Comments on: Forvo, the pronunciation wiki

By: Mike O

Mike O — Thu, 01 May 2008 20:27:34 +0000

There’s a ver-SALES in Missouri (they say Muh-zur-ruh, down in the Ozarks). We also have Urn (sometimes “Arn”) County: the county seat is Urn’n. The area is locally renowned for its excellent float trips (canoing) on scenic waterways, including the Hoo-zaw and the Cord-away.

http://www.missouricanoe.org/river-maps/huzcourt.html

(Urn County is at the bottom of the map.)

By: JMike

JMike — Thu, 01 May 2008 19:37:55 +0000

I’m pretty sure there’s a ver-SAY-leez in Ohio, and there’s a town in Nebraska a little bit west of Offutt AFB (do I say ‘what used to be Offutt AFB’ or did the base survive SAC’s demise?) whose butterfly on the water tower doesn’t prevent the natives from calling it puh-PILL-yun.

By: Mike O

Mike O — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:08:52 +0000

Moreover, they’ve only got one pronunciation for “roof”! And, along St. Frank’s comment, how DO they stabilize submarines with Greek food?

By: Ned

Ned — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:07:37 +0000

I’ve always been puzzled by the English pronunciation of the appropriated French word “lingerie”. We give it an affected foreign sound, with the last syllable coming out like “ray”. This is not how we would pronounce it if it weren’t Frenchified, but neither is it how the French themselves say it. It seems more honest to anglophonically conquer and subdue it like the English did to French during the Napoleonic wars. Jacques became “Jay-queeze” and the good ship Deux Frères was the “Dukes Freers”.

By: Alan

Alan — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:28:26 +0000

I have a slight issue with this pronunciation site, though - which is that often words enter into a new language and take on a new pronunciation which is considered standard in that language -so that, for example, if you are speaking English and you say the word “genre”, wouldn’t it sound pretentious and jarring to use the pronunciation a French person world rather than something more like “john-ruh”?
And how “should” we say “adobe”? “aloha”? “yacht”?
How about Van Gogh? If I say “Van Go” am I saying it “wrong”?
Seems like the site does not make allowances for this…

By: St. Frank

St. Frank — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:29:54 +0000

This is the greatest! I haven’t been keeping up with Make Use Of..lazy me. I was keen to find the pronunciation of the Vietnamese soup Pho, which my friend from Viet Nam told me was clsoe to “fuh”, but I was emabarased when, in a Las Vegas restaurant, in an attempt to school my Mid Western co-worker, the waitress corrected my pronunciation to “foe”! I think she was Chinese, not Vietnamese, but boy did I feel like a clown.

Anyway, I can’t find it, but I did find some joker’s pronunciation of gyro to be spot on for an American tourist in Athens: http://www.forvo.com/word/gyro/

PS How come no one on the Sopranos pronounces Italian food like they on Forvo??

By: Forvo

Forvo — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:12:44 +0000

Great comments Ned, and funny post. Hope to hear you soon. :)