Wheel of Fortune THIS

[Scrufflet]

What an unexpectedly enjoyable thread! I worked with people from many different countries at a college where I assisted new Canadians. Iranians, Jamaicans, Polish, Chileans, etc. What a time they would have had with Pat and Vanna! My husband, a Scot, works with Chinese, Korean, Afghanis, Somalis, etc. How would they fare?
Bringing in figure skaters to this discussion, many years ago, Canada had a pairs team, Michelle Menzies and Jean Michel Bombardier. I was fine with his name but hers I pronounced Men-zees, as did the tv commentators. My husband snorted disapproval and told me that it was an old Scottish name, pronounces Ming-iss! He then corrected every CBC announcer afterwards.

[Tonichelle]

Jean Michel - Josee's hubby?

[Mathman]

Here’s a good phrase for Wheel of Fortune: Do you all want Worcestershire sauce on your chitterlings?

Do y’all want wuss-t’-shr sauce on your chitlins?

(Better: Want wuss-t’-shr sauce on y’all chitlins?)

And a friend of mine comes from Lima, Ohio. It was clearly named after Lima, Peru, pronounced Lee-ma, but in Ohio it's Lie-ma, long i sound.

That's where Glee takes place, right?

Here is what I know about Lie-ma Ohio. If you want to take the Amtrac from Washington DC to Detroit, you have two choices. Take the train from Washington to Chicago, then come back from Chicago to Detroit (adding about 600 miles to your trip).

Or -- get off at Lima, Ohio, and get home from there the best way you can.

If I'm not mistaken, Lima is not far from Russia, Ohio (pronounced Roo-sha) and Versailles, Ohio (pronounced Ver Sales).

[Olympia]

And there's Peru, which I think is in Indiana--that's PEE-roo.

And anyone from outside of Lou-eez-i-ana would instantly be disqualified from a Wheel set in the state, which everyone from there knows is called Looz-i-ana. And its main city is N'Awlins. You know; the one at the mouth of that big river.

[Tonichelle]

If I want to annoy people I say "sub-tle" instead of "suttle"

[CoyoteChris]

I personally enjoy the American three syllable prounounciation of coyote. I love them. They are all over my property eating mice...they sing to me...but I dont know what Pat would do with the word on WOF......or "Singin' in the Rain." I still wonder what WOF would do with Orangutan on the board and a player saying Orangutang. If there can be two acceptable prounounciaitons, the why did they steal 3800 bucks from that woman? I watched the show last night. There were three players and all had what I call neutral accents. Most of the advertisers were local ones. BTW, has anyone noticed that since the board went electronic many years ago, Vanna White doesnt really do anything?

^ Very cool! I just looked up "orangutan" and learned the following. (Of course you did, Mathman. ) It seems that Americans could not resist the temptation of pronouncing this exotic word so that the second part rhymes with the first. This became so prevalent that writers of dictionaries were first forced to list both pronunciations, then later to list "orangutang" as an alternate spelling.

People from Long Island say "Long Gisland." Wait, I don't mean that they pronounce the s, just that they put an extra G at the beginning of Island.

[Edited to add] By the way Chris, how do you pronounce Coyote? Here are four different ways, including the interesting British variation where the first syllable is pronounce "Coy" (of all things! ) instead of Ki.

http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?wor...&submit=Submit

[CoyoteChris]

Imagine the judges wacking a southerner for the way they would say "Four on the Floor". That would generate a bit of hatred. Vanna White would look good tared and feathered.

And there's Peru, which I think is in Indiana--that's PEE-roo.

And anyone from outside of Lou-eez-i-ana would instantly be disqualified from a Wheel set in the state, which everyone from there knows is called Looz-i-ana. And its main city is N'Awlins. You know; the one at the mouth of that big river.

[dorispulaski]

Can a person from Boston even be on the show? They should get no credit if a clue of Things had the answer Car Parts

(Pronounced cah pots in Boston)

Everyone knows about the correct pronounciation of Loozianna (thank you Popeye's Chicken)

But you still hear people mispronounce Oregon and St. Louis.

Locals pronounce Oregon with 2 syllables (Orgen) and St. Louis is St. Lewis.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...2200124AAZmrcq

And yet this video is on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtAPSR6KNT4

And Newton, CT is pronounced New Town.

[Scrufflet]

Jean Michel - Josee's hubby?

Yup, but he's an ex as far as I know.

[Scrufflet]

Imagine the judges wacking a southerner for the way they would say "Four on the Floor". That would generate a bit of hatred. Vanna White would look good tared and feathered.

How does a southerner say "Four on the Floor"?

[Scrufflet]

If I want to annoy people I say "sub-tle" instead of "suttle"

I like to say sub-tile.

[Olympia]

I like to say sub-tile.

I think that's how it was probably pronounced in Shakespeare's time. It's from French, I think, and they definitely pronounced the /b/. The Brits tended to swallow consonants over time. Remember how Beauchamps became "Beetcham" and Cholmondely became "Chumley"? Or how Ralph Fiennes' name is pronounced "Rafe Fynes"? Or how Worcestershire became "Woostersheer"? Most of us Americans and Canadians think we're speaking English but really, we couldn't possibly.

[Olympia]

In our cataloguing of the ins and outs of English pronunciation, I've just been reminded that many Americans (can't vouch for anyone else in the English-speaking world) do not pronounce the g in strength. They say "strenth." I just listened to Jennifer Hudson say it that way on an advertisement. If they were told to pronounce the word clearly for a contest, this is how they would pronounce it. There are other people who say "heighth," because they echo the construction of "length" and "width." Cathy Rigby used to pronounce it that way right on international TV, in the Olympics.

[Scrufflet]

In our cataloguing of the ins and outs of English pronunciation, I've just been reminded that many Americans (can't vouch for anyone else in the English-speaking world) do not pronounce the g in strength. They say "strenth." I just listened to Jennifer Hudson say it that way on an advertisement. If they were told to pronounce the word clearly for a contest, this is how they would pronounce it. There are other people who say "heighth," because they echo the construction of "length" and "width." Cathy Rigby used to pronounce it that way right on international TV, in the Olympics.

Re "strenth". I've heard Jennifer Hudson say "shtrenth" and "ek-shtream-lee" for "extremely". I do not know why that drives me bonkers. I can handle such things if they are considered normal pronunciation but when it's sloppiness (my husband's theory), I get annoyed. Odd, I noticed that Justin Bieber started doing the "sh" thing too; he was hanging out with California rappers at the time and changing how he spoke. He is an Ontario boy after all! A friend told me that this whole language/pronunciation thing is a sign of age. Anyone over 50 hates how the young speak. Apparently this has often been the case. A friend who was a history teacher says that the ancient Romans complained that the young were ruining the language. I keep telling myself that the language is evolving to suit the needs of those using it but I must say that every time I hear someone on radio or tv using "like" every 4th word (Kelly Clarkson or Taylor Swift are really bad with this), I have to turn the sound off. We have a really good CBC radio host, Jian Ghomeshi, who interviewed Clarkson last year and was deluged with feedback from listeners who said that they counted the number of times that she said like and stopped counting after 140! Me, I turned the radio off. Curmudgeonette! Get her on WOF. "Like seven like swans a-swimmin(g), like?" Hee hee.

[Olympia]

You mean a-schwimmin'....

Frustrating, yes. Although, in many ways the elasticity of English is one of its strengths. We add vocabulary from everywhere, making it one of the most vocabulary-rich languages in the world. (It may even be the richest; I haven't researched that.) Also, look at how many countries use English as a primary or major language (including India, where it's pretty much the lingua franca). And every area has a different way of pronouncing it, different vocabulary (official vocabulary, mind you, not slang), and different idioms. I guess this shows how adaptable English is.

Spanish is very varied in its way, too. I once helped on a Spanish textbook for English-speaking students, and I was astounded to watch how many arguments broke out over the position of the adverb in a sentence, or the use of particular vocabulary words. This is because in the Western hemisphere, Castilian Spanish from Spain no longer has primacy, and there isn't any other country with enough clout to be the "main" way of speaking Spanish. Argentina won't follow Mexico, and vice versa. Chile and Bolivia won't give way to Venezuela. Understandable when you realize that each of these countries is proud of its own standing and culture. I wonder whether more linguistically concentrated and homogeneous countries, such as Finland, Cuba, and the Koreas, have such disputes.

I'm working on a lesson on Macbeth currently, and I realized that when I studied it in high school, I, my classmates, and my teacher all pronounced Glamis incorrectly. (Remember "Hail, Macbeth, Thane of Glamis"?) We all said it the way it looks, "Glam-mis," in two syllables. Well, in Scotland and England they pronounce it "Glahms." I'm putting this in our lesson.

I have to say, I sometimes use "like" in a sentence to make things sound more casual or less precise. I hope I don't use it excessively. I think I use "um" all over the place, though.