Pronunciation that makes you cringe

[ian]

Nope - too many t's.

Ian -

Yeah, fine. Choreezo & lattay are OK. Infinitely preferable to the faux-foreign versions that get the bloody languages wrong. Though I don't know what's wrong with saying 'milk' instead of saying it in (usually mispronounced) Italian.

Because I want milky coffee rather than a glass of hot milk? That's a lat-tay. OK, I pronounce mojito with a H and caipirinha with my finger, à la that one please. I went to comprehensive school. I think I mentioned the existential despair of our French teacher, Ms Brassiere, faced with years of her precious favourite language being rendered in pure Erewashian. If I drew a venn diagram of sounds present in Erewashian and sounds present in French, you could drive a supertanker through the gap between them.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The idea of road-runner passing through Clement Freud is... somewhat unsavoury.

[Mr Larrington]

USAnia is not immune, with its Cheesypeas Bay and Lake Haversack City.

[Bledlow]

Nope - too many t's.

Ian -

Yeah, fine. Choreezo & lattay are OK. Infinitely preferable to the faux-foreign versions that get the bloody languages wrong. Though I don't know what's wrong with saying 'milk' instead of saying it in (usually mispronounced) Italian.

Because I want milky coffee rather than a glass of hot milk? That's a lat-tay.

I have been informed that one should not try that in Italy.

Not that I've ever tried using USAian terms for drink in Italy. 'Caffè' works fine, as does 'birra'.

[Jaded]

USAnia is not immune, with its Cheesypeas Bay and Lake Haversack City.

And the seminal Yo! Semite!

[Andrij]

USAnia is not immune, with its Cheesypeas Bay and Lake Haversack City.

And the seminal Yo! Semite!

 

[Ham]

The ultimate challenge for non French speakers is to get directions to Reims from a local.

(FTR, the pronunciation is nearer to R-r-rums, Reems will get you a VERY blank look)

ETA - MP3 here

[Legs]

Masseuse.  Rhymes with 'is-and-'ers, not with hoots-mon-there's-a-moose.  FFS.  On R2, Simon Salad Cream was even referring to a (male) masseur as a "massoos" the other night... 

[citoyen]

With you on that one, Legs - it's even more irritating than lon-jer-ay.

[Guy]

Colleague on phone just now:

There's nobody here today. They're all at the National Arbortorium

[clarion]

USAnia is not immune, with its Cheesypeas Bay and Lake Haversack City.

And the seminal Yo! Semite!

 

We'll have no anti-yosemitism in here!

[clarion]

ian's mention of Erewash reminds me of a pronunciation I managed that made me cringe.  I'd not lived in Derby long, and there was a Geography lesson.  I thought it was funny to call a place ear-wash, but that's how I read it out, to a shocked silence and then gales of laughter.

I should worry - I come from the land that gave us Keighley and Embsay and Cracoe and Grassington...

[ian]

Yes, it's Erry-wash, though there's some local dispute about the exact ways to place emphasis and how much to flatten that y. No one says Ear-wash though. That's almost as bad as saying the -kes- in the Ilkeston. That's a cue for the torching parade.

I still remember when I took my American gf on an expedition to the area. As someone who thought we all spoke like characters in Four Weddings and a Funeral her gradual horror was something to behold. My parents would say something to her and she'd just look blank* before finally nodding and making what she hoped was the right sort of agreeable noise.

*actually this is common, if you're British and you ever speak to an American, look for that half-second cognitive gap before they catch – if, on the other hand, you're British and have a strong dialect, look for two day cognitive gap before they go back to Boston and confess they didn't understand a single word that anyone said to them during the previous two days.

[Guy]

*actually this is common, if you're British and you ever speak to an American, look for that half-second cognitive gap before they catch ask if you're Australian – if, on the other hand, you're British and have a strong dialect, look for two day cognitive gap before they go back to Boston and confess they didn't understand a single word that anyone said to them during the previous two days.

How many times was I asked that one?

[Mr Larrington]

The first time I was asked if I was a refugee from Captain Cook's Mistake by a USAnian I was this: surprised.  OTOH they haven't had the "Every day is Australia Day/Sons & Daughters and Home & Away" 'cultural' bombardment that we BRITONS have suffered over the past Several of decades, but they've all seen "Crocodile Dundee".  Haven't they?

A chap in Savannah GA once took time out from extolling the virtues of his brother's crab shack to a bunch of Germans to say "Yorkshire and Essex" at me.  Spook!

[ian]

I've shed most of the more obscure accoutrements of a dialect and accent that greets outlanders from the other side of the coal tip and surface-dwellers with 'ah-artayahreetmaduck?'* but Americans are confused by the fact that I don't sound like escapee from Downton Abbey. I blame the TV and PBS in particular. I still get the Australian and, curiously, South African.

It's true that some East Midlands vowels do sound like they're a fart that's slowly bubbled up through a mud bath, and it's so regional that even the BBC are 'really, no, I really don't think so, let's a get another Geordie in'.

*Stolen from the internet because I can't be arsed to phonetically transcribe, but it sums it up.

"Ayup miduck, yahreet?"
"Orlright, marrah, burrahm not backter wok yit. Ows yer babbi?"
"Oh, eez pawleh, an ees grizzlin cosee bont hissen on the stoave too. Learn im ter keep is dannies off tho."
"Bet yer missis wuz fritterdeth!"
"Sheworratthat, but she'll coap. Where yowoff"?"
"Ahm gooin uptahn"
"Yawarkin, errint car?"
"Car? Ah soadit ter that immazatoadyabaht, as bought ahr Tracey's ahse"
"Im wi nebbeh wahf?"
"Yeah, ee paid five undred quid an she were reet mardy, ad a baggon for days"
"Ahl gerterahrahse! Yow spawni bogga, it want woth arfa that!"
"Ah know, but ee were needeh"
"Well, ahd better goo backom, bit black ovver Bills"
"Well, tek care, me owd"

[SteveC]

A Canadian 'sort of great niece' of ours (it's a complicated family) was taken to the Globe in London as a special treat. She said that she couldn't understand a single word they were saying.

[ian]

I checked (Googled) and it's true, they never let East Midlands people on the TV or radio and certainly not mud-jawed Erewashians. Yet at the same time, every single person in Manchester now seems to have some kind of BBC presence, either a radio or TV show. The even let Brummies on TV occasionally, though sensibly not too often as they'd probably eat the sets.

In every DH Lawrence adaptation I've seen all the actors put on a bloody Yorkshire accent.

[citoyen]

Love, Nina (currently showing on BBC1) is notable for the lead having a pronounced Leicester accent.

At least, it's supposed to be Leicester, but it could be Nottingham or Coventry for all I know. Or even Ashby de la Zouch. But it's definitely East rather than West Midlands.

A former girlfriend was from Leicester, so I should know this.

[ian]

Leicester is distinct accent, very different to Nottingham* and Derby (which are different from each other). Erewashian is a product of that linguistic tension between Nottingham and Derby and the fact that until St Thatcher of Grantham liberated them in the mid-1980s everyone lived underground with little outside contact. Even now, giving the surrounding geography of coal tips, there's little interaction with the outside world other than getting the bus down Nottingham on Friday night for a piss-up.

*I believe Albert Finney is famed for doing Saturday Night and Sunday Morning in a Mancunian accent.

[hujev]

Not so much prnonunciation as 'voice fad', but here in the us the epidemic of vocal fry, whiny &, nasally voices, and 'talking like an 11 year old' (= contrived 'child-like-wonder-ness') in radio, esp the so-called 'public' radio (aka 'npr'; usually university owned/operated, stations so not actually public) has become overwhelmingly annoting. Seems to be related to the cult of self, constant need to be noticed, and 'announcer as celebrity'. This disease has spread to most people in the general population as well, esp. female, under 40 or 50. Amazing how fast the 'voice' of a country can change in just 5-10 years.

I note that BBC still attempts to use proper English, following the now apparently outmoded idea of newsreader as unbiased medium not meant to be the star. At least the little bit of BBC I can get (since they ditched shortwave). If this vocal fry and nasally-ness begins to creep into the UK I'd advise a massive public movement against it as soon as possible!

Geez, I ought to actually post something velo-related here... have been slacking with the Cat pictures and now this!

[Mr Larrington]

In BRITAIN we have instead the practice of speaking in a faux-Afro-Caribbean accent, a hateful trend started started by notable S-T and son of an Anglican bishop Tim Westwood and slavishly adopted by everyone from the "Remain" campaign to, er, some other people.  Including Lewis Hamilton, who ought to know better.  Innit.

[Pingu]

The ultimate challenge for non French speakers is to get directions to Reims from a local.

(FTR, the pronunciation is nearer to R-r-rums, Reems will get you a VERY blank look)

ETA - MP3 here

Page 4 

[T42]

And anyway it's closer to Rhance.  Nice place.

[Cudzoziemiec]

How do people pronounce Nike? I mean the sportswear manufacturer not the Greek goddess, the literary award or any other use of the name. I don't remember hearing it at all before the late '80s (perhaps it wasn't in Britain until then?) and then it was one syllable, rhyming with bike. Later it became two syllables, "ny kee". Apparently that was the correct, cos Usanian, way. And now it seems to be back to one syllable.