote: "I just found this:“I live in England and generally we pronounce Sarah and Sara differently. With Sarah, the first syllable rhymes with fair and dare but with Sara the first syllable rhymes with f..."
That's really interesting! I love learning new things like this. Thanks for sharing. :)
Emily wrote: "Like S-are-a? Or with the Z sound at the beginning, like Zair-a?"With an S... but now I think maybe people in the US pronounce all of them differently. Nadine has just found a better explanation (I live in the UK, but I have a hodge-podge accent from living in southern Scotland, the midlands and now the south coast).
Sarah is sair-rah, Sara is sah-rah, Zara is zah-rah.
My boyfriend is called Josh, you wouldn't think people can pronounce that wrong, but Americans say the O like an A. I guess you can use any name for this prompt if you take in differences in accents.
Ellie wrote: "Emily wrote: "Like S-are-a? Or with the Z sound at the beginning, like Zair-a?"With an S... but now I think maybe people in the US pronounce all of them differently. Nadine has just found a bette..."
So, I've always heard Josh pronounced like Jawsh, like the word jaw with the -sh at the end. How is your boyfriend's name pronounced? Hearing about what we usually think are "common," easy names to pronounce that other people pronounce completely differently, is so interesting. I am loving this!
Nadine wrote: "I just found this:“I live in England and generally we pronounce Sarah and Sara differently. With Sarah, the first syllable rhymes with fair and dare but with Sara the first syllable rhymes with f..."
Okay, now I'm a little lost as to how you pronounce Farrah so the first syllable doesn't rhyme with fair, but otherwise this makes sense and is helpful.
Very much like the behind the scenes of the Lara Croft movie where the Britishers changed her name from Laura (which they say 'Lora') to Lara because all the Americans were saying 'Lara' anyway. Since my mother's name is Laura (pronounced Lara) it seemed needlessly fussy to me at the time.
Nicole wrote: "So, I've always heard Josh pronounced like Jawsh, like the word jaw with the -sh at the end...."If I say it like that I definitely sound like I'm doing a bad American accent. His brother moved out to California and he's started drawing out his Os now too. Um, I guess I say a short O, like in on or lost.
Ellie wrote: "Nicole wrote: "So, I've always heard Josh pronounced like Jawsh, like the word jaw with the -sh at the end...."If I say it like that I definitely sound like I'm doing a bad American accent. His b..."
So, I just barely see the difference but most Americans are going to say those are pronounced exactly the same. :-) (Edit: meaning 'aw' and a short 'o' like in lost are pronounced the same here.) Most people I know (American midwest in a community with a lot of people from the American south) also pronounce Dawn exactly the same as Don, which drives me crazy now that I've noticed it.
I pronounce on and lost differently, but that might just be a New York accent.
Ellie wrote: "Nicole wrote: "So, I've always heard Josh pronounced like Jawsh, like the word jaw with the -sh at the end...."If I say it like that I definitely sound like I'm doing a bad American accent. His b..."
I guess that's how I pronounce it, too. I know that the aw sound should be different than the o sound, but it's often not pronounced that way.
My mom is a stickler for things like that. We had a dog named Fawkes (after the phoenix in Harry Potter, because our sweet puppy had risen from the ashes, too, after being abandoned for six months before anyone found him), and I always just pronounced it Fox, but she said it was subtly different than that, because the aw doesn't sound the same as the o. Of course, she taught a lot of speech education, so that could explain why she gets it and I don't.
And then there's me... where I pronounce my own name two different ways! One way is with two syllables (A-vree) and one way is with three syllables (A-ver-ee). I've asked my mom, but then we get ourselves all confused and can't tell! I feel like she used one pronunciation when she was mad at me, and one when she was happy with me! haha
I definitely don't say Dawn and Don or Fawkes and Fox the same. But, it's just something we find amusing, I'm sure American Joshes would laugh at how "posh" we say their names in return.To be fair, I pronounce grass and bath different to the way he says them.
OMG the Dawn/Don thing drives me nuts!! Up here in NY state (which is a very different place from NYC), people say the names the same. Gahhh. I have a cousin Dawn. It most definitely does not sound like Don! There’s a strong awwww sound in Dawn.People up here say Erin and Aaron the same too. They say them both the way I say Erin, so I never know which name they are saying. THEY don’t even know which name is being said, when there’s an Erin and an Aaron together they have to give one kid a nickname to differentiate. I say Aaron with a more dragged out aahh sound (Aaron is much like arrow, and Erin is like error).
So I say Josh to rhyme with posh and cosh but I suppose none of that is helpful. It’s the same o as in on. Lost is a different o, like the o in off.
I'm sat at my desk mouthing O sounds, my colleagues must think I've lost the plot!
Oh, I think I'm hopeless. I pronounce Dawn & Don the same, and Erin & Aaron the same, too. Also, I pronounce the words arrow and error with the same sound at the beginning. And Josh, posh, cosh, on, lost, off... I say the o the same in all of them. Aaaaaggghhh! I think it's time I sign up for some diction lessons! :-)
Definitely recommend reading about the caught/cot merger and the father/bother merger for most of the sounds on this thread. I’ll see if I can find good links on this when I’m not on mobile.I studied this and later taught it (using recordings!) and still have to concentrate to hear the differences between these sounds.
The first names I thought of are Anna, Eva and Tara. I know a server who introduces herself as “Eva like whateveh”. Anastasia is another one. I pronounce it the Spanish way which doesn’t use the long a and zh sounds.
Mod
That’s how I say all of those names 😳🙊
Locally we have the Hungarian surname "Maygar" in several variations. The family name is pronounced MAY-gar
The street name is pronounced ma-GAR
The church name is pronounced MAH-jer
I suspect the family name was "Americanized," the street name is a mispronunciation, and the church name is correct. But I really have no idea. :lol:
This thread is really interesting. I can see in Australia we pronounce words more like UK than the US. Josh is definitely rhymes with mosh, not jawsh...but we have some differences within states in Australia for things like graph, dance and data.
Bec wrote: "This thread is really interesting. I can see in Australia we pronounce words more like UK than the US. Josh is definitely rhymes with mosh, not jawsh...but we have some differences within states in..."Can you tell me how to pronounce Liane? Is it like Diane or Leeann?
Perri wrote: Can you tell me how to pronounce Liane? Is it like Diane or Leeann? .."As in Liane Moriarty?
It's like Lee - arn
As a non-native English speaker, this thread is so so interesting! I hate sounding frenchie when speaking in English (probably because of the long-running will of French-speaking Swiss to differentiate ourselves from our French neighbours), so I always strive to speak with a "proper" English accent. The trouble is that depending on who I've been talking/listening to the most at the time you can find me with a British, Aussie or American accent, which is a bit weird haha.One thing that people are surprised by is that when I speak in English I pronounce my name Saw-phie and not So-phie, like in French, but it just feels weird to me to be saying a word the French way in the middle of a carefully pronounced English sentence (like I'd say France the English way and not the French way).
I can't imagine saying "Saw-phie"?? Is that a British pronunciation? I just googled how to pronounce Sophie in French (because hahaha I had no clue!!) and it sounds very similar to how I say it in the US, but of course with a clipped French accent instead of a long drawn out American accent. (Full disclosure: my dog's name is Sophie, so I say the name a lot! I'm assuming you are okay with knowing that!!! My daughter's name is Lily and we have met SO MANY dogs with that name, including her best friend's dog - luckily we love dogs so my Lily just thinks it's cute.)
Sophie wrote: "As a non-native English speaker, this thread is so so interesting! I hate sounding frenchie when speaking in English (probably because of the long-running will of French-speaking Swiss to different..."Haha, I just pronounce my name in English when I speak in English because I can’t switch back and forth across languages.
In French, Sophie would be pronounced more like toffee but without over emphasis on the first syllable.
Our neighbours had a dog named Sophie when I grew up. She and I got confused when my parents or her owners called one of us inside.
Bec wrote: "Perri wrote: Can you tell me how to pronounce Liane? Is it like Diane or Leeann? .."As in Liane Moriarty?
It's like Lee - arn"
Huh! How'd that r sneak in there? :)
I have a very unique last name that had the spelling and pronunciation changed from a fairly common German name. I have been "corrected" on how to pronounce my own name before. Personally, I'm excited to use this for my Poland book (I'm trying to read a book from every country). I want to find the longest name with the most consonants next to each other that even other Poles go, yea that's a bit tricky.
As a potential suggestion for those who are uncomfortable with this prompt, how about an anonymous author? You really can't be sure how to pronounce their real name.
I find the caught/cot merger so fascinating. It's one of my favorite linguistic topics.
Haha I don't mind if dogs are named Sophie, my aunt's dog was named Linda, as was one of my best friend. She always took it really bad and I could never understand why 😉I guess "Saw-phie" is a more British pronunciation, heavily influenced by my stay in New Zealand 😅
Perri wrote: "Bec wrote: "Perri wrote: Can you tell me how to pronounce Liane? Is it like Diane or Leeann? .."As in Liane Moriarty?
It's like Lee - arn"
Huh! How'd that r sneak in there? :)"
Crazy hey!
Here is Liane saying her name:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlBEV...
Bec wrote: "Perri wrote: "Bec wrote: "Perri wrote: Can you tell me how to pronounce Liane? Is it like Diane or Leeann? ..""
Cra..."
Thanks Bec, I KNOW she's Australian, but it still caught be by surprise when she started speaking. Great video!
Around the Year in 52 Books
Books mentioned in this topic
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (other topics)Blackfish City (other topics)
O Pioneers! (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
Elena Ferrante (other topics)B. Traven (other topics)
A..."
Thank you Anastasia and Sophie for your comments! I feel like the name prompt has more to do with people not knowing other languages. (Even in our native language, there are still questions and alternate pronunciations.) For example, I've heard Americans mispronounce the German name Werner (with a W sound instead of V) and the Russian name Vladimir with the accent on the first syllable instead of the second. Most sales people in Albuquerque cannot pronounce my street name, which is a very easy Spanish word. So, for each person, those names that are unfamiliar will be different. It has made me more aware of assumptions that I am making on pronunciations (e.g. The author I am currently reading- Annie Proulx), so that is a good thing. I feel like I am more likely now to learn the pronunciation.