# Who decides “proper” pronunciation? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 2, 2025, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111 "2025-06-02T18:12:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/161 "2025-06-04T02:25:04Z")
My favorite Violet jibe. I maybe mistaken but I remember from something she may have adlibbed that bit. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/162 "2025-06-04T02:28:36Z")
You know about _I could/couldn’t care less_. I really could “care” less. This is so old it’s crusty. Who cares? (Well, me…as in less) ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/163 "2025-06-04T13:42:39Z")
Assuming the character (and not the actor) was serious in saying that, I think the idea is that this is a person who has never worked a day in her life so the idea of a workweek (as opposed to a weekend) is unfamiliar to her. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/164 "2025-06-04T17:50:34Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Obviously Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks fluent German. Does he? In addition to his native Austrian? ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/165 "2025-06-04T18:05:02Z")
Is this a joke? Am I whooshed? Of course he has an Austrian accent when he speaks German, just like he has when he speaks English, but of course he is fluent in German, it’s his mother tongue, and his accent isn’t even very strong. Every German speaking person will understand him. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/166 "2025-06-04T18:24:42Z")
What about Falco? His accent seemed super strong in his songs to this non-native German barely-speaker. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/167 "2025-06-04T18:28:06Z")
Falco had the typical Viennese accent, but was not hard to understand for German speakers of other countries/regions. Austria has regional dialects that are undecipherable for me as a (Northern) German, but Viennese is not one of them. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/168 "2025-06-04T19:35:03Z")
I just searched using Google and there are German speakers who say that they can tell that the German that Schwarzenegger speaks has a distinct Austrian accent. Then I wondered if Adolf Hitler spoke German with a distinct Austrian accent. You do know that Hitler was born in Austria, don’t you? It was part of Austria-Hungary at the time. i just searched using Google and Hitler did speack with a distinct Austrian accent, ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/169 "2025-06-04T19:39:35Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > i just searched using Google and Hitler did speack with a distinct Austrian accent, No, he didn’t speak with a very strong Austrian accent. He might as well have come from a South German region, this is what his accent gave away, especially the rolled ‘R’, but he spoke perfect High German (in a grammatical sense of course, _what_ he said was always garbage). ---
**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:** [June 4, 2025, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/170 "2025-06-04T19:43:50Z")
Arnold’s voice was supposedly dubbed in German releases of “The Terminator” because to a German speaker, it sounded like a country bumpkin, and you couldn’t have a relentless predator sounding like that. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/171 "2025-06-04T19:44:27Z")
Weekend in that sense was an [Americanism](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/590323/why-is-weekend-so-called-in-the-u-s-when-it-is-not-the-end-of-the-week-by-the), just beginning to be spread outside the country in the early 20th century. > Now, weekend as we now know it, is a U.S. invention. The practice of organising employment in a way that provides for most people not working on both Saturday and Sunday first appeared in the U.S. in early twentieth century, became common in that country in the decades that followed, and then spread to most of the world after the Second World War. The six-day week was the standard throughout the 19th century in both America and Britain, although some firms allowed for a half-day off on Saturday. Early uses of weekend did appear in the UK, but referred to the period from Saturday noon to Monday morning. By the 20th century, some office workers and professionals started working just Monday-Friday. The landed aristocracy played little attention to workweeks as such. Running a estate and a farm is a seven-day-a-week operation. It was, of course, Maggie Smith, the Dowager Countess, loudly sneering at every change from the 19th century, who asked the question of Matthew, the parvenu lawyer who actually worked for a living in this new world, presumably only five days a week. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/172 "2025-06-04T19:48:57Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > a very strong Austrian accent It wasn’t a very strong Austrian accent, but it was an Austrian accent. The articles I found said that he could speak with a High German accent when he was in a formal situation. They say though that when he was in a less formal situation, he would speak in something closer to his original accent. They say that you could tell that he would sound like someone from a region that spread from present-day Austria to Bavaria. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/173 "2025-06-04T19:59:05Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > They say though that when he was in a less formal situation, he would speak in something closer to his original accent. They say that you could tell that he would sound like someone from a region that spread from present-day Austria to Bavaria. Yes, that’s possible, but since we have few (if any?) recordings of his private conversations, I’m going from what I heard in his speeches. And that’s like you said, a slight, vague South German/Austrian accent. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/174 "2025-06-04T20:30:40Z")
Why would they pay a high-priced actor like Arnold to dub his lines when they could get a cheaper German voice actor to do it? The only reason we hear people like Clint Eastwood speaking his own English lines in Italian films is because (unlike Arnold) they were unable to deliver their lines in any language but their native tongue (Italian actors dubbed his lines for domestic distribution). ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/175 "2025-06-04T20:35:33Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Once again, when Schwarzenegger speaks German he has a very hillbilly accent Austrian. > [@wolfpup](#): > > …, while good, constructive prescriptivism is more of an art that strives to promote order, consistency, and, yes, even elegance in the use of language. The issue is- it doesnt do any of those things- it (for example) tries to modify English to fit Latin for example- being as “every educated person learned latin in school!” 🙄 > [@wolfpup](#): > > Finally, I will note that linguists like Pinker, Liberman, and Pullum who write “sneeringly” about prescriptivism are generally writing about an outmoded version of it, not what I refer to as the modern constructive kind. Sure, there could be more modern prescriptivism. But- and this is the point about it- it wont stay modern. > [@wolfpup](#): > > I would also note that their sneering is done with impeccable grammatical correctness. According to their outmoded rules. > [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > Am I whooshed? Of course he has an Austrian accent when he speaks German, just like he has when he speaks English, but of course he is fluent in German, it’s his mother tongue, and his accent isn’t even very strong. He speaks Austrian, a dialect of German- which are mutually understandable, especially in printed form. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/176 "2025-06-04T20:38:27Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > He speaks Austrian, a dialect of German But, like almost all Austrians, he also speaks High German. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/177 "2025-06-04T20:50:47Z")
And there is no single “Austrian” dialect, there are numerous changing with the region. Some Austrian dialects are similar to Bavarian (and there are different Bavarian dialects), some to Swiss German, and some genuine for the region. The people in Vienna talk nothing like the people in Carinthia, for instance. ETA: I googled and Schwarzenegger was born in the Steiermark. They have their own dialect. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2025, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/178 "2025-06-04T21:09:36Z")
[This YouTuber](https://youtu.be/tenkDWUfo58?t=313) claims that Hitler studied a particular speech technique called Bühnendeutsch (stage German) that had been invented by German linguists and actors in order to be better understood when speaking in front of large crowds. This accounts for things like his rolled R. She shows examples from his speeches illustrating the various vocal techniques, and also includes a recording of Hitler speaking in a casual setting, in which his voice is rather different. That link should be keyed up to the place where she starts talking particularly about Hitler’s vocal technique, and also skips over the annoying ad for a language learning software. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2025, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/179 "2025-06-05T00:02:59Z")
Yes. That’s (as I recall) a pronunciation shift that occurs when an adjective turns into a noun. As an adjective, the stress is on the second syllable, but as a noun, it’s on the first: a susPECT person is abbreviated as a susPECT, but because it’s now being used as a noun the stress shifts to SUSpect. Apparently in 1960s TV you hear prople talk about chiNESE food, but now folks go out for CHInese. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2025, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111/180 "2025-06-05T02:29:59Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > This guy? I’m catching up on this thread, but as a Pixies fan, I also love a lot of Frank’s solo work including this album. I have to say that of all his work, _Teenage of the Year_ is the ultimate (that might also include his Pixies albums…I might need to think more on this). Good god is that a great album! Nothing to contribute about how Ahnold speaks beyond awesome. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-proper-pronunciation/1019111.md?page=10)