A thing that annoys me in most dictionaries is that they give the pronounciation of people’s last names, but never of their first names, even if they may be a lot trickier. As for example Evelyn Waugh. The other day I suddenly realised that even though I’ve always pronounced the first name [ˈevlɪn], maybe that’s just my Finnish accent, and probably the real pronounciation is [ˈiːvlɪn]. Of course even Wikipedia only bothers to give the pronounciation of his last name ([ˈwɔː]), which wasn’t that hard to figure out anyway.
Googling about I found Forvo, which contains audio pronounciation samples of about a million words in a few hundred languages. Yay! So, what about Evelyn then? Well, four samples give four different pronounciations, including both above, so apparently native speakers don’t know either.
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Rambling recollections of an aging engineer
About Me
- kai
- Back in academia after a decade in industry, with a new generation of students.
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Blog Archive
Recently read
- A Dictionary of RAF Slang E Partridge. Clearly the inspiration for RAF banter.
- Spitfire Voices D Sarkar. Some pilots had very short careers.
- Algiers to Anzio with 72 & 111 Squadrons: Experiences of an RAF Officer in North Africa and Italy 1942–46 G Farish & M McCaul. “Me 109 Mk 9” Really!?
- Swift to Battle: No 72 Fighter Squadron RAF in Action, vol. III T Docherty. Better photos.
- Swift to Battle: No 72 Fighter Squadron RAF in Action, vol. II T Docherty. Disappointingly bad photos.
- Swift to Battle: No 72 Fighter Squadron RAF in Action, vol. I T Docherty. Not for the political analysis.
Places I keep track of
- IPMS Stockholm One of the best plastic modelling forums you'll find.
- Hyperscale More modelling stuff.
- Occasional kvetch Thnidu is a linguist and an old friend.
- Another CyborgManifesto Small and large, always with alarming skill.
- Aardvarchaeology What kind of archaeologist doesn't have a whip or even a fedora?
- Arkland Archaeology and random bits.
- Pharyngula Biology, politics and atheism. And eight-legged animals.
- Piled Higher and Deeper Mike Slackenerny, that's me. Free food, anyone?
- Something positive Magical realism in a very cynical way.
- Chicken Wings It's about birds…that fly…
- xkcd Don't miss the mouse-overs.
4 comments:
You won't like this... well... Anyhow, lots of L1 anglophones make this mistake, in speech as well as in writing, so you're in good company.
It's "proNUNciation", not with "ou" as in the verb.
Best regards,
Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoëpist, and Philological Busybody
Oh, carp! I even looked it up first to make sure I got it right, but only checked “pronounce” and didn't notice the noun changed the spelling.
That's the interjection I suggested for use by an unfortunate D&D player who rolled a critical fail and got his character eaten by a koi.
A fish that’s very bashful. And so is my Unix shell.
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