‘Your scarf, it was AP-RI-cot’
Carly Simon, You’re so vain.
[or am i just unaware that’s how some portion of the American public pronounces APE-RE-COT?]
I’d say one loves something TEND-er-lee not tend-er-LEE.
In Red Rider’s “White Hot”, they somehow manage to pronounce “Somalian” like “summer lion”. It drives me crazy every time.
I don’t hear him as accenting the last syllable, or deemphasizing the first for that matter. It is a rise in pitch.
You’re a tough crowd if you get bugged at that last syllable.
Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serenge-TEEEEEEE.
I don’t really want to argue about it, but isn’t a rise in pitch an emphasis?
Let’s just agree to disa-GREEEE.
I’m not too good at IPA but looking at the pronunciations given on Wikipedia, I think that the second option here (/ˌhɪməˈleɪ.ə/ or /hɪˈmɑːləjə/) is the hi-MAL-a-ya pronunciation. That’s how I’ve heard my Indian friend pronounce it, and recently I read a memoir by Rumer Godden (who lived in India many years) and she refers to that pronunciation as well, as one used in India.
Of course there are many foreign place names that most people speaking English pronounce in a standard "English’ way. Like Paris or Moscow–if I were to hear English speakers saying they’re going to Paree or Moskva I’d find that annoying.
I’m FtG and I have stress deafness. So I have to ask rather than posit.
Is the stress for “always” in the classic Whitney Houston version of I Will Always Love You backwards? And if so, does this affect people’s reaction to the song?
I’m not either: far too hoppy.
APP-ricot and APE-ricot are both common pronunciations, in my experience; and the online dictionaries I checked give both pronunciations, in that order.
Yeah, that “tenderly” doesn’t sound at all wrong to me in that context. In fact, the OP’s example is the only one so far that I have a problem with (though some I’m not familiar with).
From the top: será, the Spanish Third Person Future Imperfect for “will be”, is pronounced with the tonic stress on the final syllable, hence the accent on the vowel.
Doris’ “Que será, será” (“what will be will be”) is phony Spanish (it should be "Lo que será, será) but the “será” sounds close to normal.
“Qué será, qué será” (what will it be, what will it be – the interrogative “que” takes the diacrit) is more proper Spanish but in Lisa Lisa’s clip I hear her pronuncing the second “será” correctly with the tonic stress in the last syllable as well, it’s the *first *one that she has flattened to go along with the music.
Not a song but I heard on NPR someone pronounced evolution as “evolYEWshun”. I will never forget that.
It always sounded to me like Billy Ocean was talking about a Caribou Queen.
That’s a fairly standard pronunciation in many parts of the UK and Ireland.
The national fucking anthem. Which is a big part of why I hate it and wish they’d switch to “America the Beautiful” (which is also prettier in general and less obsessed with war).
OK, I suppose a lot of it is more a problem of emphasis on the wrong syllable of a PHRASE and only intermittenly also the wrong syllable of a WORD but yeesh:
THUBBBbombs bursting in air??
and the home UVVVVTHUHHHHHH brave???
Most folks are spared from having to hear the additional verses. It doesn’t get better:
Where the foe’s haughTEEEEE host…
A home and a counTREEE should leave us no more…
Thank you Mr Boink. I cheerfully withdraw any imputation that Carly Simon had a tin ear.
Out of interest, is the APP-ricot pronunciation regional, or could his scarf just as easily been have been tomato, or tomato?
I don’t have a problem with any of these emphases (?), at least the ones I am familiar with.
I would invite those who do object to ‘hear’ their examples as they think they ought to be. I think you will usually find that, musically, the right choice was made.
mmm
The title song from the Phantom of the Opera is actually sung “The PHANNNN-tom of the op-er-a.”
And Memory from CATS is “mem-ry.”
I think you got that backwards. She does the accent weird on the second time, due to what sounds like an irregular meter, so: sensiTIVity SENsitivity.
This seems to be AC-CENT uate and EE-LIM-inate to me.
All the rest you do seem to be the correctly accented syllable, even if they are accent(uat)ed more than usual.
Christopher Cross: “I’ll Never Be the Same”:
And I’ll
Never be the same without you here
ollie-VOO-lone
(“I’ll live alone”)