Pronunciation

Originally posted by joesheppe
As this is an English-language site, I didn't feel the need to specify that in other languages my suggestions might be of lesser use.

For heaven sakes, the whole IPA, 'not in my country' stuff is just goofy. We're talking about the English language pronunciation here; not the Dutch, not Finnish version of it.

Get off your parochial footstools for jus ...[text shortened]... lot more corrections than just "in my country, we say the vowel o like ai!"
Sheesh.

I'm sorry if my post gave the impression that I was criticizing you.

That was not my intention; it was more of a general observation of the concept.

I find it interesting that English works perfectly for a website like this where probably a quite large percentage isn't a native English speaker, but when you're talking about pronunciation it does get confusing. Not wrong, but confusing.

All that aside, although the pronunciations in the original post do get close to how the words/names should be pronounced, the best thing to do in these cases is probably just ask a native speaker how they would pronounce it.. 😉

Anish lives in Holland, and I knew his history, but point taken. Hikaru lives in St. Louis, and, yes, I'm sure Americans are regularly butchering his name.

In fact I've heard people fall all over themselves over the simplest of names. I have a decent ear and memory for language, names, accents, so I don't understand that, but then many people can read a map faster than I can.

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Nah, it's pronounced Piertsj.

Or Pee<an Englishman choking>ch, if you wish.

But no "u" in sight, and definitely more than just an "s".

Richard

OK. Didnt know there was a /t/

I keep seeing a spelling mistake in the title of this thread, having not realised that U.S. English spells Pronounciation differently to us. I'm generally fine with the dropped letters in US English (humor, color, aluminum) and the altered spelling (sulfur, center etc.). Some are even the norm in the UK now (e.g. authorize)

The only word which really bugs me is "pedophile". A paedophile is someone who has an unhealthy interest in kids (derived from the same word as comprises Paediatrician/Paediatrics etc.). A pedophile is someone who has an unhealthy interest in feet (derived from the same word comprising pedestrian, Pedometer etc.). I keep thinking a lot of Americans really don't like foot fetishists when I see news articles...

That and saying "I could care less" (limitless amount of caring) instead of "I couldn't care less" (infinitely small amount of caring), but maybe that is a rant for another day. 🙂

(should have taken it to the general forum...)

Originally posted by morgski
I keep seeing a spelling mistake in the title of this thread, having not realised that U.S. English spells Pronounciation differently to us ... should have taken it to the general forum...)

Should have not bothered. Pronunciation is spelt the same way in the UK and USA. There's no such word as "Pronounciation".

The way around this 227024 is call each other by our RHP ID Numbers.
Then there can be no misunderstanding. I'm 437199.

Regarding non RHP Chess players. Just ignore them. They do not really exist.
They are made up names playing made games so publishers can selll us opening books.

When was the last time you saw a game played on RHP in an opening book?

Trust me on this one lads. I know what I'm talking about.

Yours in Chess

437199

Originally posted by C J Horse
Should have not bothered. Pronunciation is spelt the same way in the UK and USA. There's no such word as "Pronounciation".

Now I just feel foolish

Originally posted by morgski
Now I just feel foolish

Until I learnt to keep my mouth shut, I often found myself pronouncing "Checkmate" as "CheckmateoopssorryIdidntseethatbollocksthanksforthegame"

Originally posted by Rank outsider
Until I learnt to keep my mouth shut, I often found myself pronouncing "Checkmate" as "CheckmateoopssorryIdidntseethatbollocksthanksforthegame"

In the US we pronounce this like "Oh @$%*&".

Ha, a possibility to bring this thread back to chess 😉

I played a game at my club, not very strong opponent, but I would almost have thrown it away...



I just played hxg2+, and it's mate in a few moves either way - my opponent, allowing me to play out the mate, played Rgxg2, I played Bxg2+ and mate 2 moves after.

But had he played Rexg2...



I was going to play Qh3#, because the Rook on g2 is pinned. Or so I thought (it was getting very late)...

Might've made me say the US version of checkmate as well.

Originally posted by davaniel
Ha, a possibility to bring this thread back to chess 😉

I played a game at my club, not very strong opponent, but I would almost have thrown it away...

[fen]6rk/p5r1/1p1p4/2pbpQ2/P6p/2P3q1/4R1p1/6RK w - - 0 51[/fen]

I just played hxg2+, and it's mate in a few moves either way - my opponent, allowing me to play out the mate, played Rgxg2, I played B ...[text shortened]... ght (it was getting very late)...

Might've made me say the US version of checkmate as well.

I should have learned to keep my mouth shut by now, but doesn't Bxg2+, Rxg2, Qxg2# still work?

Originally posted by morgski
I should have learned to keep my mouth shut by now, but doesn't Bxg2+, Rxg2, Qxg2# still work?

Of course it does, it makes no difference, but I was planning on Qh3, overlooking the white queen in this matter...

Originally posted by joesheppe
As this is an English-language site, I didn't feel the need to specify that in other languages my suggestions might be of lesser use.

For heaven sakes, the whole IPA, 'not in my country' stuff is just goofy. We're talking about the English language pronunciation here; not the Dutch, not Finnish version of it.

Nope. You're talking about your Californian Val-Girl, Siliconian, South Cascadian, or goodness knows what specific pronunciation of the English language you intended. That's the main problem with writing pronunciation guides in "English". It's not that English is written non-phonetic. So is Pinyin, but Pinyin is Pinyin is Pinyin. It may be odd, but it's consistent.
English is emphatically not consistent. What you write as "i", another Anglophone may write as "ei", a third as "ai" and yet another as "aye". And that's not just a matter of the choice of the grapheme. A speaker of a different accent of English really may pronounce a word you would call "aye" as "ei" - not just as what he would call "ei", but as what you yourself would call "ei" as well.

Get off your parochial footstools

Well, quite. Get off your Californian footstool and look at the wider English-speaking world, already. Hollywood may believe that we all should gag ourselves with a spoon, but the rest of us do not agree. Some of us would rather gag ourself with a bo''le o' beer.

Richard