# Famous names you mispronounced for the longest time **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 5, 2016, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973 "2016-03-05T02:34:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/161 "2016-03-12T14:17:04Z")
In case I wasn’t clear: Once they are clear about which English sounds are meant to be conveyed, every English speaker will pronounce “AIR-uh” and “EH-ruh” exactly the same. (There may be differences among speakers about how to pronounce this, but no one will distinguish the first from the second). So, there is NO POINT in quibbling about syllable division locations when conveying information to an English speaker. It’s as irrelevant as pointing out, say, that Aragon was a kingdom on the Iberian peninsula. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/162 "2016-03-12T14:41:46Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > In case I wasn’t clear: Once they are clear about which English sounds are meant to be conveyed, every English speaker will pronounce “AIR-uh” and “EH-ruh” exactly the same. (There may be differences among speakers about how to pronounce this, but no one will distinguish the first from the second). I’m confused as to what you are saying here. AIR-uh and EH-ruh are unambiguously two different pronunciations, and I even come from a dialect area where we have the Mary/marry/merry merger. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/163 "2016-03-12T14:51:21Z")
I’m just talking about the syllable division – put the dash before or after the “r”? _That’s_ what doesn’t matter (for the current purpose). As I tried to convey, I assume the _sounds_ are pronounced the same in the two options I gave there. But what you wrote is EXACTLY the point – some combinations of letters convey an intended pronunciation to English speakers better (less ambiguously) than others. That’s why I went with “AIR,” Spanish syllable division pedantics be damned. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/164 "2016-03-12T15:37:03Z")
“Air” produces an R-colored vowel in English, which “a-ra” does not. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/165 "2016-03-12T15:39:32Z")
As for “forcing” people to learn IPA. — this is a board for fighting ignorance. Any pronunciation discussion that avoids IPA fails to fight ignorance because ad hoc phonetic renderings are always ambiguous. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/166 "2016-03-12T15:48:34Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > And Spanish vowels are pretty simple. You don’t need extra help to know how they’re pronounced. Spanish vowels are simple to people that speak Spanish. But not everyone does. An English speaker seeing the NES in a-ra-go-NES is going to be wondering if it rhymes with mess. In reality, I believe it rhymes with mace and that long a sound is what JKellyMap was trying to express. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/167 "2016-03-12T15:50:17Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > As for “forcing” people to learn IPA. — this is a board for fighting ignorance. Any pronunciation discussion that avoids IPA fails to fight ignorance because ad hoc phonetic renderings are always ambiguous. Ignorance is fought by telling people something they don’t know. Not by telling them they should already know the answer. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/168 "2016-03-12T16:01:45Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Ignorance is fought by telling people something they don’t know. Not by telling them they should already know the answer. Every discussion in pronunciation on these forums is filled with repetition, misunderstanding, redundancy, and crossed messages because for some reason a significant percentage of posters have decided that it’s some kind of unreasonable imposition to learn IPA so that you can have an unambiguous conversation. I’m no linguist. I learned it on my own in about an hour before there was an Internet and without any specialized expertise because I wanted to understand written discussions about pronunciation. There are few example ms so clear when a minimal amount of effort can be a key to clearing through a proportionately large amount of ignorance. And regarding this situation of Sergio Aragones’s name. If all you are interested in is talking about how to pronounce his name in English while speaking English with English speakers, then how Aragones himself pronounced it is irrelevant because he is a Spanish-speaker pronouncing it in Spanish for other Spanish speakers. If his pronunciation is relevant to the discussion, then Spanish pronunciation is relevant. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/169 "2016-03-12T16:40:49Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Spanish vowels are simple to people that speak Spanish. But not everyone does. An English speaker seeing the NES in a-ra-go-NES is going to be wondering if it rhymes with mess. In reality, I believe it rhymes with mace and that long a sound is what JKellyMap was trying to express. It’s actually (in my opinion) closer to the “e” in “mess” than the “a” in “mace.” ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/170 "2016-03-12T17:03:29Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > It’s actually (in my opinion) closer to the “e” in “mess” than the “a” in “mace.” mess [mɛs] mace [meɪs] Neither is the [e] that Aragones uses to pronounce his own name. Neither one is more correct for English speakers. Use either one. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/171 "2016-03-12T20:26:34Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > It’s actually (in my opinion) closer to the “e” in “mess” than the “a” in “mace.” I think of it as right in between, so either will do (for English speakers doing their best to approximate.) ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/172 "2016-03-12T20:33:48Z")
Acsenray, you’re imposing TWO unnecessary efforts: learning IPA, and learning foreign sounds. It’s fine to alert others to these activities should they want to take things to a deeper level of Spanish speaking, but that’s not the immediate goal of most readers of this thread. They just want to know how to say “Aragones” when mentioning the Mad Magazine artist! That’s all! Sheesh. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/173 "2016-03-12T20:38:36Z")
…Indeed, the Doper who brought up this artist wasn’t asking about pronunciation of sounds, but just about secondary syllabic stress. And that’s all I was conveying in my reply. No one ever questioned the sounds, nor was there ever any reason to. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/174 "2016-03-12T20:40:02Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > mess [mɛs] > mace [meɪs] > > Neither is the [e] that Aragones uses to pronounce his own name. Neither one is more correct for English speakers. Use either one. Yeah, like I said – to me – the pure vowel /ɛ/ sounds closer than the diphthong /eɪ/, but an argument can be made for either, as both are half right or half wrong however you want to think of it. ---
**Author:** ![Cugel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cugel/32/1199_2.png) [@Cugel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cugel)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/175 "2016-03-14T05:03:13Z")
Judging by American television, a lot of you are mispronouncing Elle Macpherson. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/176 "2016-03-14T06:25:53Z")
> [@Cugel](#): > > Judging by American television, a lot of you are mispronouncing Elle Macpherson. IT would be nice for you to indicate how it is mispronounced. Americans often pronounce it as if it were spelled MacPearson. She says it’s pronounced mick-FUR-sun. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/177 "2016-03-14T06:33:16Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Every discussion in pronunciation on these forums is filled with repetition, misunderstanding, redundancy, and crossed messages because for some reason a significant percentage of posters have decided that it’s some kind of unreasonable imposition to learn IPA so that you can have an unambiguous conversation. I’m no linguist. Which shows, because IPA isn’t unambiguous. Especially when used by people who may not even make some of the sounds in their dialect, and haven’t studied the concept. And it’s not at all strange that the majority of people don’t think you should have to go spend an hour to be able to read a post. They realize their post will just be skipped over if people can’t figure it out at first reading. And then there are the people who use devices that can’t read IPA, and just get a square or question mark. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/178 "2016-03-14T06:44:00Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > “Air” is hardly unambiguous. I can think of three common ways to pronounce it in American English. (And it’s not a phoneme, although it is an attempt to identify a phoneme.) If unambiguous is what you’re looking, for then you should be using IPA. > > [a ra go 'nes] > > (Of course Spanish vowels are so straightforward you don’t even need to use the special IPA character set for them.) Well, if you do, it happens to be the same as the letter 😃 (got yelled about that in these same boards, “putting things in / doesn’t make it IPA”). > [@Acsenray](#): > > mess [mɛs] > mace [meɪs] > > Neither is the [e] that Aragones uses to pronounce his own name. Neither one is more correct for English speakers. Use either one. The first one, please: “it’s not a dipthoooooong!” so it’s more similar to Spanish-speaking ears. > [@JKellyMap](#): > > Acsenray, you’re imposing TWO unnecessary efforts: learning IPA, and learning foreign sounds. It’s fine to alert others to these activities should they want to take things to a deeper level of Spanish speaking, but that’s not the immediate goal of most readers of this thread. They just want to know how to say “Aragones” when mentioning the Mad Magazine artist! That’s all! Sheesh. And our suggestion is that they may want to try not saying it “éi réi gaounís” (in Spanish phonics). ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/179 "2016-03-14T13:41:51Z")
Okay, that’s a good plan – for lesson 2. We don’t all need to be like Claudio Sánchez! 🙂 (He is an NPR host who conspicuously pronounces his name as in Spanish, while most of his colleagues use Anglicized sounds when pronouncing their foreign names). ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973/180 "2016-03-14T14:17:22Z")
Fred MacMurray pronounced his own name with a fully pronounced and stressed ‘Mac,’ so it was like ‘MAC MUR-y.’ I (and probably a lot people) mostly swallow that first vowel or pronounce it somewhat like ‘mic-MUR-y’’ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-names-you-mispronounced-for-the-longest-time/747973.md?page=10)