Things you were shockingly old when you learned

Lewis of the Beet Farms
John Golden Mouthed Wolf Path Friend of God Boggy
Francis Cobbler
John Broom
Peter Son of Elijah from Lapwing
Joseph Anthony Bridge Toll Collector

When you become a French citizen, you can even request that your name be 'francisé'.

This sounds like when you meet someone named 茉莉花, pronounced "Kimberly".

contact!

in the US, my other half had this conversation more than once - not his name but an equivalent example:

him: "hi, I'm Steven"
new acquaintance "oh, do you pronounce it 'Stefan'?"
him: "... no..?"

lmao

Lewis of the Beet Farms

Richard George Bouquet (or Richard George Ostrich if you prefer), John Henry Table-Leg

I do appreciate the French pronunciation of Greek names like Antigone in a completely French way (e.g.), though I admit English pronunciation of classical names and particularly scientific binomial names often follows a weird logic that is neither English nor Latin/Greek

and let's gloss over the old British boarding school pronunciation of Don Quixote, Don Juan as if they were just some English words - see University Challenge thread every time the presenter says either of these. (Quicksoat! This is thankfully p unusual these days, don't know why the presenter hasn't been told to knock it off by the BBC's pronunciation dept)

What I meant to say is that English people are statistically likelier to know something about how Irish names are pronounced due to centuries of contact

nah

No francophone ever pronounces it 'Don Huann', it's always 'Don Zhyou-an', like this. And Quixote sounds like Kishot.

Speaking of classical names, the bastardized English pronunciation is often closer to the original than its French variant. All I'm saying is that English (I'm anthropomorphizing here) is at least vaguely aware of the possibility that its pronunciations might be wrong, whereas French generally doesn't give a fuck.

Man, you guys are really taking self-flagellation (or flagellation, depending) to the next level. I'm just saying that it's not as bad as it could be, not that it's all a-OK.

oh the French are a terrible bunch of lads too. No argument there

(xp) None of the people having a go at the English are English btw. Apart from calzino and he has a bit of the Irish in there anyway.

Fair enough. Fire away, then!

xp I think it's fair to say that English people including myself have trouble even with Anglicised spellings of Irish names, and if you put them in front of the Irish spelling then terror, confusion or disdain will result - perhaps all three at once

my general approach to Irish spellings of Irish names, which you don't see v often in GB but still, is to rack my brains for an anglicised name with the same first letter and some of the same consonants in the middle, which is bad, but maybe still slightly less bad than the average English person's reaction

(yes I would like to get better at this - I actually attempted Irish on Duolingo and a Futurelearn Irish 101 course recently but my conclusion after week 1 was that it's bloody difficult and, alas, probably going back in the "so not gonna happen" compartment of my brain)

contact!

tbf contact is also why we know how to say bungalow

ref to mic "can we review the period from 1603-1994 please, im looking for any contact that may have influenced pronunciation"

video ref "yes i can confirm, you can give the penalty"

Anyway, being Romanian I have an innately superior sense of how to pronounce Irish names due to my non-Englishness, much like my Bulgarian and Hungarian neighbours. I’m sure my distant cousins, the Tatars and Malaysians can say the same.

its committal to the throaty vulgarity, im sure you do grand

Bloody contact makes for more mingling than no contact at all. But the phonemes!

Same reason I’m likelier to pronounce csárdás and kürtőskalács correctly.

Reminds me, there's a Scottish guy who comes into the Library who always exaggeratedly pronounces his name as McCulloCCCCCHHHHHH. I'm like, "Yeah, we get the message, mate".

sure it could be a local thing, theres five ways to say gallagher on the island and by chrisht youd better be clear about which one youre claimin

golloher
gallaher
gallager
galacher
gollocher

seein as u asked

gallacher otoh is scotch afaict

How would you say it in Dublin?

second one seems the norm

how do you say Mahoney tho

I used to know someone called Pádraig and he pronounced it something like Porrick. So when I heard other English people pronounce other Pádraigs as Padraig or Podraig I was like "ha ha you n00bs" but then it turned out some Pádraigs do pronounce it that way. Simliar thing with Catriona/Katrina.

yeah look you have to listen or ask sorry bout that

tho i do think p Harrington is just pauric

The only Padraig I've ever met was a Podrig. I'm not claiming to be much better than your average English but I did once get complimented by a Cathal for a decent effort at getting his name right (something like Cohul iirc).

my general approach to Irish spellings of Irish names, which you don't see v often in GB but still, is to rack my brains for an anglicised name with the same first letter and some of the same consonants in the middle, which is bad

tbh this is my usual approach, which sometimes works but often it's not quite the same (e.g. Padraig) and more often I just guess the wrong Anglicised name - e.g. Aoileann is not the Irish spelling of Eileen, they are 2 different names.

and tbf an awful lot of them are just made up, like that last one

all names are made up deems, the only issue -- and not much of one until you meet the wrong person -- is when

díms

tÿmß

every pronunciation is a pose, or an assertion of inclusion, exclusion, or of ~knowing~. because that's the information behind, and above, mere fact.

My given name is Padraic. I got tired of explaining it and had it changed.

Will still answer to Paddy, particularly among family, but generally it was just a hassle.

for some reason I was under the impression that Vladimir Nabokov was gay, when in fact he was kind of homophobic and had a gay brother

Yes and it's kind of horrifying if you juxtapose the somewhat glib homophobia in e.g. Pale Fire with the tragic circumstances of Sergei's death in a concentration camp.

The best I can say is, one can add it to a long (and growing) list of instances where one might admire some specific works of art while finding the artists problematic (or worse).

That the plural of “opus” is “opera” wtf

whoa

(it's opuses)

Opera is the Latin plural

wonder how a single unit of works becomes a plural.
So adding an extra s on the end of a group of work by a single composer and going operas is making a plural out of a plural? & therefore somewhat graphemetically tautological? gorlumme

Most names of pasta are in a similar situation: spaghetti is little strings; spaghettis would be little stringses.

"Agenda" is also originally plural.

hippopotamuses s/d hippopotamodes

Double plurals exist in English "the peoples of the world"

Octopuses, octopodes; clitorises, clitorides.

This is partly why I generally favor pluralizing loanwords using the conventions of English, rather than trying to replicate the pluralizing strategy of the source language. I cringe a little when I hear someone saying "these memoranda" or "syllabi: or "matrices."

Or data

Who the fuck says “spaghettis” tho

children and ppl pretending to talk like children