There is a surefire way for the English to correctly pronounce Irish names. Just ask us
Niamh Ní Hoireabhaird
Why would we bother? The only English person who ever has worried about the non-English pronunciation of non-English names was Angela Ripon and we took the piss out of her for doing so.
Anyway, what’s wrong with Paddy? Which part of the pronunciation are we getting wrong?
Nizhny HairyBeard
Pamela Stephenson absolutely nailed this on Not the 9 O’Clock News.
Mind you just try asking for a Chicken Kiev these days.
Do the foreigners pronounce English names properly?? Asking as an Aussie of course.
That well known Irishman (when it suits him) Richard Murphy will tell you he has suffered more racial hatred than anyone so has a self-awarded Gold Medal in the Victim Olympics. One example of his terrible suffering is that people keep mispronouncing his name as Phat Khunt.
The author of this piece is a disability activist. Sometimes the jokes write themselves.
The author of this piece is a disability activist. Sometimes the jokes write themselves.
But sometimes they need a helper.
I used to wind up an Irish girlfriend by calling her sister Siobhain, see-oh-bihan.
Some Austrian friends were having a son an wanted to give him a Celtic name. I tried to convince them that Bollockbreath was a good traditional name with some Viking roots and was pronounced Bol-bray. They called him Max ( boo, boring).
I worked for a Japanese bank and none of my Japanese colleagues ever pronounced my first name ‘correctly’ in nearly 3 years working there.
I find any suggestion I should have been bothered by this to be utterly bizarre.
I worked for a Japanese bank and none of my Japanese colleagues ever pronounced my first name ‘correctly’ in nearly 3 years working there.
The idea that I should have been bothered by this is utterly bizarre.
When I’m speaking/writing English I use English names for things. France, Germany, China, Spain. When I’m speaking furrin I use furrin names for things. Furansu, Doistu, Chugoku, Supein. It’s chauvanistic imperialism to insist furriners being furrin do as you demand, and a psychosis to get annoyed when other people refuse to change their lives as you insist.
I’d take Irish names more seriously if they were written in Ogham.
ie
ᚉᚒᚅᚈ
or even
ᚄᚚᚒᚇ
My surname is trickier, …, and is pronounced “her-a-vard”.
Her-a-vard the woke.
Asking an Irishwoman how to pronounce her name is the equivalent of asking a black woman to touch her hair. It’s a microaggression.
Its not the pronunciation it’s the feckin spellin Neve.
On my bucket list is persuading someone that Chardonnay is too common a name for their new baby – they should go with the much more stylish Chanterelle. No success so far.
I remember when Gianni Versace was murdered the US news anchor pronounced it “Johnny Versas”.
To suggest it’s just the English who have a problem is blatantly racist.
Some surnames are pronounced differently from how one would expect purely to distinguish whether one is in the same social class. A good example is Mr Raymond Luxury Yacht (pronounced ‘Throatwobbler Mangrove’)
I pronounce all Irish names “Bridget”. On the whole the blokes take it in good part.
By the by: some months ago the Irish GP who writes a medical column for the Telegraph when the Le Fanu is unavailable said that when he arrived in England people addressed him as Mike rather than Michael. He said this was clear evidence of anti-Irish racism.
Would you take medical advice from such a plonker?
By the by the by: did you know that the “crack” drifted from Ulster Scots into Irish English where it was furnished with a bogus Gaelic spelling craic? My sainted Grandpa should have extended his “All Irish history is lies” to include etymology, eh?
And another thing. I once read a chap who said that much “traditional Irish folk music” was actually traditional English folk music introduced by Cromwell’s soldiers who stayed on after the wars. Assuming that that wasn’t just a good tease it would explain why so much traditional Irish folk music is dreary stuff compared to its Scottish equivalent.
Pffffttt… Amateurs, them irish.
No furriner can properly pronounce cloggie names, and we spell them exactly as the latin alphabet intended, so there’s no excuse..
Us English could do the same couldn’t we? Use the middle-english pronunciation of common names & the catch-as-catch-can spellings of them of the times.
But we aren’t such a bunch of ᚉᚒᚅᚈs with chips on our shoulders, are we?
we spell them exactly as the latin alphabet intended
Tender point there, Grikath. It’s believed that the English owe the standardised spelling of their words to the Dutch printers who produced the first printed books in English. So we know who to blame.
“as the latin alphabet intended”
Did Latin really expect Egmont to be pronounced Echchchmont? Do you lot spell the German composer as Bag?
Grikath, my best mate, of Dutch extraction, maintains that to pronounce Dutch one just has to speak whilst constantly clearing ones throat.
Through? Rough? Thought? Tough, Cough? Enough?
Like that?
BiS, could well be.
Mind.. Given the ballistic approach at spelling in middle-english the pages were often read aloud by someone who could decypher the stuff, and then typeset phonetically to closest approximation.
You work with what you have..
Adolff, yes. And we’re proud of being better at gargling our g’s than even the Arabs.. 😛
Although the really hard sounds are the open, clear vowels that are pretty close to the “pure” sound they have in theory. Even for the dutch..
Dearieme, Eg-mont, originally spelt as Egh-mont. the Eg syllable to be pronounced the same as in egregious professor of cruel and unusual geography. Short harsh g.
And Bach is spelled as Bach. You don’t change names..
Again, harsh g, the “ch” form, derived from the “gh” spelling indicates an extended harsh g.
As seen in the dutch for “eight”: “aght” became “acht”.
The only time “ch” is not treated as a harsh G is with furrin’ loan words. “sj” for french, “tsj” for english.
Ugh. Dutch is just German with an excess of vowels. Best spoken with a heavy cold or while being lightly garrotted.
@dearieme 1.30pm
Traditional Irish folk classic “Forty Shades of Green” was written by, err, Johnny Cash in 1959.
Ottokring: My grandfather used to talk about Seen Connery. Often appearing alongside Rachel Welsh and Yull Briner.
dearieme: Yep. The earliest citation that can be found of the “craic” spelling is from the 1980s. (In an Irish Times article, I believe.) Dr. Johnson (or possibly Boswell) talked of going to London coffee-houses for the crack.
Dutch is just a dialect of German. As is ½ (maybe ⅔) of English, of course. Are we all really still speaking PIE?
There is a surefire way for the English to correctly pronounce Irish names. Just ask us
One thing I took away from my only trip to Ireland was it is far more enjoyable when The Natives are avoided whenever possible.
I found that yelling “Work!” cleared them out very quickly.
Sean Connery.
Seen Canary.
Which was tricky as we only kept budgies.
Dutch. If one wants to avoid looking and sounding like a spittle flecked loon, pretend you’re speaking Belgian Vlaamse.
Afrikaans is even better ‘cos that’s the equivalent of speaking like being in a Restoration play.
For sport, try getting a German to say “squirrel”
Dennis @ 8.20.
LOL. Work = Spike Milligan had a sketch many moons ago highlighting that phenomenom at a Labour Exchange, when those inside jumped out of the windows and ran away when a vacancy came in.
“One thing I took away from my only trip to Ireland was it is far more enjoyable when The Natives are avoided whenever possible”.
It appears Scott Adams is causing a bit of a kerfuffle for appearing to suggest avoiding black people, after a Rassmussen poll showed 47% of them didn’t like white people…..
The English are just as bad at pronouncing ordinary english names – in my experience anyway.
try getting a German to say “squirrel”
Ha! A friend and I differ on how many syllables there are in “squirrel”. He accuses me of using an American pronunciation. I reply that if the Americans like to use a Dearieme pronunciation who am I to stop them?
Ah – a Hyacinth Bucket type.
The best way to pronounce squirrel is the same as Esther Rantzen saying “Cyril”