Pronouncing the unpronounceable
- Thread starter Extrocomp
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That was in my first and only DS9 novel, DEVIL IN THE SKY, published way back in 1995. I just checked and, yes, the U.S.S. Puyallup appears on the very first page!
And most of my family still lives in and around Seattle. (I confess to feeling a slight pang knowing that Norwescon--which is one of the bigger Northwest conventions--is going on at the moment without me.)
You mean Tomalak?
I will admit... I haven't read this one. But if I had, I probably would have thought... "Cool! It's great to get some alien ship names in Star Trek!"
As I recall, the name "Tomalak" is usually pronounced with an "ah" sound in its final syllable, not an "uh" sound.
My wife complains that people refuse to pronounce her name, Julia, as "Jewl-EE-uh," preferring "jul-YAH," which she loathes. LOATHES.
But I say screw that, my last name is "Farquhar," and no two Americans (of which I am) apparently can pronounce that the same way. And no matter how you pronounce it, it's joke fodder. "Farquhar? I barely KNOW her!" "Hey, Farquaad!" "Yo, Spooner." Even: "Meester-Far-Qwoo-Har, I will sell you my daughter for ten camels!"
Hardy-har-har.
But I say screw that, my last name is "Farquhar," and no two Americans (of which I am) apparently can pronounce that the same way. And no matter how you pronounce it, it's joke fodder. "Farquhar? I barely KNOW her!" "Hey, Farquaad!" "Yo, Spooner." Even: "Meester-Far-Qwoo-Har, I will sell you my daughter for ten camels!"
Hardy-har-har.
I'm not familiar with either of those pronunciations. It's usually pronounced "JOO-lee-uh" in my experience. The caps are meant to denote the stressed syllable, right? I have never in my life heard anyone stress "Julia" on the last syllable.
Huh? A Scottish surname, and they think it's Arabic? (Although if they'd use such a racist stereotype for Arabs, their ignorance is unsurprising.)
You did a better job writing the first "Julia" out phonetically than I did. She gets "JUL-yah" AND "Jul-YAH" (and yes, the latter was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard.)
That one was a prank call left on my answering machine when I was in college. Not anyone I knew, so I assume drunken lout dialing random names out of the directory..
But yes, it's been mistaken for French and Arabic. Hardly anyone seems to know it's Scots, except for Brits, who I guess hear it much more often.
In school, I just learned to say "present" whenever the teachers went "Faber... Fabrizini... UM..."
I grew up not knowing it myself, my family always said it like "Fork-er." Then I went to college and it kind of naturally became "FAR-kwar" because hey, at least that LOOKED right. Then my folks visited the UK and came back with "FAR-ker." So now I just answer to anything that sounds close.
Doesn't bother me anymore when people get it wrong. I just started telling people "send me $20 by mail and you can call me Snarkywaggler Wibblepants."
I have wondered for a very long time how to pronounce Theriault.
I thought the next city south of Red Deer was Innisfail or Airdrie.
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It's basically like "Terry-oh." Although from looking online, it seems that it's sometimes semi-Americanized as "Therry-oh."
I thought that was a warlike Neanderthaloid species indigenous to Rigel VII.
And for what it's worth, Caeliar seemed straightforward enough to me.
In my head, I've actually been pronouncing it right all these years? Amazing. Must be my French-Canadian upbringing.
I have never heard either of those pronunciations for "Julia", ever. (But just in looking at them... is it possible the first one is how it would sound with a southern-US accent?)
Money well spent!
I'm a bit confused. So the correct way is "Jewl-EE-uh"?
Admittedly I don't recall ever seeing the name "Farquhar" before, but now that think about it, your name reminds me of Lord Farquaad from Shrek.
Christopher's "JOO-lee-uh" was more accurate. I am knot thuh behst at phone-et-ik spelling.
^Could it be that you were capitalizing those syllables, not to indicate how other people stressed them, but to emphasize the difference between the three-syllable and two-syllable pronunciation? I.e. that she prefers "Joo-lee-uh," but people tend to say "Jool-yah" instead? (Although that's a pretty subtle distinction.)
There is a Fauquier County in Virginia. Not quite the same but some of the attempts are interesting. My favorites is 'Fawk queer'.
Irish names - and everything else - are always something completely different from what I think they are. I still have no idea how you pronounce "Siobhan."
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