10mo ago

Can you say shibboleth

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Got called out once for pronouncing epitome as Epi-tome.
That one stung more than Camus as Cah-mus instead of Cah-moo. At least thats just the French fucking with us.
- It can happen with common words too! Like I didn’t know I was pronouncing Thai food wrong till that John Oliver episode
  
  How were you pronouncing it?
  
  Thigh food
  
  That's adorable
  
  Aw shucks
  
  You never heard anyone say Thailand? Or you just never made the connection?
  
  I think it’s the former, I also think I maybe imagined the “Th” when someone else said it. I also may have been surrounded by others who mispronounced both.
  So in short I blame society /s
  
  So in short I blame society /s
  Ha! Typical millennial
  Edit: since it's not always clear on the internet, I too am being sarcastic.
  
  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
  
  That's how I refer to... never mind
- Uh, thanks for the heads up. I’ve been pronouncing epitome both correctly and incorrectly my entire adult life because for some reason I thought they were two different words.
- If anyone's wondering and since it's not clarified here..
  Epitome is pronounced like this: ||UK|US| |phonetic|/ɪˈpɪt.ə.mi/|/ɪˈpɪt̬.ə.mi/| |non-phonetic|epittomee|epiddomee|
  
  I've been an avid reader since I was 6/7 and I hate reading dictionary listings with phonetic spellings as ironically they only make it harder for me to know how to pronounce a word. I'm also a native speaker.
  
  Learning the IPA is quite good in that case
  
  I can’t believe you don’t remember what an upside down e sounds like.
  
  epiddomee
  I know Americans pronounce Ts as Ds, but reading it explicitly written down is like being poked in the eye
  
  Wait till you find out that they pronounce Ds as semi-trilled Rs!
  
  I don't know what that is but I'm intrigued and afraid!
  
  They're just like trilled Rs, but have only one trill, hence semi-trilled.
  
  I'm trying this out with my own mouth and it's weird
  
  I'll pronounce a T when you pronounce an R
  
  That's a new one, what's wrong with Rs?
  
  Most English people have a non-rhotic accent, meaning not pronouncing the r after vowels so words like "better" become "betta".
  
  This one seems like it's very accent-dependent. A cockney geezer will definitely say "be'aah", but a geordie would say "be'eh and someone from the west country would say "betterrrr". I think the American pronunciation makes the R sound a lot longer (you can tell I don't know all the property linguistics words!) so anything shorter probably sounds weird to you.
  
  I'm sure it's definitely regional, just like accents in the US. But generally in England at least it's non-rhotic. I know Scotland is different, maybe Wales too
- It took seeing videos of Elden Ring lore before it clicked with me that "cuckoo" is "coo-coo" and not "cuck-oh," like, the chickens in Zelda.
  
  It's more like "cook-ooh", the two syllables aren't the same sound. It's basically just the sound that actual cuckoos make.
- If it's any consolation, I pronounced it the same way for years.
- What the shit is a camus.
  
  It's like a hippopotamoo, but somewhat more existential and obsessed with arcana like boulders and mountains for exercise to discover happiness in life.
  
  that's the one ! 😁
- Para-dig-em checking in. The bulb that lit up when I connected the sound with the word was pretty bright, but made me feel awfully dim. It changed my whole paradigm.
- And they're gonna fuck with you even further....
  Albert Camus [alˈbɛːʁ kaˈmy]

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