Pronunciation watch

[amateur51]

I think an Aussie "G'day" is a fair approximation.

Would that be fair dinkum?

[french frank]

Kodaly spoken by three natives here. Each puts the family name first - Kodály Zoltán.

I suppose if that was what was written on the card ...? But it is the usual Hungarian custom, and I theenk they tend to repeat both names more often, where we would just use the family name. But not exclusively so: http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kod%C3%A1ly_Zolt%C3%A1n

'Későbbi kórusaiban Kodály újból a magyar költészethez fordult'

'A harmincas években a nagyzenekari alkotások mellett Kodály álma is valóra válhatott:'

'Kodály úgy döntött, hogy ezentúl gyermekkarok számára komponál műveket.'

No, I haven't a clue (well, one or two, like magyar and nagy)

[Roslynmuse]

Dangers of lazy pronunciation:

The old tale of the music shop order of "Could I But Express In Song". Week after week, the customer fruitlessly rang in to be told no, it come in yet. Finally he stormed into the shop to see why his music hadn't arrived and found in the order book, marked 'cannot be traced'...

... Kodály: Buttocks Pressing Song

[LeMartinPecheur]

Dangers of lazy pronunciation:

The old tale of the music shop order of "Could I But Express In Song". Week after week, the customer fruitlessly rang in to be told no, it come in yet. Finally he stormed into the shop to see why his music hadn't arrived and found in the order book, marked 'cannot be traced'...

... Kodály: Buttocks Pressing Song

I recall a similar story about an order for the score of the Verdi Requiem which proved equally untraceable sub nom 'VAD Wreck Whim'.

[Radio64]

Heard that woman on Free Thinking last night pronouncing "library" the American way, emphasising the 'a' vowel sound. She did it several times.

Très annoying.

[Nick Armstrong]

Got an hour spare, a French person (for example) in the building, and feel like a laugh?

Simple! Give them this poem, and ask them to read it out loud...



Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

[Richard Tarleton]

Lovely, Cali. I was due to see the Spanish girl who chairs our little tertulia very shortly so will give her this and report back!

[Nick Armstrong]

Lovely, Cali. I was due to see the Spanish girl who chairs our little tertulia very shortly so will give her this and report back!

Tertulia, eh? Get you!

PS: love the way you play it down... just a little one...

Time to get that Castillian lithp ready for action!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh ........

......Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Utterly brilliant. It's amazing that anyone can speak the language.

[mangerton]

Thanks, Cali. That has brightened up my day at work.

[jean]

Teresa May this morning was quoted defending her decision to appoint Elizabeth Butler-Sloss this morning on R4 - someone (Keith Vaz?) kept referring to Butler-Schloss as though she were a German castle.

Eventually May gave in and came up with Butler-Slosh.

[Bryn]

Anyone here know why Joseph William Alexander Sloss (later to become the spouse of Ann Elizabeth Oldfield Havers) chose to add the Butler to his surname by deed poll?

[Bryn]

n... Eventually May gave in and came up with Butler-Slosh.

Which she immediately corrected, and yes, is was Vaz.

[mercia]

someone (Keith Vaz?) kept referring to Butler-Schloss as though she were a German castle.

indeed it was he - and I didn't really care for the way he sneered at Nigel as a 'sit-com actor'

[Pabmusic]

Teresa May this morning was quoted defending her decision to appoint Elizabeth Butler-Sloss this morning on R4 - someone (Keith Vaz?) kept referring to Butler-Schloss as though she were a German castle.

Eventually May gave in and came up with Butler-Slosh.

This is something that has always irked me. Getting people's names right is not difficult, yet I have known mispronunciations used (in prisons, by staff) to wind prisoners up. If they then 'kick off' they can only complain that an officer called them by the wrong name. It used to make my blood boil and it still does.