Words I Don't Know How To Pronounce..

It's ok to agree to pronounce things differently depending on where you come from, surely. Scones for instance.

I don't know about the wheelie thing. Haven't heard thst one. Something can segue into something else, slot in, follow, and I think you can call it a segue, I.e. Make a noun of it. But I'm sure someone will very soon correct me if I'm wrong, so keep reading, gettingonabit....

French SIL had to relearn how to say pain au chocolat so he could be understood at the bakery.

Yes GJ. I had an Irish mother who rhymed scones with stones and so that is what I call them, while most people I know say scons.

Always said scones to rhyme with stones until I moved south!

I thought a leftenant was army and a lootenant navy as well as being English and American pronunciations.

ninathenana

It's Leftenant Commander in the Royal Navy too!!
Lootenant is American (as in Lootenant Cable in South Pacific).

Happy to be corrected Jalima

Eirel I'm Kentish born and bred and I and everyone I know says scones(stones).
Curious to know where you are to have picked up scones (dons)

DH says scons and I say scones but we only grew up 15 miles apart. Admittedly, he was slightly further south than I!

I am southern born and bred and have always rhymed scones with stones as have almost everyone I've known. I may be wrong here, but rhyming the word with dons always felt to me to be an aspiring upper class affectation.

Although it is true that a good (big/learners) dictionary will give you the correct pronunciation, often offering UK or US alternatives, you may need to learn the phonetic alphabet to be able to take advantage of this. You can get dictionary and/or pronunciation apps which will speak to you - useless as conversationalists, but brilliant for pronunciation

I say scons - from South Wales with Wiltshire roots, Hubby from Bristol says scones to rhyme with stones , we've had many ahpy hour arguing over this

I always stumble over chiropodist - does it start with 'sh' or 'k'? And ebullient - is it e-bull-ient (like the animal) or e-bool-ient?

In Chic Murray's book he tells of a boy he knew who was called Gooey Scott. His mother had taken the name from a book, and had never actually heard it pronounced. It was only when he took his birth certificate to school that they discovered his name was Guy.

( This may, or may not be true!)

In music the Italian word segue pronounced segway is used at the of movement when the next movement follows on straight aWay. Havent heard it used anywhere else.

My late FIL used to delight in telling the story of his boss misprouncing compromise. He used to say, com promise and no one had the nerve to correct him.

Elrel- my head is still trying to understand your post of 22:24:43 last night. About 'lingerie' - where is the correct 'a' - in lingerie?

lin is pronounced like the French bred 'pain'. Just puzzled.

The poem I posted yesterday is fun to read with the grandchildren, once they are good readers. People so often say English is soooo easy, compared to German or French- but pronunciation is a nightmare as the same letters are pronounced totally differently depending on the word, and totally differently for the same word- depending on the meaning or grammatical context As in I read, I've read, I read, reading - oh then the town Reading).

And phrasal verbs are also a nightmare- a tiny preposition changes the whole thing. And worse, the same verb, with the same preposition, can mean a whole variety of things which are totally different and un-connected. As in 'put down' or 'put up'

Put me down for the steak
Stop putting me down
He had to have the cat put down
etc.

They say you should never mock someone who mispronounces a word because they probably learned it from reading.

My problem used to be "Shrewsbury " When I moved to Shropshire I asked advice from a local person who explained: "If you say "Shrowsbury" people will call you affected but if you say "Shoes bury" others will call you common. So take your pick!

When I was a student nurse (eons ago) I struggled as many do with the pronunciation of all the medical terms. A ward sister made me say sphygmomanometer a dozen times after she heard me called it the sfig - like everyone else did.

Scone to rhyme with don.
Bath not barth, plants not plarnts and garridge rather than gararge!
When DS was two, he spent an age arguing with his 'southern' cousin about a big red double decker vehicle being a bus or a bas.....it's a bus or in parts of Lancashire a buz!

I once amused some people by saying "Tow-cester" instead of "Toaster". The small town where I live can be tricky if you don't know it.

I still find Aspartame confusing I am not sure I have ever heard an official pronunciation.

JessA is nidifugous about small birds leaving the nest? I am piecing together nid as nest and fugous as derivitive of fugitive?
I am still not quite sure what segue means let alone pronounce it.

If the pronounciations are written like this..... Pronunciation: /prəˌnʌnsɪˈeɪʃ(ə)nuni in the more learned dictionaries they don't help me at all.

If you can't pronounce the word in the first place why do the make it more difficult by using what is an even more difficult "language".
Fortunately more and more places are writing tricky words in plain English not these flipping Hi-row-gli-fics. hieroglyphics (the gli bit) is stll tricky. Never mind it makes for variety.

Being from the Midlands I always say 'scon' rather than 'scone' (as in own).

However, these days I say 'I'm catching the bus into town' rather than 'I'm going down the town on the buz, duck'.

Aspirational or what!

My daughter, when learning to read said Nursy Hugs for Nerys Hughes, Those Welsh pronounciations get the unwary ever time