Talk:List of words of disputed pronunciation/old talk1
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This page seems totally misguided to me. For a start, it is a strange mixture of English-language words and foreign-language words.
- For the former, to say that someone is mispronouncing a word in their own language seems a little unfair. For a lot of words, different people pronounce them in different ways. There are many variants of the English language, each with their own peculiarities, and even individuals who nominally speak the same dialect have their own ways of saying things. Who is to say which is correct? It's all so non-NPOV...
- For the latter, I expect every word is mispronounced by most native English-speakers, so the list could get out of control. :) And for those which are adopted as part of the English language, it's perfectly normal for pronunciations to change to adapt them to the native phonology, isn't it?
Now that I'm a sysop person, all this power is going to my head, and I'm tempted to cut huge chunks out of the page, rename it to something completely different, or do something else equally drastic. Somebody had better restrain me... :) -- Oliver P. 04:13 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
- That's why I never became a sysop, young Oliver ! And you're right, accent plays such a large part that one person's pronunciation is another's mispronunciation. There are already a couple of examples on the page and it's hardly got started yet, if I know my "history of silly lists" ! -- Derek Ross 04:33 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
Takuya: "Hong Kong" is not really an exact transliteration of the original Cantonese pronunciation "Heonggong", but an English approximation. -- Fengguang
I'm just going to go ahead and advocate removing this page. First, its very POV - assuming that there is a _correct_ way to pronounce words. This isn't true; essentially, however a specific region or native speaker pronounces the word, thats the right way. And including words like Islam and Saddam - well .....
It is very normal for pronounciations of words to change over time, just as spelling used to. I'm sure there's quite a few linguistic books on this, but its been so long, I can't seem to find them here. Any ideas? Atorpen 04:29 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
I don't think mispronounciation is simply wrong, disgrace. Each language has different pronounciation system, hence it is understandtable that pronunciation might vary. But while some words have no correct pronounciation, some words do. The corrent pronounciation of reich is RIKE and that of Kyoto KYO-o-to. If you pronounce KEY-yo-to, it is a mispronunciation, if it is not a big deal at all. -- Taku 04:36 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
It doesn't have to be POV, Oliver. Sure, there are plenty of words that are disputed, but there are plenty of words that are commonly mispronounced about which there is no possible dispute. For example, the City of Melbourne. Another example, Antarctica. These are not in any dispute whatsoever. I propose moving those names which are beyond dispute to the correct category. Tannin
- I've just disputed it, so there clearly is some dispute. :) However much I may object to certain pronunciations, and consider some of them ridiculous or possibly even offensive, while I am here I have my NPOV hat on, and recognise that I don't really have any right to tell other people that their pronunciations are actually wrong. It's far better to say who disputes which pronunciations, and for what reasons, without saying that any of them are actually correct to do so. (See also below.) -- Oliver P. 05:06 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
OK, relativists: lets just settle at this: we should change the name to "list of pronunciations that are stadardized by the criminal code and that would entail the execution of one who mispronounce them"
I've moved the page to the more NPOV "List of words of disputed pronunciation", and reworded some of the entries in an attempt to make them more NPOV too, although I may have done this wrongly, as I'm not even sure which pronunciations in brackets were being listed as "correct" and which as "incorrect"! Please could those people who contributed them make sure that it is clear which ones are disputed and why? -- Oliver P. 04:46 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
I can see the logic behind this page. There are plenty of words that there is one clear pronounciation for. But there are far far more we cannot clarify. As a result, I don't think this page belongs on wiki:
- who decides the correct pronounciation?
- How it is expressed on this page?
- What about words that come from other languages to english: is the correct version the original pronounciation or the anglicised one? For example, many people in english call the Irish prime minister 'Taoiseach', the Irish language word for prime minister and his official title. But not alone are their versions often pronounciation, it is debatable as to whether there is such a thing as the right pronounciation. Different Irish language dialects pronounce the words differently; 'tee-shaugh' (augh pronounced as in 'och' in Loch Ness), 'tee-shee', 'taoe-shaogh', etc.
- What about words pronounced differently in American-english, British-english, Hiberno-english etc. What happens if US contributors insist the correct pronounciation is 'x'. British contributors 'y' and Irish contributors 'z', all because it is used differently in different forms of english?
Wiki is a great source, but sometimes there are things even it simply cannot do, and dealing with disputed pronounciations one of these. A room full of linguistic expects would have difficulty doing this page. I don't see how we can agree on (i) words; (ii) their pronounciations; (iii) methodology for expressing those pronounciations (if we can agree in the first place!). Remember Wiki cannot agree on whether to put the date or month first when listing dates. There are some people putting lists together in the {name} {surname} format, a minority in the {surname}, {name} format. If we cannot solve simple issues like that, how in the world are we going to agree on unambiguously correct pronounciations? JtdIrL 04:52 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
First of all, difficulty cannot be used as excuse not to do. Some issues are really diffcult to deal with, but it doesn't mean we should not cover them. If the reason you refuted this list is only diffculty, it should not be legitimate. In encyclopedia, we are doing diffcult thing after all. -- Taku 04:59 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
Yes, but this is difficult and pointless. Not a good combination -- Derek Ross 05:04 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
- It's not so difficult, JTD. For any given word, there are only four possibilities:
- Everybody says it the same way, there is thus no problem.
- Variations exist, but these are recognised as valid variations. Again, no problem.
- Variations exist, some people argue that "A" is correct, others dispute it. That should go on this list.
- Variations exist, but the correct pronunciation is not disputed. The obvious example here is place names, where the local pronunciation is always the correct one. (But see my note below.) This should go on the other list.
- (Note that in case #4, there is sometimes an anglicised word as well or instead. This is not a disputed pronunciation of the local place name, it is a different word, and a more-or-less unrelated matter.)
- Some words will be difficult to place in one category or another. Fine. So be it. They can be argued over if desired. But most are clearly in class # 1, 2, 3 or 4.
Tannin 05:05 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
- JtdIrL is quite right - we shouldn't be making any statements about which pronunciations are correct. But I think that a NPOV summary of who uses or advocates which pronunciations and for what reasons could be interesting and informative. Much more so than a list simply saying, "This is wrong! It should be this!" anyway. -- Oliver P. 05:06 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
- I agree. But I'm about to make a list of definately wrong ones anyway. Feel free to add to/edit it! Tannin
- I had made a list of definately wrong ones the other day, then someone moved it here. I wouldn't have had a problem with this list being created in addition, although I think the title is a misnomer - there being multiple acceptapble pronunciations of a word does not usually cause a dispute (except on Wikipedia, of course.) Mkweise 05:20 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
Put me in agreement, more or less, with JtdIrL and Atorpen. I think this page, in any form where wikipedia claims there is a "right" pronunciation, should just be deleted. It is going to be a classic POV war. Let me illustrate with a couple of examples taken from the discussion above.
Taku is telling us that the first syllable in Kyoto needs to be pronounced kyo- and not ki-. The problem is that most American English speakers aren't linguisticly well equipped to either hear or speak the kyo- sound, which we instead process as key-oh-. That would definitely be wrong to a Japanese speaker, but it is the preferred pronunciation in American Heritage.
- I never say mispronounciation is wrong. -- Taku 05:55 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
Tannin, meanwhile, wants to branch off to words that are "beyond possible dispute", as he puts it. But both his examples of Melbourne and Antarctica have pronunciations in respected dictionaries that he wouldn't agree with.
- Not at all - see below. Tannin
Look gang, this page is hopeless. I'm willing to bang on it a little bit, but I think this one is going to end up stillborn. -º¡º
The arguments apply to Tannin's List of words commonly mispronounced, but not to this page as I have started to ammend it. We can summarise disputes in a NPOV way, without advocating one side or the other. It's the Wikipedia way! -- Oliver P. 05:24 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
Okay, regarding "Antarctica", dictionary.com (http://www.dictionary.com) lists both pronunciations as acceptable, which is what I expected. "Melbourne" has a schwa in the second syllable, which I guess would make it "MEL-burn".
- The city of Melbourne is always "MEL-b'n". 100% of the time. No-one ever questions it. The name Melbourne (as in Lord Melbourne, or quite possibly the Melbourne in the USA may be diffrent. If, however the dictionary is claiming that the city is "mel-bORN" then it is just wrong. We should not feel duty bound to repeat ignorant mistakes.
- No they don't. Not at all. Both have American accents, BFB, but allowing for that, they are pretty good attempts at a word that many Statesiders get horribly wrong. Neither one is exactly right, but they are as close as it's reasonable to expect an American to get - and quite a lot closer than I'd probably get to saying "Arkansas" correctly! The wrong one, that you hear quite often, but only ever from American tourists, is "mel-BORN" with the stress on the second sylable and a long, rolling "or". Tannin
- Ah, Tannin, either I misunderstood your protest or you misunderstood mine. I agree that the first syllable is where the accent belongs. I thought you were saying there is no vowel in the second syllable, which was the point I was demonstrating with the dictionary links. -º¡º
- They both say the word more or less as I have always heard the city called. JtDiRl 07:40 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
Some words, as said before, are beyond disputed pronunciation. Such as "mortgage" and "February". Unless you are making the slightly bold statement that every respectable English dictionary ever written is incorrect.
This article should be merged with "words commonly mispronounced", with maybe another section with words of disputed pronunciation. There's no reason to have two seperate lists that could conceivably clash. -- ヤギ
I disagree, Tannin. Pronounciation isn't just a product of being write or wrong. It is also a product of how you speak in general. I'm writing from an appartment on the Northside of Dublin, in a working class area, where most people pronounce the letter 'a' as 'aah'. Two miles away we have what is nicknamed the DORT accent - an extremely wealthy areas where most of the people (especially young women) speak with an accent that pronounces 'a' as 'aw' or even 'awr'. BTW DORT is actually DART but they pronounce the A in it as a strange O. Twenty, thirty, fifty and one hundred miles away from me on one small island, there are any number of variations on how the letter 'a' is pronounced, 'æ', 'aw', 'ar', 'awr' 'aa' 'arrr', 'aaw', etc. How they say that one letter will impact on how they saw 'Saddam'. Some say 'Saaadam', others 'sawrddam'. more 'sæddam, etc. The problem isn't the word it is their pronounciation, which leads them to say a word all see the same in different ways. But then Dan Rather says it different to Peter Jennings, who says it different to George Bush, who says it difficult to Chirac, who says it different to the people on the street outside my building, who say it different to the people who use 'DORT-speak'. Which is right? Who says it is right? Do we accept americanised versions of pronounciations? What if native speakers in the original country say it different?
- ie., this is a word with disputed pronunciation (or this is what you are telling me) and therefor it belongs in category "3". Fine. I won't argue with that. You are the expert. (Although I'd suggest that here we are maybe veeering off into the quite diofferent topics of reigonal accents.) Tannin
You mention local place names, and relying on local pronounciation. But in much of the world, there is NO such one pronounciation. Versions differ due to class, etc. Dublin is pronounced dUUblin by many working class people, dAUblin by middle class people, dAUWBlin by people who use DORT-speak. Charles Stewart Parnell's surname is generally said as pawr-NELL. But he and his family always said PAARN-ell. Which is right, the version everyone uses or the one the man himself used? (He detested PAARN-ell, BTW!) A room full of topic linguistic experts from one linguistic culture would have difficulty doing a page with this. We aren't linguistic experts and we aren't from one culture. If people want to try to do this, go on ahead (it beats the idiot doing pages on individual episodes of Spongebob Squarepants) but we find it difficult to agree pages on issues 20 times easier than this one. So don't be surprised at finding disputes over individual words, over how to write pronounciations, etc. And the odd edit war or two. Professional linguistic experts from one culture would take a valium before trying this page. I think this is one of those topics that is beyond something like Wiki, or most publications. JtdIrL 05:46 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
- I think this is one of those topics that is beyond something like Wiki, or most publications.
- That won't stop a group of woefully underqualified people from attempting! :) -- ヤギ
I agree that there should only be one page. Salvageable material from List of words commonly mispronounced should be moved to this page, and that page should be turned into a redirect.
Dictionary.com gives two pronunciations for "February" so I have no idea what you mean by "beyond disputed pronunciation" in that case, Goatasaur. Or did you mean that neither pronunciation is disputed?
It gives only one pronunciation for "mortgage". Incidentally, the pronunciation it gives is the only one I've ever heard or been aware of. Who pronounces it in any other way? -- Oliver P. 05:54 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
- I have heard the pronunciation "mortage" used before... working at Union City Mortgage, I heard the word way too much. I did check the article on February as well, and the "second" pronunciation is listed as "censured but acceptable" which is a pretty rickety way to say it's correct pronunciation, but I've got no argument about February anymore. -- ヤギ
- But my point is that it's all just people's (or dictionaries') points of view. If I heard someone calling a "mortgage" a "mortage", my point of view would be that they sounded rather foolish. But I can't say that in the Wikipedia, can I? :) -- Oliver P. 06:09 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
ooooh, Oliver. Expressing a POV. Dangerous territory!!! :) BTW, just in case people might think that in view of what I wrote earlier, I am 100% AGAINST a free-for-all on language. I am all for correct pronounciation, just as I wish to see correct use of capital letters, the decapitation of everyone who writes Shoe's, 1960's, etc the ritual disembowelment of people who write names on film credits all in lowercase letters, etc. I simply don't think that wiki is equipped to deal with the issue of pronounciation. (No reflection on wiki. Most source books aren't, and it is the part of putting together a dictionary that editors dread.) But if people want to be gluttons for punishment, to have weeks of squabbles over pronouciation, of what is the correct version and how to write it, and the odd edit war or two, go ahead. But keep a pack of valium handy. JtdIrL 06:17 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
Here is my suggestion. What we want to cover is not how the word should be pronounced but how people mispronounce them, meaning pronounce in a different way than origianlly being pronounced. It seems the word mispronounce or diputed is a problem. Mispronounciation implies there is a correct pronounciation(s). Saying something correct is nothing but certain point of view. Maybe we should merge this kind of discussion to simply pronounciation artcile, putting how some words are pronounced in a unintended way. If the artcile gets long, then just divine it. Any objection? -- Taku 06:19 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
I think it's a futile task. My Speech textbook in high school used the phrase "commonly mispronounced", but I don't think they had a team of people scrutinizing their book for POV. My English teacher always got on our collective case for "bad" pronunciation as well. I realized tonight I was taught pronunciation and basic English in a rather prejudiced way. Seems like most American education is like this.
Anyway, I doubt there's going to be a consensus here, although it was a fun debate. Maybe we should all just go write up some Spongebob Squarepants episodes. -- ヤギ
Yep, sounds like an interesting series - I'll have to look out for it. :) But I don't think the deabte is quite dead yet... Erm, where was I? Oh, I did write some stuff about my incinerator into which I threw people who pronounced "nuclear" as "nucular", or used apostrophes in ways that I didn't approve of, and I was even going to suggest that JtdIrL could borrow it if he wanted, but it all seems a bit silly now... Anyway. I fully agree that we should have standards of writing on the Wikipedia, and that discussion of the best ways of doing things is fine in relation to Wikipedia conventions. However, the Wikipedia in the articles themselves shouldn't advocate the way we do things as the correct way, since this wouldn't be NPOV. I agree with Taku that we should cover the different ways that people pronounce things, and I think that summaries of all these quirks of language would indeed be of encyclopaedic interest. Perhaps they would be better discussed in an article about pronunciation, so that all the different points of view can be represented in good old-fashioned brilliant prose, but I'm not really sure, as I think there are a lot of examples that would be interesting to cover, and the article would end up being quite list-like anyway. I still think that the page can be salvaged if only we all agree to write in an NPOV way. -- Oliver P. 06:58 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
- That's an interesting idea. Anomalies of pronunciation, perhaps? A scientific-sounding name can go a long way. -- ヤギ
Well, I've had it with this article. I had hoped to create an article that would be useful, but apparently that would violate some people's idea of NPOV. I think I'll go write about a more enjoyable subject. Like flatulence or something. Mkweise 07:13 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
I think this page is useless and should be deleted. Especially when the supposed guide to pronunciation is itself open to interpretation (i.e. YOOR-i-nus is this 'YOR eye nus' or 'YOr eih nus', and are these two not open to interpretation). Pronunciation is dependent on accent and dialect and cannot be NPOV. Mintguy
Allahu alam---God knows best. ﷲ ﷶ ﷺ ﷴ ,ﷳ ﷲ
07:52 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
have resulted some jokes - what language is this? I am really going to prune this down, it's ridiculous. -- Zoe
As long as you continue to say that certain pronunciatons are correct', I will continue to edit this page. -- Zoe
- At least try to be cooperative, Zoe. I've been up all night trying to defend the good old Neutral Point of View. At least have the courtesy to clarify what exactly you consider to be non-NPOV in the article. Oh, and I've just noticed that you've left more intact in List of words commonly mispronounced. So that one is largely okay, is it? How on earth can you consider that article to be more NPOV than this one??? -- Oliver P. 08:25 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
Well, except for "tem-per-CHUR", which seems to require a particular pronunciaton, nothing any more, because I've deleted those which were supposedly "incorrect". -- Zoe
- Zoe, the whole point about NPOV is that we're not allowed to say what points of view are or are not correct. The other page is therefore utterly wrong-headed, and should be deleted. However, we are obviously allowed to say what is disputed, because the fact that something is disputed can be reported on in a neutral way. What's wrong with reporting disputes, exactly? -- Oliver P. 08:31 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
Becuse "not correct" assumes that one pronunciation is more correct thatn another, and that is totally POV. -- Zoe
- Obviously. That's precisely what I've been saying all along. Now, where in List of words of disputed pronunciation does it say that any pronunciation is "not correct"? -- Oliver P. 08:40 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
This is one of those pages where you need a point of view. NPOV in this instance is crap. (Sorry, Oliver. Not taking a pop at you.) There are right and wrong pronounciations. The problem for me isn't that the article isn't POV enough - there ain't no such thing as NPOV page on this topic. Ire-land is correct. Air-land is bollocks and has to be called that (well, maybe less bluntly). I'm in Dublin, (with emphasis on Dub) not Dublinne with elongated emphasis on the second syllable. So Zoe is wrong in complaining that the page isn't NPOV enough. It can never be, because there are some facts, some information that is simply right or wrong. (Zoe, if Wiki covered 2+2, could we say '4' or would that be POV, therefore we should say 'some people perceive 2 + 2 = 4. ) Or what about Washington DC is the capital of the United States. Surely that is a POV too. We should say some people perceive the capital of the United States to be Washington DC.
The trouble with this article is pronounciation is such a complicated issue, that it cannot be dealt with here. How do you write a pronounciation in a manner everyone will accept? Where there are disputes, who decides what is right? Most people I know in academia would prefer to watch George Bush and Saddam Hussein dance naked in top of the Eiffel Tower with Barbara Bush than write about pronounciations. (It certainly would be the eye-full tower then!) That's why this is one issue I think wiki should stay away from. STÓD/ÉÍRE 08:47 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC) (The Wikipedian formerly known as Jtdirl: well I was bored and felt like a spring clean. Hence the new name!)
That's the big problem with these articles. There are too many dialects of English to say that any one, or two, or three are mispronounced. -- Zoe
- Obviously, we need to use SAMPA, or the International Phonetic Alphabet, to record pronounciations. Preferably SAMPA, since IPA is unsupported by large numbers of browsers. Martin
- If there were really anything of encyclopedic interest in this article, nothing but sound files would work to express the mispronunciation. SAMPA is obscure in the sense that the world has hardly heard of it and obscure in the sense that it is extremely hard to understand. Ortolan88