Things you were shockingly old when you learned

The best known Jose in the UK is Jose Mourinho and he’s a Joe-say aiui (Portuguese, innit).

Zho-zay

That is almost certainly what JiC heard yeah

Not that Brits are great on this in general, it just happens that mourinho is v famous here. The number of bonkers pronunciations of Jorge Luis Borges you hear - often getting the first name right but then inexplicably switching up so it’s bor-jizz or bor-ghez - and then try getting anyone to accept that the Jorge of Jorge Amado is not said the same way

(Pronunciation of words obv doesn’t matter but refusing to at least try to get names right is rude & kinda racist imo)

i have probably related this before but i had a film professor at university who pronounced jim jarmusch 'jim yarmusch'

all of us just nodded like 'yes, yes, of course, we knew that, that's totally normal and what we were expecting because we are smart'

Was English his first language?

Yumpin' Yiminy

the most pleasant way to learn how to pronounce Jorge in Portuguese is to listen to A História De Jorge by Jorge Ben

tbf to that professor, it is always funny to me that "Walter BenYamin" is for some reason the standard way to pronounce that name in academia

I should say "in American academia"

That’s correct tho no? (But it should be valter)

When I know how the name is supposed to be pronounced in the original language, I have a hard time anglicizing it even when the person was born in an English-speaking country and pronounces it 'wrongly' (not really). I catch myself saying 'Vayn-shtayn' and 'Ep-shtayn', for instance.

pom yes, he's American.

lol yeah, that's ludicrous.

Btw I'm somewhat ashamed of the fact that I do this.

it should be valter

yeah that was my point, like saying Mike Foo-coe...or Hore-hay Borcheese

Oh I see, yeah that is weird

If it's any comfort, I find anglophones are generally more careful and willing to learn than the French, who are often offended by the suggestion that a phonetic effort might be required.

I was in a restaurant in Prague once with a guy from LA called Chandler, he asked for Worcestershire sauce but came out with this bizarre mangled stream of consonants. I told him how it was pronounced and also that hey also did you know I am actually from Worcester and I used to walk past the factory every day on my way home from school. He was not impressed at all, in fact he was VERY offended to be corrected on the pronunciation of an English word and maintained that Woorshestershisheyre or w/e was a perfectly correct pronunciation.

lol what a dipshit.

Watching Stephen Bush and he's just pronounced albeit as ahl-be-it.

(Pronunciation of words obv doesn’t matter but refusing to at least try to get names right is rude & kinda racist imo)

Like English presenters pronouncing the 2020 Booker Prize winner as Shoogy Bain, for instance.

ooft

Sow crates

But that’s it, you don’t need to go to far-flung origins - even with idk colm tóibín or whoever there’s this sense of “oh it’s not worth bothering to learn Irish names”

Obviously there are sounds people will have trouble with like the guttural r (different ways of saying r in general) & I’m not saying everyone has to reproduce those but it’s clear when the attempt isn’t even being made or ppl just guess & im like you know you could just look this up? Or ask? Just v disrespectful

(We are way off shockingly old topic but we always are tbf)

Slight change of direction, Chris Bailey and Ed Kuepper of the Saints were both immigrants, Bailey from Northern Ireland and Kuepper from Germany.

So how do you pronounce the sauce that is Worcestershire?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worcestershire

Believe there is an Abbott and Costello sketch about that. Will let those who care to search for it

woos-ter-sher sauce, or usually just woos-ter sauce, the spelling might look complicated but the pronunciation is not.

route/rout is regional in the us

In my experience it's more urban/rural than regional.

Watching Stephen Bush and he's just pronounced albeit as ahl-be-it.

― Are Animated Dads Getting Hotter? (Tom D.), Saturday, May 15, 2021 11:42 AM (two hours ago)

wait what? https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/albeit

Was gonna say...

Ah, have we found another one? Do Americans say al-be-it and British (apart from Stephen Bush) say all-be-it?

https://cdns-images.dzcdn.net/images/cover/83232bc511a3466b0a2a841a717d8c8d/350x350.jpg

Aargh, I came to post that too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fckqglxb49s

Come on, the guy can't even spell night.

I have just found out that Worcestershire sauce is sold in a paper bag in the USA.

Almost forgot about that!

I am a US-er and don't think I've ever heard anyone say (you can call me) al-be-it. Not discounting the possibility, though, we love mispronouncing words.

Is all Worcestershire sauce sold in a paper bag, though? I thought that was just a Lea & Perkins thing. But maybe it's because we have an affinity for putting fermented things in bags here.

(Oh, there's one: only just discovered a couple years back that Worcestershire sauce is fermented.)

Perkins?

I think my albeit confusion stemmed from misinterpreting Tom's phonetic spelling of "ahl-be-it". That to me reads as awl-be-it not al-b.-it

this is why everyone should learn the phonetic alphabet

Yes, I had the same confusion

Perkins?

Wayne?

were you shockingly old when you learned the name of the worcestershire sauce company

So sorry: Leah & Perkings. Damn autocorrect.

I just heard another one! David Attenborough pronouncing “algae” Al Ghee as in:

What’s it all about
Algae