The General Motors plants in my town* recruited with billboards in places like Livingston, KY and Talladega, AL. So, when I was in elementary school, some of the kids said “pen” as “pin” or even “pee-yun.” To make the distinction, a pointy thing was a pin, but a write-y thing was an “ink-pin.”
Today, some real-estate pros are called Realtors (a registered trademark). They make a thing about saying “RE-ul-tur,” but some people, even announcers paid to do their ads, say “RE-luh-tur.” It probably annoys the Realtors.
Names are a sensitive subject, so I hope nobody’s feelings get hurt when I mention my strong urge to tell people the “correct” way to pronounce their own name. I only ever read the news, so when I happen to hear a famous person’s name pronounced, I am sometimes surprised and rebellious.
I will never get over the fact that Buttigieg is booty-judge rather than butty-gig. If you were unlucky enough to be saddled with a funny name, but with a readily available less-funny pronunciation, why would you choose the most ridiculous option?
I decided to post about it because I’ve just learned that Joss Whedon is not pronounced wedd’n, but weed-on.
If you have a strong urge to correct people on the pronunciation of their name, you would know better than most if they consider that sensitive. I don’t follow celebrity culture very closely. FWIW I also thought it was weddin’. I wouldn’t have even tried guessing Politician Pete’s.
Her: to segu into another topic-
Me: Hey, that’s actually pronounced segway. I’m only telling you this before you say it at work and someone pokes fun. I mean, from what you’ve told me about your coworkers-
Her: Shannon, segway is that stupid 2 wheeled thing people ride on.
Me: yes, which is named after the phonetic spelling of segue…
Her: Oh!!!
I too was a child who thought that people were mizzled until perhaps age 11 or 12.
And I was a young adult before I put together the spellings and pronunciations of genre and [double] entendre. French, man, I don’t get why they can’t spell things like they’re said.
To me it has always been sluff, at least in the biological meaning of the word.
I know of a child named Jonathan. His mother hits the roof when someone pronounces her child’s name in the traditional way. She will respond with anger in her voice: “It’s joe-NAY-than!”
Whoops, see how insidious it is? I still can’t keep track of what the right way to say it is.
I think I originally read it as “DEH-buh-kul”, only later to learn it was “deh-BAH-kul”. Only today to learn that just about any way you can imagine to say it is listed in Merriam-Webster.
My dad would ridicule people who pronounced words incorrectly. But I always saw it as this is a person who is reading above the level of their peer group. They know the written word. They know the meaning, but they have never heard it said so they are taking a best guess at how to say it.
It’s a mistake, but I think it demonstrates that the person is an achiever.
“Avoirdupois” If you’re familiar with French, you’ll want to pronounce it somewhat like “ah-vwar-dyoo-pwah.” But in English, it’s really just “a-ver-duh-poiz.”
Not me personally, but I’ve heard people insist that Quixotic is correctly pronounced key-ho-tic. Yes, the character’s name was pronounced Don Key-ho-tay, but standard English Quixotic is quick-zot-ic.
I was about to make a joke about “I wouldn’t want to share a foke-s’l with him” but then I realized that both a forecastle and a foxhole are pretty tight spaces that could be shared by two people.
There are many, many persons people have not heard, or cannot hear, pronounce their own names. Van Gogh. Don Quixote. Alexandre Dumas. Alexander Mackenzie. Confucius. Caesar. So no surprise if many get it wrong (or merely “wrong”).