The ‘Illiterate Boyfriend’ test

[spikepipsqueak]

I assure you, as a professional educator, than mispronunciations of "hyperbole" are not a phenomenon strictly found within one sex.

I can pronounce it just fine, and I don't even watch American football.

My claim was not that all people mispronounce the word, only that both men and women occasionally do; or to put it another way, that vaginas do not, in my experience, meaningfully prevent hyperbolic mispronunciation. As to whether or not you personally mispronounce the word in question, I would be quite surprised if our two great nations shared any clear common conviction as to its "correct" pronunciation to begin with. It has a few too many vowels for that to be hoped for.

Even in Greek, you're spoiling for a fight between modernists, Erasmisns and reconstructionist every time you hit an eta (the "y"). In rich kid grammar school, that's an "ey" sound. In modern Greek, an "ee". And historians debate between "ey" and "eh". So the original Greek pronunciation may well have been something like "Hepper Bow Lay". Which is all but unrelated to any "correct" English permutation.

I think you might have missed the joke.

 

[steve_bank]

Over the last 50 years American English has been thoroughly corrupted. New words created on the fly. Pronunciation and empasis varies.

Influencers online invent words and they catch on.

As to pronunciation, any of the younger generation in news TV seem to have a hard time with complete sentences and pronouncing words properly.


As to literacy and relationships there used to be a saying.

'The man should be slightly higher than the woman, and have a slightly higher IQ'.....

 

[Politesse]

I assure you, as a professional educator, than mispronunciations of "hyperbole" are not a phenomenon strictly found within one sex.

I can pronounce it just fine, and I don't even watch American football.

My claim was not that all people mispronounce the word, only that both men and women occasionally do; or to put it another way, that vaginas do not, in my experience, meaningfully prevent hyperbolic mispronunciation. As to whether or not you personally mispronounce the word in question, I would be quite surprised if our two great nations shared any clear common conviction as to its "correct" pronunciation to begin with. It has a few too many vowels for that to be hoped for.

Even in Greek, you're spoiling for a fight between modernists, Erasmisns and reconstructionist every time you hit an eta (the "y"). In rich kid grammar school, that's an "ey" sound. In modern Greek, an "ee". And historians debate between "ey" and "eh". So the original Greek pronunciation may well have been something like "Hepper Bow Lay". Which is all but unrelated to any "correct" English permutation.

I think you might have missed the joke.

Eh, I think my entire sense of humor may be lost on you.

 

[Bronzeage]

When a person pronounces a word the way it looks is could be said tells me they read a lot, but don't engage in conversation with the sort of people who know those words.

As a person who is admired for their elocutionary skill(references on request), I think it's fun to mispronounce words in casual conversation, so don't hog the horse doovers and the kanappies.

 

[ZiprHead]

As a person who is admired for their elocutionary skill

Be careful. High voltage and current can be deadly.

 

[Bronzeage]

As a person who is admired for their elocutionary skill

Be careful. High voltage and current can be deadly.

Resistance is futile.

 

[thebeave]

As a person who is admired for their elocutionary skill

Be careful. High voltage and current can be deadly.

Resistance is futile.

Ohm my god these puns are bad.

 

[steve_bank]

I moved around a lot, I just git in my monilohm and went.

 

[brewer]

Resistance is futile.

Watt?

 

[thebeave]

Resistance is futile.

Watt?

Heh. Good one. A real joule.

 

[unapologetic]

"mispronunciations of "hyperbole""
What? I have only ever heard it pronounced one way. Have I always heard it pronounced the wrong way?

Tick-tock?
There's yer problem. You're looking for literacy among tick-tock users.

 

[bilby]

"mispronunciations of "hyperbole""
What? I have only ever heard it pronounced one way. Have I always heard it pronounced the wrong way?

Probably.

Tick-tock?
There's yer problem. You're looking for literacy among tick-tock users.

* TikTok

 

[brewer]

Heh. Good one. A real joule.

Glad you liked it. Thought some might be solenoid.

 

[unapologetic]

We all know I can't spell. But I read a lot.
I never use “hyperbole”, “hors d’oeuvres”, “thyme”, “epitome”, or “fuchsia”. But I've heard them often enough that I could use them correctly.
I have never encountered “gnocchi” “diaphragmatic” “challah”.
Now that I've looked them up, I have no use for them and will forget them by tomorrow. Still don't know how they are pronounced and don't care.

Could somebody post the full list?

 

[Politesse]

The trouble is challah is that even if you've heard it, there's disagreement between Hebrew speakers themselves about whether it's a velar or uvular fricative, and either way, American English doesn't normally include either phoneme, so a well-meaning person might mispronounce what they hear, not having heard it accurately. There's also a weirdness about where the emphasis lands, which is different betwern Yiddish/Hebrew and the most common US English pronunciation.

Brits, meanwhile, just happily pronounce it wrong and don't invest much time worrying about it.

 

[Elixir]

Hors d’oeuvres is easily one of the most commonly mispelled and mispronounced words in the English language

C’est vrai! Quelle dommage.

Borrow words, once they enter common use in a new language, are no longer really the property of their original tongue. Or if they are, nearly everyone in the country is pronouncing hors d'oeuvres wrong. The French are well known for their uvular fricative Rs, which most Americans couldn't produce correctly if they tried.

I think most people have a joke name for hors d'oeuvres. We sometimes call them "horses ovaries". But usually we just say, "Bring out the Lay's potato chips, onion dip and Planter's peanuts!" and skip all the pretentious nonsense.

- Like, specifying your preferred brand names isn’t pretentious?
Planters indeed, you spoiled brat!

 

[Bomb#20]

... and more often than not, tests of "correctness" are actually tests for membership of a sub-culture, a tribe, or a social stratum.

Ah, the York Intelligence Test, where you ask someone to pronounce the word "unionized".

 

[thebeave]

Hors d’oeuvres is easily one of the most commonly mispelled and mispronounced words in the English language

C’est vrai! Quelle dommage.

Borrow words, once they enter common use in a new language, are no longer really the property of their original tongue. Or if they are, nearly everyone in the country is pronouncing hors d'oeuvres wrong. The French are well known for their uvular fricative Rs, which most Americans couldn't produce correctly if they tried.

I think most people have a joke name for hors d'oeuvres. We sometimes call them "horses ovaries". But usually we just say, "Bring out the Lay's potato chips, onion dip and Planter's peanuts!" and skip all the pretentious nonsense.

- Like, specifying your preferred brand names isn’t pretentious?
Planters indeed, you spoiled brat!

Well, no. If I was pretentious, I would insist on some expensive, organic chip brand where the pototoes were hand grown, picked, sliced, cooked and salted by French virgins living in a castle in the French Riviera. Lay's, made in a factory, is the chip of the common man...like me.

 

[Elixir]

... and more often than not, tests of "correctness" are actually tests for membership of a sub-culture, a tribe, or a social stratum.

Ah, the York Intelligence Test, where you ask someone to pronounce the word "unionized".

During WWII, Dutch people would ask suspected German infiltrators to pronounce “Scheveningen”. A Dutch person tried to explain me why, a long time ago.
“It’s pronounced ‘Scheveningen’, and Germans ALWAYS pronounced it ‘Scheveningen’. “
Apparently there’s a dead giveaway in there somewhere.

 

[Elixir]

Lay's, made in a factory, is the chip of the common man...like me

So, let me get this straight- no true spoiled brat eats chips made in a factory? The Truly Spoiled have chip cutters following them around carrying sacks of spuds and cauldrons of boiling oil?