• mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    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.

    • nifty@lemmy.worldOP
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      4 months ago

      It can happen with common words too! Like I didn’t know I was pronouncing Thai food wrong till that John Oliver episode

    • minibyte@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      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.

    • FreshLight@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      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|

      • VaultBoyNewVegas@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        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.

      • PatMustard@feddit.uk
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        4 months ago

        epiddomee

        I know Americans pronounce Ts as Ds, but reading it explicitly written down is like being poked in the eye

            • aidan@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Most English people have a non-rhotic accent, meaning not pronouncing the r after vowels so words like “better” become “betta”.

              • PatMustard@feddit.uk
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                4 months ago

                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.

                • aidan@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  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

      • PatMustard@feddit.uk
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        4 months ago

        It’s more like “cook-ooh”, the two syllables aren’t the same sound. It’s basically just the sound that actual cuckoos make.

      • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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        4 months ago

        It’s like a hippopotamoo, but somewhat more existential and obsessed with arcana like boulders and mountains for exercise to discover happiness in life.

    • nilloc
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      4 months ago

      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.