Pronunciation 101
Pronounciation... let's admit it, we all, at one time or another, get stumped over the pronounciation of certain words.
Russian names for example (hearing the commentators struggling with this during the gymnastics segment of the Olympics is always fun)... or words with kitsch spellings from "hip brand managers" for otherwise simple, pronouncable words...
And English.
I don't understand why English is at times not spelt phonetically - with their unfathomable rules like the silent "e" and silent "p" and whatever letter medieval wordsmiths could magically silence within a word.
I mean, if you want the letter to remain silent then don't include it in the word. It's not like the letter is going to take offence because it's the least utilized word in a Scrabble game. Plus, the creator of Scrabble, a genius of a man he is... had created a brilliant rule to manage the egos of these "rarely" used letters by allotting them with higher points. So no ruffled feathers there...
Another pet peeve on the topic of pronounciation is how personalities on mass media like television journalists and radio hosts blatantly ignore the proper pronounciations for certain countries.
For example, people in America and many parts of the world now call the country that Saddam Hussin once ruled over as "Ai-Rack" when it really should be "Ee-raak". Whose fault is it? Well, who knows. It can be anyone from a Middle East translator who misheard and mispronounced it during a UN summit 50 years ago or perhaps a staff in the Oval Office who is dyslexic but never diagnosed.
Anyway... what happened in the age of British Imperialism, when Mumbai was turned to Bombay and Beijing into Peking, is happening again today and as an Asian I find that sad. Mumbai and Beijing is no longer written and pronounced in its bastardized form today but it did take them over a century to remedy this. Let's just hope it doesn't take as long for Iraq...
Speaking of Beijing, I watched a segment from CCTV (a news network in China) and witnessed something really weird . The reporter, who is obviously Chinese, continuously pronounced Beijing as "Bay-jeeng" with a slight pause between the two syllabus (like his Western counterparts from CNN) instead of the proper Chinese pronounciation, which is "Pbei-jing" without much pause between the two syllabus.
You may say toe-may-toe, toe-maa-toe but I felt that if a Chinese reporter doesn't make an effort to show how the cities in his country should be pronounced, then who will?
Well, perhaps you may find me anal for bringing all this up. But I dare you to tell that to me when I start pronouncing Texas as "Text-Ass"...
Russian names for example (hearing the commentators struggling with this during the gymnastics segment of the Olympics is always fun)... or words with kitsch spellings from "hip brand managers" for otherwise simple, pronouncable words...
And English.
I don't understand why English is at times not spelt phonetically - with their unfathomable rules like the silent "e" and silent "p" and whatever letter medieval wordsmiths could magically silence within a word.
I mean, if you want the letter to remain silent then don't include it in the word. It's not like the letter is going to take offence because it's the least utilized word in a Scrabble game. Plus, the creator of Scrabble, a genius of a man he is... had created a brilliant rule to manage the egos of these "rarely" used letters by allotting them with higher points. So no ruffled feathers there...
Another pet peeve on the topic of pronounciation is how personalities on mass media like television journalists and radio hosts blatantly ignore the proper pronounciations for certain countries.
For example, people in America and many parts of the world now call the country that Saddam Hussin once ruled over as "Ai-Rack" when it really should be "Ee-raak". Whose fault is it? Well, who knows. It can be anyone from a Middle East translator who misheard and mispronounced it during a UN summit 50 years ago or perhaps a staff in the Oval Office who is dyslexic but never diagnosed.
Anyway... what happened in the age of British Imperialism, when Mumbai was turned to Bombay and Beijing into Peking, is happening again today and as an Asian I find that sad. Mumbai and Beijing is no longer written and pronounced in its bastardized form today but it did take them over a century to remedy this. Let's just hope it doesn't take as long for Iraq...
Speaking of Beijing, I watched a segment from CCTV (a news network in China) and witnessed something really weird . The reporter, who is obviously Chinese, continuously pronounced Beijing as "Bay-jeeng" with a slight pause between the two syllabus (like his Western counterparts from CNN) instead of the proper Chinese pronounciation, which is "Pbei-jing" without much pause between the two syllabus.
You may say toe-may-toe, toe-maa-toe but I felt that if a Chinese reporter doesn't make an effort to show how the cities in his country should be pronounced, then who will?
Well, perhaps you may find me anal for bringing all this up. But I dare you to tell that to me when I start pronouncing Texas as "Text-Ass"...
posted by bigfooz at 1:25 am
3 Comments:
Yo bro,
le first comment... A friend of mine mentioned that you have misspelt pronunciation.
Pretty ironic, don't you think?
wait a minute... Did you do it on purpose?
hmm... i wished i had the presence of mind to purposefully misspell pronunciation for that brilliant example of irony but alas i'm not one to claim credit where it isn't due.
the only thing i guess i can say is that my "pronounciation" is better than my spelling...
yeah, the eye-rack thing bugs me a whole lot! and what about when they say rau-out instead of route. ok maybe the spelling is a little bit off but why must Americans just change the way words are supposed to sound in the first place???
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