[Closed] Words you don't know how to pronounce

Seriously who would buy a washing machine from Currys

Is it because it's cheap having been soiled goods

Louis, as the Americans use it. As in Louis Armstrong, St Louis, Joe Louis. They seem to change between Loo-ee and Lewis and I can never tell which one to use.

Maryland is pronounced Murryln

Router can be pronounced Router or Router.

Onomatopoeia never sounds like it should

Tchotchke.

To be fair, it's not English

Baccaruda always a hard one

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4dBjjGeAWA

Westminster is one that confuses my brain.
I hear it pronounced... west-minister parliament. So I don’t know if it’s me hearing it wrong or if it’s the news readers who pronounce it wrong.

Deuter I have always said as ‘Doy-ter’ and Topeak as ‘Top Peak’, but I have noticed on GCN that they pronounce the latter as ‘Taw-Peak’ with emphasis on second syllable.

I’ve always pronounced them Toe-Peak, and Dew-Ter.

Doy-ter is right, Dew-ter / Jew-ter is wrong.

I've always pronounced Topeak more like t'peak (ie like t'pau with a different ending)

Another German backpack and outdoor brand that I would expect most people get wrong is Vaude. It's certainly not Vowed or Vode, Some might claim it's Fau-de as one word and others might claim it's Fau Deh as 2 words (ie the german for the initials V D ).  I would probably tend towards the latter.

Place names are the best come forward West Lothian
Pumpherston known locally as Pumfie
Uphall somebody once asked for directions to U-fall.

Then you have the Fifers
Anstruther pronounced Ainster
Kilconquhar pronounced K-nucker

Trouble with brands is that you can never know unless you know the person it's named after, were there when they came up with it or heard the originator say it
After that, can you say it out loud in the UK without sounding like an arse? (Moet & Chandon, Schwalbe, Volkswagen, Paris, etc)

Doy-ter is right, Dew-ter / Jew-ter is wrong.

do you KNOW that ? It's clearly how a German would say it but, say it's an American brand it may have drifted and the "owner" (I assume it's someone's name) might now be Dooter, Doyter, Dewter

Another German backpack and outdoor brand that I would expect most people get wrong is Vaude

Same again for me - how do we know what's correct ? What if the originator was French ?

Another brand everyone who comes into my shop gets wrong........Thule

Tip - it rhymes with a girls name not another word for xmas.

And ‘chutzpah’ as chutzpah

Wait, it isn’t?

the ‘c’ is silent

Actually, that rings a bell now you come to mention it. It's not quite silent is it, it's like the start of jalapeno?

The strangest one (and only used by pretentious journalists) is "quixotic". Given that it is derived from Don Quixote (kee-ho-tay), I always assumed that it would also be pronounced in the Spanish way. But no, it's actuallly "kwik-sotik". Odd.

Two more whiskey names often mispronounced are Caol Isla (even locals say it slightly differently) Cwool eela or cool eye la and Glenmorangie is glen morangie NOT glenmor angie.

Actually, that rings a bell now you come to mention it. It’s not quite silent is it, it’s like the start of jalapeno?

it’s Yiddish - so you don’t say the ‘c’ but if you put enough chutzpah into saying chutzpah then the c is easy to imagine. 🙂

it’s almost like you’re preparing your mouth to say the letter c - but then skipping over it and going straight to the h

Is morangie pronounced with a 'j' sound, or a hard 'g' sound?

NOT glenmor angie.

who hasn’t had Glenmore Angie though

Holburn.

I do know. But sometimes say it sounding the 'L' to avoid giving the impression I'm correcting anyone (on the basis who gives a shit anyway?)

Pilates - must always rhyme with pirates. As in pi rah tees of the carry bean.

Similarly Spud-U-Like - spud you lick kay - not much used these days but still.

Thoroughfare - why's it not throughfare?

as my extremely thick Lanarkshire accent consists almost entirely of glottal stops and profanity

Do you not come from a town called 'letmahairgrow'?

Anyway, 'Leffe' seems to be pronounced leff-ay in lots of places other than Belgium.

Slaithwaite in West Yorkshire is pronounced "Slowett" with "slow" rhyming with "cow".

Chop Gate in the NYM is pronounced "Chop Yat"

Rhymes with Macaroni

Ribald. Turns out my wife was right. It's wrong though.

Staithes on the coast north of Whitby is pronounced "steers". Albeit mainly by incomers who've read that's how you pronounce it. Plenty of locals say "stay ths). Possibly related is that it's bang on the boundary where a north yorkshire accent meets one that's distinctively north eastern.

Is morangie pronounced with a ‘j’ sound, or a hard ‘g’ sound?

MORAN-jie.

Caol Isla

Cal-EEL-ah.

A small village near by gets me- Oughterside, it's pronounced outer-side but I struggle to lose the g.

One that had me was another local village- Torpenhow. But that got me the other way, I knew how to pronounce "Tra-pen-ha" it but didn't know what it looked like written down so struggled to find it!

A friend asked me where Ha-wick was once too, wouldn't have it that it was Hoick.

Place name from ‘round here: Leominster

It’s “Lem-Ster” not Leo-Minster

At work I was casually taking the piss out of a local who was pronouncing Coleford as “CoFerd”, by saying “CoFerd” as much as possible.

Annoyed he replied “It’s not CoFerd, it’s Coferd!”

He still can’t hear the difference to this day.

Data is it day ta or da ta? Are you a posh Douglas if your Duggy or commoner if your a Doogie

Data is it day ta or da ta?

I'm with Captain Picard on this.

Chop Gate, anyone?

Pneumatic

It took me a while to find out the P was silent.

Place names.... Chichester, the rest of the country pronounces it Chich-ester.

Up here, in South Shields, an area of the town that goes by the same name/spelling, is pronounced Chy-chester

Also, further up the coast, Cambois.

Pronounced Cam-iss

Re whiskey pronunciation, Brian Cox goes through the best known ones on youtube.

Standard up here in Aberdeenshire:

Finzean – fing-ghen
Strachan – strawn
Bennachie – ben-a-hee
Peterculter – peter-coo-ter
Footdee – fit-ee

That’s only a start…

Garioch anyone? (Ghee ree)

Pah, that’s nothing, try:

Aberchirder - Foggieloan

And nearer to me Avoch - och

Milngavie

I grew up there, so I can explain that one. The village has an old (1800s) water mill down on the banks of the Allander Water. The mill was originally owned by Gavin. So the place was "Mill of Gavin".

Gavin gets shortened to "Guy". Hence the pronunciation became "Mill-Guy"

Easy metal heart. Looked to buy The Station in Avoch a while back but binned it as the owner was a total w....r.

Peterculter is always known, at least when I grew up, as 'cooter' which was enough to differentiate it from Maryculter across the river where Champers nightclub was..... showing my age now!

My word is inventory.

I always thought that it stood to reason that if you invent something, and placed it with your other inventions, then you add it to your inventory.

in-vin-tory just sounds weird to me. Even now.

Maryculter across the river where Champers nightclub was

Was it you I used to see there with the big hair and white stilettos?
🤔

I was brought up in Blair’s and Banchory-Devenick...

Hall ith Wood in Bolton, it’s pronounced Hol if wood
And
And Breightmet also in Bolton, it’s Brayt mit not bloody Bright met.

Definitely had big hair and white shoes 🤭 but no heels. We are talking 80's here and I wont mention the leather trousers........

Tyndrum.

It's not a percussive instrument made of metal!

Try this village near me on the outskirts of Northampton – Cogenhoe

Looks like Cog-En-Hoe but is pronounced Cook-Na

My word is inventory.

I always thought that it stood to reason that if you invent something, and placed it with your other inventions, then you add it to your inventory.

in-vin-tory just sounds weird to me. Even now.

You know those words that have different pronunciations depending on usage? Like an ADSL router vs a woodworking router perhaps (Americans aside).

If I was counting things in a store room, I'd be taking an INven-try.
If I were playing an adventure video game, I'd pull up my inVENT-ory.

If we're doing place names, I live near Barnoldswick. Pronounced "Barlick."

Tyndrum.

It’s not a percussive instrument made of metal!

I've no idea what that word is, I've never heard of it before, but that's how I'd have pronounced it from the spelling. Or I guess tine- like fork tines.

Coed-y-Brenin

Apparently it’s not the same as a mixed sex educational establishment.

Ask for the nice painted houses historic wee town start of the pilgrims way in Fife Culross you may get informed it's Cooooorus

'bensales

Coed-y-Brenin

Apparently it’s not the same as a mixed sex educational establishment.'

🙂

Penicuik, as in Pennycook like the chippy that's here.

Here's a few to get your lips around
Culross
Hawick
Cockburn
Kirkcudbright

Nigel Farage. Pronounced ****.

Hmmm. Actually using pronounced as an adjective there.

I like what you did there? 🤣

Also Moire.

Moiré. Moi-ray
It’s a word I learned how to pronounce pretty quickly when I started working in print and publishing, a moiré pattern occurs when a halftone screen on a photo gets a watered-silk sort of pattern if not made properly. Not so much an issue with digital images these days.

Anyone like to have a go at pronouncing the name of my middle son’s form teacher Miss NÍ LEATHLÓBHAIR ?

Anxiety.

I know how to say anxious, but not that.

Emissivity.
Wherr metals conduct away heat at different rates
I alawsys want to lemgthen it, too much for my timy brain to understand

Place name from ‘round here: Leominster

It’s “Lem-Ster” not Leo-Minster

it is actually pronounced “lemner”

When it comes to pronouncing Welsh words and place names, if my g/f is within hearing distance, she’s always ready to correct my pronunciations.
She went to school in Barmouth and learned Welsh to O-Level, and she’s been trying to teach me for going on three years.
Unsuccessfully.

Place name from ‘round here: Leominster

It’s “Lem-Ster” not Leo-Minster

it is actually pronounced “lemner".

Yes, but only by the "Lemner Cousins"

Im learning Danish right now so there's a whole heap of words I cannot pronounce. It's more that I can't physically make the right sounds than the lack of knowing how to pronounce them!

Moiré. Moi-ray

Mwah-ray, n'est-ce pas?

Shrewsbury. (Bin dun?)

Shrew or shrove?

Culross
Hawick
Cockburn
Kirkcudbright

Coorus
Hoik
Co-burn
Kirkoobree

Campagnolo seems to bother a few people.

Shrewsbury. (Bin dun?)

Shrew or shrove?

If you live there it’s’shoes’

Does anyone remember the whimsical troupe from the 90s; The Featherstonehewers and The Cholmondleys?

Fanshaws and Chumleys they were pronounced.

And some people still call it pronounciation.

If you live there it’s’shoes’

I know someone who's lived there all his life and pronounces it "Shrews". he is an old curmudgeon though, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if he does it just to be contrary

When asking for fags behind the counter is it can I have 20 Ber-ker-ley please or maybe how Harry Connick Jr and many others crooned A nightingale sang in "Barclay" Square ?

Southwick, the place just inland of Porchester.

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch*, on Anglesey.

* This might be a lie, or at least I think it might be.

Suv ic not South wick (just round the corner from me)

Llanfar PG is what my girlfriend at uni (who was from Amlwch) always called it.

Synecdoche, panacea

Synecdoche = sin-ECK-dick-ee

panacea = pan-I-see-ah

I live in Stourbridge, the river Stour flows through it, down the road is a place called Stourton

Now Stourbridge and And the Stour are pronounced as st-our but folk who think them posh pronounce Stourton as Store-ton or Stur-ton.

The name Stour does come from Stur, the Anglo Saxon Word for river (so it’s the River River) That would make it Sturbridge and the town where the Stur reaches the Severn Sturport-on-Severn

Anyways, I just struggle with Gaelic names

Anyways, I just struggle with Gaelic names

I have a mate named Aonghas

Dumbarton vs Dunbartonshire

The Leicester version of Belvoir

Mwah-ray, n’est-ce pas?

When a grid's misaligned with another behind that a moire.

Anyways, I just struggle with Gaelic names

I have a mate named Aonghas

I had a friend called Aoife and as a freelancer she had a constant anxiety that potential clients wouldn't call her  (even though in our trade directories she's one of the first on the list) either because they couldn't even guess at how to pronounce her name, or if they've been given a verbal recommendation they'd try to find her under 'E'.

The name Stour does come from Stur, the Anglo Saxon Word for river (so it’s the River River)

Up the road from me theres a farm called 'Hillhouse' because its on the side of a hill. However the hill is named after the nearest feature.... So it's called 'Hillhouse Hill'

When you ride out of Grizedale Forest down past Parkamoor you end up in Nib-th't (Nibthwaite)
Like Braithwaite near Winlatter is Br'th't.

When a grid’s misaligned with another behind that a moire.

Excellent.

Sorry

According to Sir Elton it seems to be the hardest word

I used to think "la coupe des vices" was a good name for a tennis touranment till I saw it written down as "la coupe Davis".

Some French favourites when pronounced by visitors: Leroy Merlin the DIY store, le Chemin de st Jacques, Leclerc (general or supermarket)... . Remarkably most people get Renault and Peugeot right or thereabouts.

Kilncadzow

The most bizarre of place name pronunciations Perchy. Utterly bizarre. 😂

I know someone who’s lived there all his life and pronounces it “Shrews”. he is an old curmudgeon though, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he does it just to be contrary

It all depends on which part of the town you live in I think. The well healed say 'Shrows' the chattering classes 'Shrews' and the chavs 'Shoes'