Those tough pronunciations!

Submitted by eos on June 28, 2007 - 5:16am. ::

I was wondering, what sort of subject area produces the toughest pronunciations? This round featured the work of Jared Diamond and some historical/scientific terms - what else should people watch out for?

I was thinking that culturally-specific terms would be a tough one but then a friend said that names were pretty challenging too. What would you bone up on if you were heading for Round 3?

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Not just pronunciations
Submitted by clk on June 28, 2007 - 2:08pm.

Yes, most of us stumbled over the name of the Incan Emperor Atahuallpa. But most of us also made sure we were at least consistent with the pronunciation we chose.

But it's not just names. It's things like line breaks. Here's an example"
...not as simple as Jared Diamond's book title suggests

is different from

...not as simple as Jared Diamond's book
title suggests.

And you can hear many of us emphasizing the word "book" because we made the choice before seeing the word "title."

That's what I found surprising.

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for my money....
Submitted by aprilbaer on June 28, 2007 - 7:48am.

In terms of general news, I think Arabic and Chinese are a breeze compared with eastern European stuff.

(scratching head) If they judges really wanted to mess with us, they should try place names and tribes here in the Pacific Northwest. Here are a few of my favorite doozies. Try 'em.

Clatskanie
Willamette
Lummi (I personally screwed this up just yesterday)
Weyerhauser
Siuslaw
The Dalles
Yachats
Malheur

Extra points--can you correctly pronounce the seemingly simple state of "Oregon"?

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say it--NW style!
Submitted by aprilbaer on June 29, 2007 - 6:45am.

Clatskanie (clat-skeh-NIGH)
Willamette (will-AM-et)
Lummi (lummy) rhymes with "yummy"
Weyerhauser (WHERE-how-zer)
Siuslaw (sigh-YOU-slaw)
The Dalles (the DAHLZ) rhymes with "how's"
Yachats (YAH-hahts)
Malheur (MAL-yer) rhymes with "Pal Fur"

OUCH my jaw!

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Don't forget Tigard
Submitted by questionlp on June 30, 2007 - 5:17pm.

It's not TIG-urd or TIE-guard, but rather TIE-gurd (rhymes with hurd or bird).

It's both annoying and funny to hear various commercials or infomercials mis-pronounce the name continuously :)

And I don't really know why Aloha (between Hillsboro and Beaverton) is pronounced ah-LOW-wah or AH-low-wah rather than al-LOW-hah. My us Oregonians just want to be different.

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Does 'Oregon' depend on your
Submitted by fayegeni on June 28, 2007 - 7:52am.

Does 'Oregon' depend on your accent? I though 'Orr-re-gun' was right, but I got laughed at my by boyfriend and he wouldn't tell me what I did! :(

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i think you've got it
Submitted by aprilbaer on June 28, 2007 - 9:29am.

The thing you sometimes hear is people saying

OR-uh-GONE

which drives Oregonians crackers. Quick note to Hillary, Mitt, Barack, et al: fastest way to lose votes out here is to say it that way.
THe way to remember is is

OR-uh-gun.

kind of like a loaded Orygun.

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