Linguist Dr. Erica Brozovsky makes us feel a little better about mispronouncing words. First, we are not alone, and there are quite a few words that the majority of us mispronounce, which over time will lead to our way of saying them becoming correct. That's how language evolves, after all. And second, there are common and logical reasons why we don't just intuitively know how to pronounce a word. The rules for English have more exceptions than it has rules, so even native speakers can't keep up all the time. Then there are times when a mispronunciation actually communicates what you mean better. For example, I know how to pronounce schadenfreude, because I looked it up, but it always comes out scootin fruity. First you laugh because it's comically mispronounced, then you laugh again because you understood it anyway. The comments under the YouTube page for this video are full of amusing stories of mispronunciations. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
That was cool!
ReplyDelete