All English town names, by spite and ignorance but mostly spite.
Oh, I am not pronounching "Glouchestershire" correctly? SPELL it correctly then!
this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
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For all native English speakers, this is how the rest of us feel about any words in English
Is that the one pronounced "Wooster"?
No, Worcestershire is pronounced woostershire
And Gloucestershire sounds like Glousteshire.
There was a YouTube video I watch ages ago and it explained it pretty well.
The differences depends on who settled the town. Roman, Saxon, or Viking
I have American friends who couldn't pronounce it. it was always some variant of "Glow-kester-sheer" but tbh I can't blame them, the spelling doesn't do the pronunciation justice 😂
I think I'm supposed to say "gl" and then the vocal equivalent of "asdfasdfasdf"
Start intentionally pronouncing "Pittsburgh" with the -burgh suffix from Edinburgh or Musselburgh to get them back
In his comments on the Jeeves & Wooster series Stephen Fry talked a bit about English family names. Among others, he said Mainwaring is pronounced "Mannering", and Cholmondeley is "Chumley".
When I was on vacation with my father in Scotland we wanted to see the highland games in Glenisla. We needed directions or needed to know the exact date when they'd take place or so, so we went to some tourist information. That poor girl there had no idea what we wanted when we asked about glennis-law. But she soon figured out that we meant glen-ila.
The highland games were awesome, btw!
Pronounced Siobhan as SheOhBahn for years.
Sorry SheVohn!
omg I know the feeling. had someone in college named this and I pronounced it the same way until she corrected me and I was so sorry 😭 an apology to Siobhans everywhere!
Yeah, and apparently it's the Irish equivalent of fucking "Joan" or similar. JFC.
For me it's, Saoirse
I have to look it up every time I see it.
If I remember this one, it's Sher-sha?
came here to say literally THIS name haha, crazy
Same here. One of my favorite bit-part actors is Siobhan Fallon, who played the wife of "Egger" in Men in Black. She absolutely stole the few scenes she was in. I didn't know I was mispronouncing her name for years.
I used to have a work friend named Siobhan and when I'd come home I'd mention her to my partner. Sometimes I would text him about her. He fully thought these were two different people for like a year.
Chongqing like "Chongqing Chicken". not pronounced "chonking".
"Añejo", not pronounced "ah-neh-joe"
"Hors d'oeuvre". funnily not pronounced "horse divorce".
"Hors d’oeuvre”. funnily not pronounced “horse divorce”.
That's a new one and I love it I like calling them "hours devours" which also adds in a non-existing consonant.
yeah, french (and borrowed words) is usually my hard-mode when it comes to pronunciations. this one is special because it's dessert (or so I think).
As used around here in the US it is fancy finger foods, usually appetizers. But we also tend to use the words differently than the source, like we use entree for the main part of the meal.
How's Chongqing pronounced?
Wikipedia says it is like Chóngqìng. "Chong" with long o sound, then tsin.
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Any Chinese name beginning with X. Took me awhile to figure out Nuyen as well.
Nguyen
'N when did you find out?
Isn't X just like a muted "sh"?
I'm not convinced there is a correct pronunciation for "Kirsten."
Are you combining it in your head with Kristen or Kierstin?
Ghislaine, but I do it on purpose.
I'm still trying to get some Irish names right in my head, specifically Rhiannon and especially Siobhan.
Team Jizz Lane
The Irish name that gets me is Cian, especially cause I used to know someone named Cyan (like the colour).
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Gonna use this thread as inspiration to piss off people, thank you for your contributions.
Also Gyro is pronounced j-eye-roe.
I thought it was yee-row.
Loudon Wainwright
Just mentioned this in another thread - Kraken. I say it phonetically - "krayken - but for some reason the world says "cracken".
Lancaster (as in Pennsylvania).
Pronounced it as "LAN Caster" like some sort of cyberpunk mage.
I always pronounced Tolkens name as Token, apparently nobody else made that mistake.
Two common names in Scotland are Aileen and Eileen but damned if I don’t say the wrong one every time.
I'll answer for the 99% of people in my life: Hiram
🫠
Hasan - I feel like different people have different pronunciations of it and I can't keep track of which is for who.
Internal monologue:
Fuck. Jeremy? Germy? Jehrehmy? Jerremy?
Yo! J-dawg how's it hanging man?
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