Callum Fox: English. It’s a bastard (when you can’t pronounce certain words)

As I have pointed out to hearing people many times, if I can’t hear it then how the epithet am I supposed to know how to pronounce it? As far as I am concerned it’s laughing at the lame man’s limp. He can’t help it and neither can we help our verbal limping. Same thing different context.
I came across a beauty the other day, on TV now less. Magdalen College, Cambridge is in fact pronounced Mawdlen College. Well, well, after all these years I can still be surprised.

Some of the most spectacular examples of obscure pronunciations are in “posh” surnames. I sometimes think that hardly any of the aristocracy pronounce their name as it is spelt! Lord Home is pronounced Hume. Lady Featherstonehaugh is Fanshaw. Villiers is Villers. There are loads like that all traps for the unwary deaf journo.

My ex worked in a large retail store, lots of cheques every day. Their training required them to always address the customer by name and to thank them. So it was one day she had occasion to say “Thank you Mrs Bastard”. The woman got quite stroppy. She said “It’s pronounced B’stard if you don’t mind” and swep’ off. Another one of those is Death. It’s De Ath and some people spell it like that. Also Onions. Some people really are called Onions and some people are called O’nions. Always check.

My crowning glory came in the middle of an agricultural show (nudge,nudge great place for freelances) when I was asked to take a picture of the winner of the Charolais class. A Mr Daft. So here I was toddling up and down the lines of cows asking “Mr Daft? Mr Daft?”. When I found him he was leading a large cow, he he was quite angry. Turns out it is pronounced Dafft as in daffodils. Not Daft as in barmy. He really didn’t go much on that. “I’M not Darft!” He bellowed “I’m Dafft”.
OK, OK just get the picture and get outta there….

LOOL! Oh Callum! This gave me such a laugh this morning, thank you! I find it so hilarious because i know exactly what you are talking about – i have experienced it and still do and i completely agree – the English language is a minefield! Like you, i grew up knowing most of the words i do from books – i was a true bookworm going through 10-15books a week! – long before i ever heard them, so i pronounced them just the way they were written! It is only in recent years that my pronounciation has improved, largely thanks to my post-uni friends who are a blessing! Then i did 10weeks of speech therapy which also helped a great deal and i learnt about the silent ‘th’ words i never knew existed! So many words i still trip up on but at least not as bad as previous years! My favs are: amateur, entrepreneur, Google (still cant get this right!) and Author. 😀

Yes – we all have nightmares too with written English!! Try to cue it to see how it is pronounced!! I mostly blame the Norman French for the dual words and quirks of the spelling variations as English is an International Language anyway!! It changes all the time as it evolves so we adapt with times!

I finally discovered last month that Achilles is pronounced A-kill-eez, not A-chillies. English pronunciation: our Achilles’ Heel…

I’ve seen many deaf people say ” calm down ” by saying the ” l ” instead of ” cam down ” which is the correct way of saying it !
Hearing people should not laugh at the deaf people who mispronounced words. They cannot help it.

my housemates are the same so i feel your pain…. i find myself trying to find other words for everything… to explain what i mean without making a fool of myself.
the words i cant say include thief… its a horrendous word >.< and i really cant say sport and support any differently… or tell the difference when others say it!

There’s a common thread with a lot of the examples people have given here – doubt pronounced “dout”, Worcester pronounced “Wooster”, Leicester pronounced “Lesster”, Featherstonehaugh pronounced “Fanshaw”. There’s a lot of history behind this, too long to reproduce here, but essentially in many (not all) cases, spellings preserve older pronunciations, or are derived from other languages.

The silent letters are because human beings are intrinsically lazy and will always seek to minimise the effort in producing a word, especially if it’s a mouthful like Featherstonehaugh. Think of the clipped accents of the upper class – so of course they have compressed it. But when you say something as simple as doubt, try pronouncing the “b” next to a “t”, and it becomes awkward, and takes longer to say. So it has become a silent letter. Likewise with sword – it is much easier to say the “w” in swore, because it is, so to speak “open” with a long vowel, but the d at the end of sword “closes” the word, you come up against that d and it just makes the whole pronunciation more difficult. Rather than drop the “d”, which then makes people wonder if you said “swore”, the “w” has become silent instead, but the meaning of what you have said remains clear.

There is no shame in saying “I am not sure how to pronounce this word, I have only ever seen it in print before”. Hearing people have the same problem with new words or shibboleth names like Featherstonehaugh, it just doesn’t happen so often. Encourage your hearing friends to share their own examples, then they’ll realise it’s not so funny after all.

a lot of my hearing mates, and the majority of British hearing folk don’t pronounce words correctly….having had hearing difficulties as a kid, I still say some words in my own way….which is fine with me 🙂

You know, I’m a hearing person and I still have trouble pronouncing some English words, because to me, it’s a foreign language. I can see the written word in my mind, but don’t have a clue how it’s pronounced. I guess it’s kinda the same thing for deaf people 🙂

Gosh! That egg took a long time to hatch! It’s been interesting to review the comments of almost a year ago. After all the problem is always with us. To those of you who seethe with embarrassment on a daily basis I would offer the thought that it is not your fault. You did nothing to invite being treated like that. It is yet another of the many pinpricks that Deaf life brings with it.

English is in fact the 2nd or 3rd hardest language in the world to learn. I believe number 1 is Finnish. Funny enough, the Finns tend to speak good English!
The reason why English is so hard to learn is straightforward. It comes from many, many roots. We have shamelessly stolen, plagiarised or even the more polite, borrowed words from other languages.

Different words come from different origins and so they are spelt differently even if spoken the same! There is even a study of the origins of words, lexicography, as Coundown fans will know.

This is maddening to people who have not grown up with spoken English because they have to memorise all this. If you’ve ever swotted over French irregular verbs, remember that there are many more in English! In fact people who learn English as a second language rarely get it perfect.
That applies to a great many Deaf people too. If it is their second language then with a few talented exceptions, people will make mistakes. The fact is that all English speakers have to work at their English. Hearing children tease each other all the time about mispronounciation and of course there is no quicker way to teach kids! Deaf people don’t get that feedback and help so we get stuck in a rut with imperfect English. Unless we choose to study, of course.