Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Speak Proppa


The Oxford BBC guide to pronunciation is a gold mine for those of us who like to point out how much cleverer we are than other people. Here are some that you may well be getting wrong you slobs ...

Tinnitus –tin-IGH-tus
Purcell-PURsul
Medici- MED-itchi
Bejing- BAY-jing ( there is no sounds such as found in 'leisure' in Chinese)

There are lots more questions of stress but I like the common misapprehensions of the way a word is formed in the following :

Restaurateur often Restautanteur
Genealogy often Geneology
Mischievous often Mischievious
Nuclear often Nucular

There is a lesser known phenomenon whereby footballers , when they start scoring upgrade their name . For example Darrius Vass-ul became Dar-IGH-us Va-SEL and even Andy Cole wanted to be called Andrew

3 comments:

Nick Drew said...

stone the crows, Mr M, but you've been prolific today

'nuclear' should be a shibboleth for anyone seeking a role in public life, e.g. newsreader or Leader Of The Free World With Finger On The Button

if you can't pronounce it, George, you can't have your Finger On The Button

see how much trouble we'd save ourselves

Newmania said...

I must admit there were a efw i was not excatly right about ND

Anonymous said...

I always pronounce Beijing "Peking". We don't say Paree or Moskva.

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