My worst example was the word GIF pronounced like the peanut butter instead of properly as in Graphical. It’s worse because Amanda Montell was writing a linguistics book about the history of language and words.
Recent example was “eschew” which is pronounced Eh-shoo but the narrator said “Eskew” and it confused me so much I had to Google it to make sure I hadn’t been saying it wrong my whole life. What exmaples have you found?
by diceblue
7 Comments
the creator of GIF says its pronounced **Jif**
Sadly it is pronounced JIF according the creator of the file format (though I have always preferred the hard g tbh). And I’m pretty sure both pronunciations of eschew are valid? Merriem Webster lists the “e-ˈskyü” pronunciation as a rarer variant, and according to a poll I found it’s around 25% of people who pronounce it that way.
Like most words do have regional variants language is fluid so I wouldn’t say there really is a wrong or a right in most of these cases.
And in the case of a lot of people making the same “mistake” for long enough, the secondary popular pronunciation will inevitably end up in the dictionary sooner or later anyway lol
I’ve had several recently, unfortunately, and it drives me nuts.
A character’s name (a horse) named Deimos. Pronounced by the narrator Die-mos, not Dee-mos. This was constant and had me yelling at the narrator regularly.
There was something that was a character’s forte in another book. Pronounced fort, not four-the.
There was another, but I can’t remember it at the moment.
On the other hand, I’ve had some narrators pronounce words correctly that I’ve only ever read and I was doing it completely wrong. Bivouac is one that comes to mind.
It is pronounced jif.
Not a word, but a name: Juniper (from Wise Child by Monica Furlong). Narrator made it rhyme with viper. Ruined the whole experience.
I was listening to a book that took place in Wyoming, specifically Dubois, WY. I’m from near there, driven through a lot, know people that live there. I know how it’s pronounced. The narrator kept pronouncing it the French way which is incorrect and drove me so insane I had to stop listening. It would have taken all of 2 seconds to Google it.
I only remember listening to The Way of Kings (I think. That or the following one), which is narrated by two voice artists, husband and wife, and hearing her pronounce an unfamiliar name – only to later understand she was referring to a character that was far more prominent in her husband’s parts, and that he pronounced differently.
It was very jarring, especially since I had never seen the actual spelling.
Funny thing is, I now remember her pronunciation, not his :p